Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 58 with Neil Herrin of Vanilla Gaming

Bruce: This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where every week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry, and we discuss what's going on in our business. Plus we give you a tip on buying and selling websites this week. This week we'll be talking with Neil Herrin of Vanilla Gaming.

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Speaker 1 (2m 28s): An adult type broker talk is Neil Herron of vanilla gaming company. Neil, thanks for being with us today on adult side broker talk.

Speaker 2 (2m 36s): Sure. Thanks Bruce. I appreciate you having me on

Speaker 1 (2m 38s): It's my pleasure. And Neil cut his teeth in the beginning of his it career writing code for an ERP system. He described his first career position as a real life version of office space. After many years of programming, Neil switched over to networking and infrastructure design over the past 15 plus years of his career, Neil has gained a wealth of knowledge on both the and networking side of information systems. This combined with his lifelong love for gaming brought him to start the vanilla gaming company in 2020, the vanilla gaming company is currently developing vanilla beast ACE in the hole.

A hilarious mature themed action adventure game set to release in the fourth quarter of 2022 vanilla beast will leave your side's hurting from the insane dialogue and comical situations. Take control of vanilla swab, secret agent, as he thought civilians by day and gets the hottest by night. Explore a massive living open world full of side quests, mini games secrets, and some of the hottest adult film stars, vanilla bees aced, and the whole combines retro style pixel art with a contemporary gameplay design, as well as paying tribute to some of the greatest games of all time.

The game is partnering with porn star platinum, bringing to the game. Some of the world's most beautiful porn stars before we get started. I want to play part of an amazing version of the sticks classic kit lady that Neil is using to promote his game.

Speaker 3 (4m 16s): Neil.

Speaker 1 (5m 35s): That's amazing. It sounds like you got the original band to do it. Of course, a few of the lyrics are different. Such as lady when you're blown me, I'm smiling. And I usually smile when I'm getting blown. Give me all your head. My cock fills you up when I'm horny, blow me and my troubles all fade so high, like a cocoa ticketed whore. You're my, of the whoring.

Speaker 2 (5m 59s): Hmm. Creative.

Speaker 1 (6m 0s): Now, did you write those lyrics?

Speaker 2 (6m 4s): Yes, I did actually. And I try to keep it as close to the actual lyrics as possible. We wanted to keep the true nature of it. Yeah. I wrote that and my vocalist sang it and he crushed it.

Speaker 1 (6m 15s): Oh my God, boy, Diddy. So tell me a little bit about your technical background and what got you into game development.

Speaker 2 (6m 23s): Sure. Well, as you mentioned there, I graduated earlier about 2005 ish and standard operating procedure for most Americans. Right? You grow up, you go to college and you get out in the real world and you start working and you live happily ever after. Right. So I had kind of gotten into the technical side of things, being in it, writing code programming, doing all that fun, that nine to five type of job, waking up every morning, getting into work instead of TPS reports and like office space had, I had crystal reports, right?

Yeah. Got to go through fun, all that and programming writing code. And then after about five years or so of that, I was laid off. I was still a low man on the totem pole there. And I got into the networking side of things and I got to see kind of the flip side of it because it is it's, there's a lot of things inside it, right? It is not just one thing. It's programming, it's coding, it's database work, it's networking, it's firewalls and servers and all that good stuff. So I seen a little bit about everything and over the last 15 years or so, I kind of became, I guess, a Jack of all trades.

Right. Kind of touched on a little bit of everything within that whole it realm. And over that time span, you kind of find out about yourself, like, what am I good at when all I can join? And over time it just kinda got into like what I really want to do, like with myself at the end of the day, you know, before I'm gone and I leave this world, is this all I want to do? And the technical aspect of my background kind of got me into game development in a way of, I see what's out there.

I know what other companies are doing. And I feel like I can do it also. Right. And you know, you take what you, what you know, and what you love. And, and that kinda got me into game development here in the last couple of years and working on this big project, started my own company and said, Hey, let's do this. I'm not getting any younger Bruce. So I gotta get out there and gotta get this done before I'm I'm in the grave here. Oh my

Speaker 1 (8m 22s): God. You're so young. Give me a break. I got almost a quarter century on you. Okay. So talk about the vanilla gaming company and how it came about.

Speaker 2 (8m 32s): Well, you know, for many years I seen how these major AAA game developers, they're just dropping the ball. And that just me being honest with you, Bruce, I mean these massive companies, they have millions and millions and millions of dollars behind them and they can barely make a playable game. These days it's mind blowing, like how terrible some of these games that are developed that are coming out with this massive fundings. I mean, take like the late eighties, pretty much all through the nineties, there was no internet. Right? Right. There's a lot of people don't understand.

There was a time before internet, the internet with did not come out with cavemen and work its way up through the centuries. Internet is still a fairly new thing. So what that meant for gaming and the eighties and the nineties is no patches, no updates, none of this let's make a game as fast as we can and get it to the consumer so we can get their money and then we'll patch it and make it playable later because that's what they're doing right now. I mean, it's, it's just a bunch of nonsense. I mean, you get these games that they spend seven years on making over a hundreds of millions of dollars and they come out on release date and you can't even play the game because it's, it's so bad.

If things don't work, it's glitchy, it's, it's gotta, it needs to be patched. Everything's broken. So, you know, back in the early Nintendo Genesis, PlayStation days, you know, a company they lived and died by their product on release day. That day one product when it came out as a cartridge, if you can remember back in those days, that was it. And that's my mentality now and why I started a vanilla gaming company because we need to get back to that indie gaming development. It's kind of a, it's its own genre, right? There are so many passionate game developers out there and they just don't get noticed.

Nobody knows that their games are out there because we're not getting the big promotions. You know, we're not sure if we don't get to commercials on TV, right. But some of these indie game developers out there are, are, they're extremely passionate. They, they know what they're doing. They're, they're passionate and that it's their life. Like they're, they're making this game because it's their livelihood. It's not just another game that's going to drop in a few months and then hopefully it'll do well. If not, who cares, we'll move on and make another one. It's not like that with, you know, with any game development. And, you know, I had an excellent game for an idea here, which is vanilla V sets in a hole.

And it's been stern for like many, many years. And just kind of with the pandemic, creating more of a, a craze for in home entertainment, right. In with this idea that I've had, it just kind of came about that. Now it's now, now, or never right now it's time to put this plan in action. So I went ahead and started up the company a little over a year or so ago. Got licensing out of the way, you know, all the fun paperwork with all that comes in to start looking like, what, what can I do to put this together? And that's kind of where, where we're at right now, as far as the early stages of development, but just trying to get this product, that's been out there for a long time, but do it right.

Do it the right way. Pretend that there is no internet. Right. Let's get this thing right from the very, very beginning. Some

Speaker 1 (11m 31s): Days I wish there was no internet, no computers. Anyway, I agree. I agree. Hey man, I remember I was working in radio when they were, when they were just started offering fax machines. Okay. That's how far back I go? So anyway. Yes, I'm old. Okay. So you're currently working on, as you said, vanilla beast ACE in the hole, besides how I described it, tell me what the game's all about.

Speaker 2 (11m 57s): Well, it's, you know, it's, it's a big parody is what it is. It's humor. And especially just in the state that the world's in and everything we've been going through. Humor is a good thing right now we need to laugh. Right? I think a lot of times, yeah. A lot of people, we take things seriously. We have to like, we have to stay afloat, you know, the doggy dog world and it kind of a thing with businesses and, and being cutthroat and all that. But at the same time, we can have fun too. We can laugh. Okay. And in games, at least for me, is supposed to be entertainment is supposed to be fun.

When I turn on a video game, I want, I wanna smile. I want to have a good time. Whether I'm playing with my friends with online multiplayer or from just sitting down to play a game with myself, it should be entertaining. Well, I do understand some people use it professionally, like, you know, the mat and tournaments and different e-sports and whatnot,

Speaker 1 (12m 48s): But that's big. That's big now. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12m 50s): It's still under 1% of the gaming population, the interest other millions and millions and millions are just casually playing. Right? So this game it's taken what we've loved through the eighties and the nineties and two thousands, just all these different games that's worked. They've had a working formula that's made the game successful. So what I'm doing is taking certain aspects of those games and we're making parodies just like movies. Do it, like remember a scary movie that made fun of the screams. And you know, you've always got these parodies and it's usually done, I guess, books do it sometimes too in, in, in general media.

But it's usually movies. I've not seen a lot of games. Don't this? And I really don't know why because, well, we're, we're,

Speaker 1 (13m 31s): We're Dell Yankovic has done it for years with music. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (13m 35s): Exactly. Yeah. We, that was killing it with some, with music for the game. As you heard there with the ladies song, love it. And we've got many more of those to come. And even the intro is a casino Royale from James Bond intro where we, we parried the Chris Cornell song. So that's exactly what we're doing. So this game is all about having fun. As far as the story goes, vanilla beast is really an Americanized James Bond. So you're going to play the role of the secret agent, right?

And he was a secret name, extraordinary, you know, living a dream suave secret agent who, as we mentioned, mentioned, they're completely secret agents dating the hottest women in the world. And then as the game starts off, one mission changes all that. So this is a story and it does have a good story to it. And if I had to describe the script that I had written for it here, it would be Austin Powers meets black dynamite. Hmm action. A lot of action, but really funny, but not too over the top at the same time, some of it will be over at the top.

And here here's an example. Have you seen the movie Deadpool? I have not, but I've heard about it. Okay. So in Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds is aware that he is a character in a movie and there's an audience. He will actually talk to the audience. You know, sometimes the camera will stop and he'll turn around and like, to just see what just happened, right. There was, this is what I had to deal with. You know, that kind of stuff, video games just don't do that kind of thing. And that's what we've, we've written and put into the game to where, you know, maybe if you die for the third time in the area and instead of just a normal desk screen and you know, want won game over and he's like, can you want to maybe take the control or your little sister's hands and play for real this time?

Like, you know, I mean, like, he's going to make fun of you. Like, you know, it's going to be one of the things like, hold on. Did he just talk to me and tell me that I'm like playing like a little girl? So those kinds of things are gonna happen. And a lot of mature humor in the game. I just, I don't know. I think video games these days, they get a really bad rap on what they can do this face. It, these are not for kids anymore. I'm sure we grew up with that, but you know, the majority of gamers are adults and that's what this game is, is made for. It's going to be mature rated. So children won't be playing the game.

Number one, but it's not meant for them either. I mean, this is for adults that want to have a good time. And when they sit down, they, they're not going to be treated like a kid. You know, we're not going to hold their hand. And it's, it's a mature experience, no different to going through an R rated movie or, you know, reading a book or whatever that has things that you can relate to, that you've seen in life and you can laugh at. And that's kind of what vanilla beast is. It's, it's gonna parody a lot of different facets from lots of different media, from memes to movies to shows to songs.

And the entire ride is just one big action adventure scenario after another. And a lot of really neat different types of retro style levels too.

Speaker 1 (16m 34s): Yeah. And you know, I'm not, I'm not a gamer, but you got me very interested in wanting to play this game already. So you're, you're doing your job. Definitely. Neil. Now tell me about the retro style game, playing variety levels.

Speaker 2 (16m 48s): What we're doing is we're taking what made so many great games. Great. It's like what made a great game gate. Great. And then like, I know you said you're not a gamer, but you've probably heard of Mario, right? Sure. You probably heard of zona. Like there's some games that just stick out and they're just they're classics. Everybody knows them. And if you've never even played a game, so what we'll do is we'll how mature humor and exploration like classic leisure suit, Larry games. I used to love that series. It was made by Al Lowe and a Sierra games. It was called leisure suit. Larry. It was like kinda like a point and click PC series long time ago.

Let's mature themes. I can remember. And this was, this was mainstream too. This was a while back, I guess in the nineties is when leisure suit li leisure suit Larry started. And at one point you're trying to, you know, to have sex with a hooker, but Larry understood, well, hold on. If I have a condom, I'm probably gonna get in trouble. So you had to like literally point and click your way to find condoms. And then at one point he, I can't remember exactly what it was, but I believe he grabbed like the wrong one and it, and that's a game over right now, your condom busted start over.

So that kind of stuff, it's like, we don't see that anymore. It's like what happened? What happened to where we were headed in the right direction with his type of comedy and style. And all of a sudden we got rid of, you know, w we're going to come back on that. So there's going to be a lot of things. And I've actually already reached out to Allo and I've spoken to him about maybe a cameo ex appearance or something along the lines of that. Cause that's what I want to do. I'm not stealing anything from anybody I'm taking what made different games great. And just end it into the game. And you know, we'll, we can touch on that as far as different types of genres and whatnot, but we've got like a great surfing level paying tribute to like TNC a surf design in California games from Nintendo golf, mini game things to take a break from the game within the game.

So you can go play golf like the old NES open tournament side, scrolling, BDM ups, like, you know, back in RK days when we still had those around people love games like double dragon and final fight where you can just, you know, it's like, don't, I don't want to think anymore. I don't want to use my brain and figure, I just want to walk across the screen and kick and punch her by, in the face and tell them to shut their mouth. So we kind of levels like that to real simple stuff. Real basic it's the variety is massive. And then a lot of games, games are very linear. Usually even if they are OpenWorld, they get into these very, the games feel repetitive.

That's one of the biggest gripes that I've always seen as a game or mine. I've been gaming since the eighties, I started off on an Atari 2,600, literally playing in like missile commandment with my dad and Frogger and that kind of stuff. So it was seeing how far gaming's came. And a lot of times, Bruce, the game really gets in a rut because even though the level may be different, it looks and feels like the one you just got them playing the previous eight levels, right. And the game just gets boring. So another example of how we're bringing like the retro gaming in is you may go through a level side scroll, and then you get to the balls and that balls fight will play like a street fighter or more combat, or you'll actually go sideways, you know?

Right. And it'll kind of, the game will kind of change and then, you know, fight and you have an actual control system of blocking in high punch, low punch kicks, special weapons, all that kind of stuff. And then on top of all that, and this is something indie games don't usually do because they don't really, I don't want to put this average to say anything bad about the game indie gaming industry or excuse me, indie gaming genre, but they kind of, they kind of quit before they should. I think like, it's, I understand people's going to make money. Right. And some people, this is all there they're getting.

So they kind of cut corners in a way. We don't have the fun indie gaming traditionally does not have the funding until they either run a crowdfunding campaign and get funded or they go with a publisher. Right. So in the beginning, you're kind of running this off your own out of your own bank account. And so the game suffers from that as it should. Right. That makes sense. And what they'll do is they'll quit before, like they'll have this vision, but it won't really hit that vision because of funding. So, you know, I'm saying I'm going to go the route of the crowdfunding here.

Right. And you know, if that doesn't work, we can go round with a publisher, but you really want to use it as a last resort because publishers go want creative control sometimes in the beginning, or if they're paying your salary, you know, they're going to want to take over. And I just know my vision won't be seen. So what I'm promising to do is this is going to get done and it's going to be awesome. No matter what, it just will take a little longer. Yeah. It might take a little longer if I don't get that upfront. But as far as the retro levels or whatnot, we're actually going to have an open world. So you're not, it's just not going to be a game that goes through level.

Okay, I'm done with the level start the next one done with this. One's starting to, it's going to have an open road. You can run around and you can go to nightclubs. You can go to the strip clubs. You can go to the baseball game. You can head down to the park and play home, run Derby with little Jimmy that's pitching on the mound. Just whatever you want to do. It's going to have a lot of variety. And then the levels kind of happen as the story progresses. Right? I think that's something that games are missing these days. Just the fun factor. Right. And you'll be able to navigate around the actual levels and the activated or dropped in, so to speak.

So to speak like a flashback, like say, you know, you're, you're at the, the park there. And if you visited a couple of times, nothing really happens. You get to do whatever it is that you're doing. I'm trying not to give too much away here. Right? Sure. And, but let's say one time you visited because you've completed a level and maybe you've found this item. Well, now that that actually checks off and code behind the scenes there, that you've done everything you needed to do. So now something new is going to happen at a park. And maybe you'll have a flashback where you're telling, telling a little Timmy here about the time that you won the big football game in high school and what that's about and teach them a life lesson and nothing is ever going to be, as it seems, I should say, it's going to always be based off humor and comedy.

And just those moments where you look at it and you shake your hand said, hold on, did I just hear that right? Is that what he said?

Speaker 1 (22m 42s): That's good. That's good. Now the game is being largely built based on humor. Now talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 2 (22m 49s): Humor is the name of the game here. Without a doubt. I've been making people laugh since grade school. I was actually took the class clown title in high school there for my class of 99. I know I'm dating myself there, but we did

Speaker 1 (23m 3s): Party. Oh, you're not, no, you're not 75 man. 75. Come on.

Speaker 2 (23m 10s): So yeah, I graduated there in 1999 and I can remember that's always the only thing that was happening right. There was they played princess party, like it's 1999, just over and over in high school. So I took class clown. Oh, that year proud of that. Right. And I even did scene up comedy Bruce for awhile. After that, with me living in the Midwest here in Cincinnati, Ohio, that it's tough to do that. Right. You can't really become a performer or any kind of

Speaker 1 (23m 33s): Stutter. It's tough to do standup and survive then. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (23m 39s): So, yeah. So, you know, I, I know humor I've been all around it. I've kind of seen that circuit a little bit, did some traveling and did a few things with comedy. And now as you know, comedy is very subjective, right? It's very relative to the person receiving the humor. Right. Let's face it. Funny is funny. I mean, there are some things that's always going to be funny. You know, if it's wintertime and I look at my window and I see somebody walking, they slip on ice and fall back and just get smashed. That's hilarious. I'm going to laugh. It may not be right. But it's funny. That's the kind of stuff I want to see when I look out my window. Right. People falling on ice and you know, just take an example, look at the last Chappelle routine and how the critics crushed him.

I think on rotten tomatoes, or you got like what, a zero from critics, but a 98 from the audience. Yeah. It just, it blows me away. How subjective and how relative screw critics can be. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (24m 29s): FedEx. I've never, I've never been into, I've never been into what critics say. I, some of the movies that I've enjoyed the most are the ones that got the, the, the worst reviews. So

Speaker 2 (24m 40s): Yeah, you're, you're a hundred percent correct. And that was the point I was about to make is that this game, that's what we're going for. And I don't care. Like I really don't care how, because let's face it. When we bring in the adult industry into this and mature themes and everything, I'm going to be shut down by a lot of places right off the bat. They're just not going to want to deal with the game. That's just the nature of it. But am I going to lose money for that? Probably. But am I going to also sacrifice my vision and what I'm trying to make because of that? No, but that's what a lot of people do, Bruce, you know,

Speaker 1 (25m 11s): They sell out exactly.

Speaker 2 (25m 13s): And the humor is going to be mature. It's going to be even raunchy at times, but it's, here's the thing. Here's the key it's well thought out and calculated. Okay. Not just a bunch of random poopy jokes, right. Or, you know, just saying what we want to say. There's no, I'm not trying to shock anybody. It's 20, 21 here. We're not really shocking anybody with anything. We've all seen it, done it all, but the game actually takes a form of narration. Like you don't normally see and you know, the actual game, character, vanilla, vanilla bean full name, there he'll be talking to the game.

Or like I mentioned a little earlier and he understands he's in a video game like Ryan Reynolds did in Deadpool. So, you know, there's and the game is making fun of itself. It doesn't want to take anything serious example, Anna, Claire clouds. I'm sure you're probably familiar with her. Right. So she's actually in the very beginning of the game, like the opening scene is vanilla and Anna Clara clouds on a speed boat going into the evil cause casino, Velano island. Cause you're on, you're on a mission.

Right? So you speed up on that and they have a whole little funny dialogue of what's going on and they get off the beach there. And Anna, Claire is like, oh, this is so cool. You know, I'm here with you and everything. And she's, she asked a question along the lines of, so are you just going to like waltz right in the front door? You know, and be the man, are you going to like sneak up in the back door and then see that, how that sets up that Joe perfectly he's like, well, you know, you know, and tell her what's going on. He's like, but speaking to backdoor, wait, here, we'll celebrate. When I back, you know, that kind of stuff, but he'd just make a backdoor joke, simple stuff like that.

You just don't normally see in a game. But at the same time, it's well calculated. Sure. And the game will actually, and I think the very first time, you know, he references Anna, he says, well, thank you, legendary adult film, star, and Claire clouds. Like he points out who he's talking to to let the reader number or the, the gamer know exactly who she is. Number one, but at the same time it's so over the top and the way that you would never say that, like if you're talking to somebody you're not going to give, spell out their full title, but the game does things like that multiple times, just even in the opening act to let you know that the game is very aware that it's a game and it's very well aware that we're just here to have a good time.

Like, don't take

Speaker 1 (27m 27s): That. Let's do seriously. Sure, sure. Now who exactly is the game made? Well, that's

Speaker 2 (27m 32s): A good question. So obviously number one, it's mature individuals. The game will be rated mature. Now the ESR B, which is that fun company who rates all the games and, and different types of media across the board, you know, they give it that every one rating or a mature rating or adults rating, this will be mature, guaranteed, no matter. I mean, they were nowhere near getting that rated, but that's what it's going to be. I will be staying away from an adult rating because when you get the adult rating, you're not allowed to go in consoles.

So that will smash millions of people getting a chance to play this game. And it's not always about money. I'm sure. Would I lose money from that? Of course. But more importantly, I'm going to lose people to be able to experience this game. So I don't want to do anything. That's going to keep it off Xbox or keep it off a PlayStation. Right? Okay. So we're going from mature rating now, but really, as far as who is going to enjoy this game and who were making this Ford scammers that are just tired of, of growing crops and little simulators and walking around, you know, playing these little cute G games and with puppies and unicorns and rainbows, you know, there there's a game run out there.

And I know because I've been around this for a very long time and we're just tired of the bait and switch deal to from these AAA companies. You know, I'm not gonna mention any names and games, but there's a game that came up. Go ahead. No, well, no, like I said, I'm not here to put anybody down, but they, I absolutely love, okay. I'll tell you what I'll say this. I love the Witcher series. The Witcher three, very mature, great game, loved them so well put together. And then they had a project that they spent. I think it was $123 million, I believe is the number I read to make a video game.

Okay. To make a video game, Bruce, $123 million. Over seven years, it came out. It was unplayable. Like it was so bad. Sony refunded everybody's money with no questions asked and they ripped it off the store and said, we're not even selling this anymore. How does that happen?

Speaker 1 (29m 30s): Right. I don't know too many, too many cooks in the broth. I don't know

Speaker 2 (29m 35s): Exactly. So how does that happen? So we're just tired of that kind of stuff, you know? And, and here's the thing that whole time, while this going on for many year, you were able to pre-order so what does that mean? They're making probably millions and sitting back, you know, and for sure and chilling on the beach when they should've been making his game. Right. I mean like what's going on here? So this is for players, that's ready for an engaging story. Good game. Play mechanics, not going to break on you and nonstop laughter while you're having fun with some of the hottest and coolest women, the adult film histories ever seen that's tagging along for you for the ride, which is something that not hardly any game ever.

Speaker 1 (30m 12s): Sure, sure. Now you brought that up. You decided to bring the adult film industry into the game. Why is that this

Speaker 2 (30m 19s): Game in the game character it's well, let me say this. So vanilla beast is it's partly myself and me kind of telling my story through a game and it's in a way of it's it's all based on true fictional events. Okay. Right. Price of what? Meaning

Speaker 1 (30m 39s): Yes, yes, yes I did actually.

Speaker 2 (30m 43s): So it's all based on true fictional events. And what that means is, was that real maybe was that false and fiction? Maybe it could have been, I could have actually done this in my life and embellished a bit, or I could have never touched this and took this from a movie you'll never know. That's the beauty of this and the adult film industry. It's such a fun industry. It's an industry. And you don't need me to tell you this, your listeners don't need me to say this, but it's something everybody loves, but nobody wants to talk about right. You know, I mean, so many people have grown up with certain actresses over the years. And I mean, you know, just back from when things were getting started on DVDs, remember them back in the days you had to go out.

And like, for me in Cincinnati, the hustler store was a really big store. I can, I can remember getting my hands on that. Pamela Anderson tape back in the day, VHS. I mean, that was the coolest thing ever right there, back in the nineties. Right. We didn't have the internet and all that. Right. And so now everything's so readily available. It's I still feel like when it comes to gaming and in some forms of media, the adult industry is still in the dark ages. Nothing good that had done. It's the powers that be, that are out there that saying you can't do that. You're less than this. And I just don't believe in that.

So once again, kind of like a, as I spoke about earlier, it's not always about money and this could actually bring more money to the game, but it could also hurt me too. And I realized that with reviews and bloggers, and maybe I won't get an IGN because they're just a, we can't put that on our site, but you know what, screw them. It doesn't really matter to me because this industry has been a part of my life. Just like you has been part of other peoples. And it's fun. This game is about being fun. This game is about having a good time and okay. For a power up.

Would you rather jump on a little block and the ground shaking the guy's over, right? Or would you rather have Jana Michael's dropped down on a parachute with two AK 40 sevens and wipe out the entire screen, shooting guns with their titties, bouncing all around. That's what I want to say. Right. I would much rather have that

Speaker 1 (32m 38s): Kind of get back to you on that. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (32m 39s): Yeah. You know what I mean? It's just like things that just haven't been done right. Is what we're trying to do. And the adult film industry just, it adds a whole nother layer of creativity that I can bring to the game and a whole nother layer of, wow, I'm actually playing this right now that you're just not going to experience it

Speaker 1 (32m 57s): Right now. There haven't been a lot of adult entertainers in games traditionally. Why do you think that is

Speaker 2 (33m 3s): Right? And I mean, a little bit, like I alluded to there, I think that a lot of developers and publishers and, and the powers that be are just afraid. I think they're scared. I mean, you look at how stern and what he's done over his career and how controversial that he had to be just to get to where he is now. And it's the same, it's the same thing in gaming he

Speaker 1 (33m 23s): Had to get, he had to get thrown off the air a few times. I'm sure. I'm sure you saw private parts.

Speaker 2 (33m 29s): Of course, of course. Yeah. And even before that, you know, I listened to Howard stern and all that before, you know, fun fact about myself here, I'll never forget nine 11. I was listening to Howard stern working. I was actually doing like landscaping for a company. This was, you know, obviously a long time ago now I'll never forget how great of a job Howard stern did. He stayed on the air. He was supposed to go up, but he stayed on to get that information about what was going on with nine 11. And he, that was some of the best I've ever heard of anybody ever on the radio, how he handled that situation.

Speaker 1 (34m 2s): He's a pro he's a pro I mean, that's, that's the bottom line is he's a pro I don't know. Dunno. I don't know if you saw the interview he did with Anderson Cooper. I don't, I'm trying to think. I think Anderson Cooper was interviewing him and it was phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (34m 17s): Yeah. And the guys at class act, but because of the material he did well, he's some slime ball, you know, he's oh yeah. You know, no, that's not the way it works. I mean, that's what you can think, but that's just not the truth. Right. So bringing the adult film industry into this game, I understand I'm going to be criticized and there's going to be a few things against me because of that. But at the end of the day, I get to do what I want to do. And what I think is going to be best for the game, for this product that I'm making. And it's all about the gamers and what we've not experienced, what we want to experience.

You know, I, like I said, I've been known as for a very long time and you just don't normally see this. And I wanted to incorporate this into the game because it just, if it's not your style, that's fine. Don't play the game. I have no problems. I will, you know, I'm not the type of person that gets upset when I see something I don't like and tells other people not to do it too. Sure. I do live in America and it is a free country still. And, and if I don't like something, I just shut my mouth and I don't do it. Right. It should be the same thing with, with movies and gaming and books and media. Right. And that's right.

Even though it's not always the case, I'm still gonna subscribe to that personally. So, you know, I'm putting this into the game. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And it's something that I think that at the end of the day, when, when the game replays is game, could we get through without this year, I could definitely make this game without it, but I don't want to, I want to have these legendary women in the game and it's all positive too. And there's, you know, it's all fun. It's all PO it's, it's using them in ways that, like I said, power ups and different types of situations where they come into play and, and Claire just being in, just making a cameo in the beginning of the game and, and just to provide some comic relief as soon as it starts so that you know that the second this game starts, I'm on a speed boat with an amazing adult film actress, and we're making jokes and I've not played the game for 15 seconds so far.

Yep.

Speaker 1 (36m 9s): Yup. Exactly. Hey, you never know Howard. Mike don't want to interview you about it. I would not be surprised in the least. I'm sure it's crossed your mind too. So why did you partner with a porn star platinum on this

Speaker 2 (36m 24s): Last year when I started really putting this together and you know, say, okay, how, what do I want to do? I got to have a game plan. We're not gonna, you know, I don't do anything in life. If anything people will say about me is that I'm very analytical, very logical. And I guess that's the it part of me, right? I mean, I've kind of been in it in infrastructure and technologies, most of my life in binary, right. One ones and zeros. So I came up with a plan of how do I want to tackle this? And I reached out to some different companies. I see, I did my research.

I on some of the people that were behind the companies, who would, I want to work with, who do I think would see this things through? And what else should I go? So I reach out to some people and a funny story about actually bringing the center of the game, the way that we did and partnering up with, with porn star platinum, is that I'm here. I guess the best way to say this is, I like to be respected, just like a respect other people, especially in business. Right? I mean, like if I start calling you a bunch of names right now, you're going to end this, right. That's just not how you do business.

So it's, and, and here's the thing when I'm, I understand I'm the underdog here, right? When I'm reaching out to these massive adult film studios, they don't know me. I know they don't know me and they don't have to spend me any time of day at all. So I was really looking for someone who was going to approach me interested. Number one. Okay. I hear your little pitch here. What do you got? This sounds fun. Right. And as you're thinking about this, so Dan got back to me really quick, you know, Dan from foreign star platinum, and

Speaker 1 (37m 56s): Then, oh, Dan hook, great. Former, a former of former guest on adult side broker talk, actually.

Speaker 2 (38m 4s): Right. And Dan's a great guy and he responded really quickly to me. But since it had the porn was in the name of his email address there, it went to my spam and I didn't catch it. So yeah, here's me being an idiot now. Right. So here I am, the big it guy that always tells everybody else what they're doing wrong and just fix it. Right. Right. Well, so weeks go by and I'm talking with some other people. And then I just go ahead, let me check the spam. And I seen Dan had got back and I felt like such an idiot. I'm like, are you kidding me? Then I haven't checked my spam.

And like two weeks happens so much here. And Dan got back and said, Hey, you know, he was interested in and everything. And he wanted to speak with me in it. And I was like, oh man, what a goofy, what is, what's wrong with me? Right. That's such a rookie mistake, but you know, that's like, you know, Derek Jeter out there, you know, after playing for 15 years out there and not understanding to look at the third base coach. Right. And make sure that there's any science going on. Right. You just don't do that. Right. And so, yeah, I came back to Dan and I apologize. First thing I'm doing was telling the guy, I'm sorry, this is a real good start as me apologizing him for being a goof.

And we got to talking, and as you mentioned, Dan, Dan's a really good guy. He seemed interested in it. He, he didn't, he wasn't treating us, even though this is obviously business, it's a hundred percent business. He, he didn't treat it in a way of, okay, this is what's going to happen. And if you want to work with us, these are the rules. You know what I mean? He didn't come at me like that at all. He's like, let's talk, let's just see what's going on. Real laid back. Real cool. Similar to myself. And, and I had done my research on him and, you know, I, I knew, and I know things about him right now. He doesn't even know. I know, like in being a bears fan and different things, I did my research.

I just, I wanted to know about the people that I was dealing with. Right. Sure. And I'm like, man, well, he's number one. He's a bears fan. So he's seen a lot of grief over the years. Oh my God. Oh my God has this. Guy's resilient. He's a bears fan. Oh yeah. But you know, this little things like that. And just over a couple of conversations, we had porn star platinum itself is it's a jug or not industry. I mean, he said some of the most talented and amazing women in industry ever come through his network on his network now, you know, been a part of it a year.

He seemed like a good guy. He was willing to work with me. And, and we, through our conversations, it's just like, you know what? This seems like a really good match. And you know, I am, I am the type of guy that, where you never just want to necessarily jump on the first thing. Right. That you see. But at the same time, if you don't, it'll be gone, you know, and I had already been doing my research and I was in talks with other places that have said, no, this is, this is awesome. I really liked Dan. I like what, he's what he stands for here. And I like a porn star platinum. And I said, yeah, let's go ahead and let's do this.

And that was, I was gung ho from, from the moment, you know, right there, right. From the point that I knew that he was legitimately interested in the game and what was going on. And, and we spoke about different maybe promotions we could do and what he can do to help out and this and that. And I was like, yeah, man, let's, let's go for it. This will be all. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41m 2s): Now, how are you going to use your partnership with a porn star, platinum and adult entertainer licenses? So

Speaker 2 (41m 9s): I know you said you're not a gamer and that's, that's totally fine. Bruce. There was a game that two K produced called mafia. It was a series. They had three games, really good games. And they started all the way back on a PlayStation two era. So a long time ago, a couple of decades ago. Yeah. And the game mafia or the series, I should say, I loved it. It was a lot of fun, your gangsters. So, you know, you were playing a, you know, a gangster that comes out. He comes back from the war and a lot of stuff's changed and it's the fifties, right.

You know, rock and roll is happening. And you're driving around like Richie and Fonz and whatnot back in the day. And one of the neat things this game did, and like I said, I'm not stealing anything. I'm talking openly about this. Cause I'm not stealing. If you got a good idea, you got a good idea. That's awesome. I'm going to use it too in my own way. So what does mafia game did? They had a license with Playboy. So as you would be working through the levels or in the open world, you would find a magazine, you pick that magazine up, you click the button and boom, you get like maybe miss December, 1955 full centerfold.

And that's a really neat way to do that. No games done that before or since. And I was like, well, you know what, that's one way we can do the actual photo shoots. So we're going to keep it classy. Like there's going to the game, we'll have any hardcore sex or anything like that in it. Because like I said, that would get us an adult reading and boom, we're off consoles. I mean, they won't deal with me. Right. So, I mean, but you look at the beginning of all the photo shoots, they start on that kind of soft core way. You know, the girl kind of smiling at ya and maybe starting to take their clothes off. Right. And then they get topless and then nude and then the action happens.

Right? Well, we can go all the way up to that until the action happens. And these can be unlockables you find out through the level, the very first thing, when you get on the beach, when the game starts, there is a secret hidden on the top right corner. And this is going to be part of the demo. And like I alluded to earlier about the game, understanding the game. Well, I understand people's not going to know that at least not right away. So I'll give you this first one for you for free. So as you walk to the left, it'll trigger, oh, they're getting close to kind of moving on.

Right? So the game stops and vanilla talks to the gamer. He says, huh? You know what? I think I seen a crack on a wall on the right side of the beach. We should maybe go back and check on that. Right. So that lets them know, oh, hold on. I'm about to miss something right away. He's talking to me and you go back and you look for the crack in the wall. And the crack is literally like a booty crack drawn up on the wall. So you're looking for a crack in wall. They've told me is like the game is, it looks so good. Like it's beautiful. It's so appealing to the eye. You just wouldn't expect them to be saying this stuff he's saying and doing the stuff he throwing.

Cause it does look so neat. So what we're going to do is bring these, these adult film stars into the game in ways that you could use, like I mentioned earlier as a power up, maybe have one parachute down. And if we got to a level where vanillas, you know, given a flashback and tell him about how, what he did in Vietnam, even though technically I would have been before he was even born. That's what kind of, part of the humor of this too. So telling a story about, you know, the Charlies and the trees and this and that, you know, we can have, you know, even Nadi or Giana, whoever dropped down and, you know, to be able to wipe out the screen with AK 40 sevens and then some of them will be in the game as far as progressing the story to maybe you talk with them, they get information.

And it just, it's a neat way to incorporate these girls in the game that would never be in a game. And really when you get in a game and it kind of the mortalized as you, not that they're not already, cause you know, a lot of these girls are, you know, when you look at Sophie Dee and her empire and what she's doing right now, you know, and everything, does she need this? No, but she's part a part of the porn star platinum network. So you better believe she's in the game, right? I mean like, you know, we have the youth, we will do that and you know, kind of part of this and Dan, Dan is a very busy man, as you know, I mean, Dan has doing so much and I really appreciate the help that Dan's put out there.

And I'm trying to, you know, to talk with him when I can about, Hey, can you put me in touch with this person connect? Can I, you know, and he, he has so much that he can do it. And he is a very popular man. But at the same time, I'm trying to do some of my only work here and, and, and reach out. And anybody that wants to be a part of this game, any of the actresses that was like, oh, this is so neat. I would love to be part of this game. That's what I'm trying to do, you know, get them in the game.

Speaker 1 (45m 29s): So now what are you doing to ensure the success assess of the game? Not

Speaker 2 (45m 33s): Only have I done my research on what makes games work, I've been playing games for 30 plus years here, the company, everything, all the paperwork is taken care of. We brought in porn star platinum. That is, that's a huge powerhouse right. Of, of content right there. But I'm talking with the audience and that's something, a lot of the bigger companies just don't do. If you was to jump on a game forum right now and you get to where they're talking about the negatives of game, what don't they like, they, they feel like they're ignored. I'm not making this game for myself.

I'm not making this game just for you or one person. You got to think in a broader scope. And that's difficult to do because probably get this wrong. But I believe the saying goes, if you try to please everyone, you please no one, right? If you heard that before. And so I, I understand, I can't make a game that everybody's gonna, like, I totally get that. But at the same time, I got to listen to what the gamer wants. So I've set up through some different modes here, different avenues to let them play a demo early, get their feedback.

What do you like about the game? What don't you like? What's working. What's not working. And I don't mean like, are you, are you going to walk through a wall and get stuck? Obviously that should never be there, but more. So what do you think about this content? What, you know, how does this type of getting from point a to point B worked for you? And it's just something that you just don't see in a lot of these games, these indie games that are so successful and they really launched companies, they launch careers. They, they, they are so successful is because they listen. They, they want to know, it's not, it's funny because some games are the opposite.

They just want to make the game. They want to make, they release it. And they're okay. I'm done. Thank you for your money. I appreciate that someone I'm doing it all. And that's a fact of life, unfortunately. So I'm doing the total opposite of that. It's like, let's make this game together. Of course, you know, the, the creative brains behind it. And I'm the one hiring all the programmers and the animators and the vocalist and composer. Right. You know, I mean, you've got all these different, although the difficult task of getting everybody working together and on task and making sure the job's getting done, but at the same time, the gamer is the one that's going to play the game and they're going to be the judge jury, all right there at the end of the day.

So I I'm trying to reach out on forums on discords anywhere that anybody will listen. And, and it would be interested in the game to play it for free check the demo out, which will be fully done here soon and, and get that out there and get feedback and make an awesome game together with the community. And that's where the kind of Kickstarter campaign is going to come in pretty big on that front too, who can

Speaker 1 (48m 9s): Access the demo so well

Speaker 2 (48m 11s): That's right now, that's going to be closed. It may be open public. Well, the demo eventually will be open publicly. So let me word it this way. Right now, the demo is kind of like an alpha, like a closed alpha build, right. So I can get feedback about the game. And then it will turn into an actual demo where it'll be free on steam for anybody in the world. And you don't need to pay to have a steam account, which is how you game on PC, right? So are you to the entire world once we get to that point, the closed alpha is really for me to get out to publishers, to bloggers, to reviewers so that they can start talking about the game and getting it out there.

And then also, so I can get feedback from specific people that are going to play the game that I know will give me an honest opinion of what's going on with it. And

Speaker 1 (48m 56s): I'm sure that'll hurt. That'll help. I don't want her to we'll help the Kickstarter campaign. Tell me a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2 (49m 3s): Right? So the Kickstarter campaign, that's, it's tricky and you know, to be honest with you, Bruce, it's scary and I've kind of always, I always live my life and, and I'm not saying that everybody should do this because you know, also we live our lives own way, but, and maybe a lot of people will think I shouldn't be this way, but if I didn't think I could win something, I wouldn't do it. Right. Like, I don't know. I've always been a big competitor. I mean, I was quarterback of the football team, captain of the baseball team. I played basketball. I'm six, three. So back in, you know, back in the day that was tall, not so much nowadays.

Right. But I was really being into sports, very competitive. And I would, I would go the route to where if I thought I might lose, I'll make some funny way not to do it or write, you know, joke my way out of the situation or whatever, and just kind of get by with life. So Kickstarter's is very scary to me because I really have no idea how this is going to happen. I have done so much research about what successful campaigns have done in the past, what failed campaigns has done in the past. Say, and just to let you know a little bit about what Kickstarter is, Damien has not always been on Kickstarter.

That's actually something that's been newer in the last, I don't know. I think maybe five to 10 years, they've added within the last decade and it's for anything. So you go and Kickstarter, you launch a campaign and you say, Hey, my goal is just to make this simple. Say my goal is $10,000. If I get $10,000, this is the product you're going to get. And in S for pledges, right? You can have rewards within those pledges. Like, okay, if you donate five bucks, this is what you get. You donate 20, you get this, you're doing a hundred, you can have this, you know, and it's tech. You maybe have an invention. You, you created something.

You just like, you know, like shark tank, right, right. They go on shark tank because they need that funding to really get their invention off and running Kickstarters the same way. Right. And the trick to it is, so let's say you said that $10,000 goal and you run it for 30 days or 60, almost a hundred percent of all successful funded Kickstarters for 30 days. That's just the magic number. So let's you set this $10,000 goal. You run it for 30 days. Let's say you're on day 29. It's almost over. And you get 8,000 of that.

10, if you don't hit 10,000, you lose it all, all $8,000 of that goes back to the person who pledged. Right? So exactly. It's a big risk because now you're branded a failure. If you fail on this, everybody can always come back and say, why are you coming to me as a publisher? You couldn't even do this through crowd or the, you know, there's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a tricky situation, but if you hit it, then you keep that money. Right. And if your goal is something larger to get this going, like, you know, $250,000 to get this game going, when you hit that goal, that is your money to, to keep it.

You have all the promises, you made all the pledges with the different reward tiers. And now you just got to make the game and back it up. But if you don't hit that number, like, you know, if your goal is 250,000 and you make 150,000 of that, that's still plenty of money. That's good. But you don't get any of that when it is, if you don't actually hit your goal all or nothing. Wow. Wow. It is all or nothing.

Speaker 1 (52m 7s): Do you have a release date for vanilla based

Speaker 2 (52m 10s): Route right now? And this is obviously subject to change, but we're looking at quarter four of 20, 22 games. Usually take a few years to make that no matter what, what the game is. I mean the little mobile game doesn't really count. Right. But anything that's major like this that's releasing on, on PC and trying to port over to console is going to take a few years. I've been working on it since last year. Funding has to do with a lot of this. If we get funded early and we knocked that out, I can put more programmers on the game where we can get this done. If not, as I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to sacrifice quality because the funding may or may not be there.

It's just going to take me longer to get what I want to get out

Speaker 1 (52m 47s): There. Sure, sure. Well, Hey Neil, I'd like to thank you again for being our guest on adults who broker talk and I hope we'll get a chance to hear about your progress on a, on a later podcast.

Speaker 2 (52m 59s): Sure. I appreciate it. I appreciate you having me on here, Bruce. Thank you. My

Speaker 0 (53m 3s): Broker tip today has to do with what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later, this will be a multi-part series first to make sure you're converting as much of your traffic as possible. Traffic's expensive. Whether it's search engine, traffic, review, site, traffic, or affiliate traffic, you paid a lot for it. So make sure that when someone lands on your site, you give them every opportunity possible to either spend money or do whatever it is that you want your visitors to do. In the case of a pay site, make sure your billing options allow as many people as possible to buy, have multiple ways to pay in north America.

Most everyone has a credit card, but in other parts of the world credit cards, aren't used nearly as much in Europe. For instance, credit card usage is low. So look for billing options that will match the areas where your traffic comes from. And Europe, ACH and debit cards are used a lot in Africa and other developing parts of the world. Many people pay by mobile, do your homework and find out how people pay in the regions you get. Most of your traffic it'll make you more money. The worst thing you can do is get a visitor, have them want to buy, but since you don't have their preferred way to pay, they can't.

And if you're looking for suggestions, feel free to get in touch with me via my website. Along with this as to improve your user experience, make your site attractive and easy to navigate. People have more options than ever these days. I can't tell you how many sites I go to. Even some that are owned by large companies, where the navigation isn't obvious to the user, you poke around the site for what seems like an eternity to do something that should be relatively easy. Keep it simple.

Before you launch any changes to your site, ask your friends to go to the site and check it out. Unfortunately, designers and tech geeks don't think like us. You need real people to look at your site for you. The same kind of people who will be visiting your site next, make a good offer. If you're selling something and the offer, isn't good. You're not going to make money. It's plain simple as that. And if your offer is to contact you or get more information that make the offer attractive and easy to understand, if you're selling something, make buying easy, show them an easy way to buy and then leave, help them by making suggestions on what to buy.

amazon.com is the best at this. They always have suggestions on what to buy based on your buying and browsing history. They use AI to do this. There are AI engines available these days at a modest cost. Look into this. If you can, don't clutter up your site with unnecessary items, buttons, and images. Keep it as simple as possible. The best and most successful sites are the simple ones. The ones that lead you to take the action you'd like them to do. It's not that hard.

Just remember when you're putting together any site, try to think through the buying process, like a human being, whatever you do, don't turn over that process to your designer or developer. Don't just say, build me a website. What you'll get out the other end will not give you what it is. You're looking for. Give them as much direction as possible and make it easy for them to build a site for you that makes your business succeed. We'll talk about this subject more next week and next week we'll be talking to Tina of Adsterra. And that's it on this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank our guest Neil Herrin of Vanilla Gaming. Talk to you next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.