For years, adult industry observers have looked at the overlap between the markets for videogaming and adult entertainment and wondered: Is there a way to put that overlap to good use, or is the gaming market simply destined to be permanently walled-off from porn?

While there’s no indication that any major, traditional mainstream gaming development studio, gaming console producer or distributor is about to embrace adult as a genre, next-gen platforms like Steam have made fairly extensive collections of “NSFW” games available to their users, and independent adult gaming platforms and distributors like Nutaku.net and Gaming Adult have experienced significant growth in recent years.

At Devcom last August, Nutaku’s Jeff Tremblay said the rise of the adult gaming market “is coming” – but he may just as well have said “it’s here.”

According to various published accounts, the Mind Geek-backed Nutaku now has over 10 million registered users and over 100 million visits per month. Gaming Adult’s top title, Hentai Heroes, has surpassed five million players and continues to grow.

The key to the success of the adult gaming market, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that the games aren’t mere excuses to deliver adult content through a new medium – the gameplay they offer competes credibly with mainstream game titles.

As Tremblay noted at Devcom several months ago, his company isn’t merely “gamifying pornography.” Instead, he said, “we are adultifying great games, first and foremost.”

“If you don’t have a good game, you can put all the sex you want on top of it and it’s just not going to happen,” Tremblay said. “But it is happening for us.”

Onizuka, who serves as the head of business development for Gaming Adult, concurred with Tremblay’s sentiments, telling YNOT that players “want real quality adult games, same as for the mainstream segment.”

“That’s what Gaming Adult is trying to achieve and I think we are doing a pretty good job to reach our players’ expectations,” Onizuka added. “Adult gaming has been popular in Japan for years and now it’s taking over Europe and the USA.”

Onizuka doesn’t see the growth of adult gaming slowing down any time soon, either, adding that “we are still in the early stages here.”

“The market is evolving so fast that we are looking for another 5 to 10-year growth, at least,” Onizuka said. “New technology such as VR, for instance, will also give a new dimension to the user experience, so it’s pretty exciting to watch the market transformation from the front seat.”

For more information on Nutaku and Gaming Adult, including information on the games they offer and opportunities to promote and advertise them, go to NutakuAffiliates.com and GamingAdult.com, respectively.

Images courtesy Nutaku.