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Smells Like Mega Man: An Industrial Scent Company Develops Fragrances For Video Game Characters [The Hartford Courant, Conn.](Hartford Courant (CT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 08--DANBURY -- Mega Man smells like fresh dew, followed by a sporty aroma layered on a slightly masculine scent. Proto Man, who first appeared in the 1990 version of the Mega Man video game, opens on a spicier, apple cinnamon note to match his personality. Both are popular video game characters, who, the story goes, were created in a laboratory. Both have Mega Blaster arm cannons to fight off enemies. But now, again from a laboratory, both now have a distinct scent, thanks to a partnership between Capcom and Epic-Scents, a division of a major fragrance company in Danbury that this week released air fresheners for Mega Man and Proto Man. Why video game characters should have specific scents is a normal question to ask, and there are certain characters that even the most fervent of fans might not want to sniff. (Think Mario and Luigi's scent of a plumber, or consider the various directions that a Donkey Kong fragrance could go.) The answer, thankfully, goes in a different direction. "We don't want Mario to smell like plumber or Mega Man to smell like metal," said Jim Kavanaugh, project director for Epic-Scents. "We want to express who the character is in the same way we try to express who we are." Though the video game industry has tried to integrate smells into gameplay, the idea hasn't quite gained traction. To Epic-Scents and Capcom, the sense of smell is an underutilized avenue to connect gamers to characters, even outside the games. The fundamental way scent impacts memory, the project's leaders say, has the opportunity to change the way gamers relate to characters. The Epic-Scents project comes as a division of Bedoukian Research, an otherwise less-flashy industrial fragrance chemical production company nestled in one of Danbury's many research parks. The company, founded in 1972, develops chemicals that perfumers combine to make scents used in smelly products like fabric softener. How it is decided exactly what a fictional game character smells like is a process that involves testing, research groups, conversations with gamers and a precise understanding of the character. For instance, in the series Mega Man, a young, boyish robot intended to clean a laboratory takes on the task of protecting the lab's leader. From that back story, the group decided that Mega Man's scent should carry youth and energy, bravery, determination and perseverance. To a nose, that translates to a fresh, wet scent followed by a faint base of something more masculine. He's a boy called to do much more than a boy should, Kavanaugh said. Proto Man's scent relies on how the character is less predictable -- sometimes he helps Mega Man while other times he fights Mega Man. That gave the scent more of a bite. The basic idea of making scents for video game characters was the product of a hallway conversation between two workers in the Bedoukian's production department. David Bedoukian, son of company president Robert Bedoukian, and Drew Corcoran both loved video games and worked closely with fragrances, so it might have just been a matter of time. They started talking about how their favorite characters and games lacked any type of scent product. "At first it was kind of a joke," said Bedoukian, "but we knew we could make a great fragrance." After some development work, Epic-Scents approached Capcom, which, according to Kavanaugh, loved the idea. The partnership worked out some bugs, including a few failed scents -- overly masculine fragrances for Mega Man and a red berry for Proto Man -- which Kavanaugh said lacked the "strong, I-do-my-own-thing attitude." Soon a business plan emerged. The group said that they saw an opening in the market for inexpensive, high-quality gaming items that could be sold near a cash register in gaming stores like GameStop. Fragrance, they said, hadn't penetrated gaming culture, as it had been in other places in pop culture. "I think this kind of thing could be very successful and will change the way people think about their characters," said Bedoukian. "It makes gamers more intimate with their characters." Epic-Scents plans to release more scents in coming months, though they can't say which ones. In lieu of details, fans have offered suggestions on the company's Facebook page: Captain America, Pokemon, Link, Zelda, various Mario characters, and Thunder Cats. Also, if the company sticks with Capcom characters, it has a deep bench of popular video game series to call from, such as Resident Evil, Street Fighter or any of the other characters from more than 50 Mega Man games. A success with air fresheners could boost the idea of video game fragrances to individual perfumes or colognes, a higher-end application than the $2.99 air freshener, which should be available on the web in the next few months through Amazon or Thinkgeek. ___ (c)2012 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) Visit The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.) at www.courant.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |