Virtual Reality Porn Data Suggests Gear VR 13X More Popular Than Google Daydream

Samsung’s Gear VR virtual reality (VR) headset is getting a lot more use than all of its VR headset competitors, according to new data from VR porn specialist BadoinkVR (website not safe for work). The company, which produces and distributes adult videos optimized for virtual reality headsets, told Variety this week that it has seen 40 percent of its usage come from Gear VR this year.

That’s close to double the usage of the next-most-popular headset, which happens to be Google Cardboard with 23 percent. Oculus Rift and HTC Vive together accounted for 25 percent of all video downloads since the beginning of the year, and PlayStation VR made up 9 percent. Google’s Daydream VR headset barely registered in the stats of the company, accounting for just 3 percent of all downloads.

Why does this matter? Most VR headset manufacturers have kept mum on sales and usage data, making it challenging to get a sense of how popular each platform is. Samsung said in January that it has shipped more than 5 million headsets, and Sony revealed in February that consumers had bought close to one million PSVR devices. HTC, Google Oculus haven’t released any official sales data for their devices.

Even the sales numbers from Samsung and Sony don’t tell us much about actual usage. That’s especially true for the Gear VR, which Samsung at times has given away for free, leading some critics to assume that the headsets would simply collect dust.

BadoinkVR’s data suggest that this is not true at all. The company offers its paying subscribers different file versions for each device. Thanks to these downloads, Badoink has a pretty good idea what its users are relying on for their 360-degree adult entertainment.

Granted, using data from a single adult video provider isn’t a perfect way to assess the health of the entire VR industry. But the harsh discrepancy between Gear VR and Daydream should be a cause of concern for Google, and anyone developing for the company’s Daydream platform. The fact that Gear VR got more than 13 times as much usage as Daydream suggests that Google still has a long way to go before Daydream can compete with some of the other VR platforms.

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