Long 
before “Call of Duty” was dominating the video-game sales charts, there was football.
Though shooters might be the hottest games around these days, sports games are still big sellers — and the virtual gridiron is a perennial favorite. And, more importantly to console makers, it’s a genre that helps sales.
Everybody has 
a first job – and it rarely has anything to do with how you end up making a living.
That’s especially true of the adult entertainment industry’s biggest names. But their first gigs aren’t what you might expect. Sure, some kicked off their resumes with stints in fast food joints, like many teenagers around the country. Several, though, worked in law firms. And one learned the hard way that domestic services were not for her.
We tracked down a number of industry superstars on the floor of the Adult Entertainment Expo to see how they got their start.
There aren’t 
many video games upon which the mass market consumer and core gamer can agree, but when it comes to football, there’s plenty of love on both sides.
Madden (based on legendary coach and broadcaster John Madden) is the undisputed king of the video game football hill, but there are plenty of other titles that have captivated players throughout the years. Most of them are no longer around, due to industry consolidation, licensing deals or pure bad luck. But each of them can still bring a smile to the face of virtual gridiron fans.
When the 
movie industry slapped adult films with an XXX rating, porn companies came to embrace the scarlet letters. But when the nonprofit corporation that oversees Internet addresses rolled out the .xxx domain, the reception was unequivocally unenthusiastic.
Manwin, one of the porn industry’s largest companies, is challenging Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in an antitrust suit over the new domains. And while most other porn companies haven’t rushed to join the legal fight, they’re watching closely.
Porn companies 
have always been interested in the girl next door, but now there’s a company that’s taking an interest in her parents.
Pleasure Dynasty is trying something new in the industry: opening the filmmaking process up to outside investors and letting them add the title of adult film producer to their resume (though don’t expect too many people to brag about it).
While 
plenty of adult stars dream of making the transition to traditional acting, their dreams rarely become reality. Hollywood — and mainstream culture, in general — tend to segregate the men and women of porn, keeping them at arm’s length.
But there are some performers whose drive, persistence and fan base lets them break through. Some make it onto the big screen. Others take a different path. But by the time they’re done, their names are known by a much wider audience than they started with. Here are 10 who have managed to make the transition to ‘civilian’ celebrity.
Fabian 
Thylmann isn’t a familiar name to most people outside the adult entertainment industry.
But while the 33-year-old managing partner of Manwin lacks the icon status of Hugh Hefner or the grand showmanship of Larry Flynt, he has quietly become one of the most powerful people in porn over the past two years.
Los Angeles 
may be about to lose its title as the US porn capital.
The L.A. City Council voted Tuesday to make condom use mandatory in adult films. And adult studios are already planning how to minimize the effects of that law.
The porn 
industry stands at a precipice as it heads into 2012.
Online piracy continues to nip at the earnings of studios, and new legislation could dramatically impact how companies do business. So it makes sense, in a way, that the industry’s annual convention is facing big changes as well.
True 
superstardom in the adult entertainment industry is a tough thing to achieve. And this year’s Dirty Dozen certainly underscores that.
Just five of the actresses we listed among the industry’s most popular last year make return appearances in 2012, as new faces have come along — and some veteran performers made a comeback.
Chris Morris: Journalist 