JOIN USEnergy drinks hope to regain lost ground as 'gaming fuel'
Two popular video gamers in black T-shirts posed as snipers wielding real semi-automatic guns at an outdoor range, blasting orbs of fruit and cups of deep orange liquid in ultraslow motion. “Introducing Blood Orange,” announced a video of the spectacle.
In the days afterward, online followers from hardcore gamers to middle-schoolers on Xboxes ordered tubs of the stuff, the latest flavour of a powdered energy drink called G Fuel that is marketed as a secret sauce to enhance focus and endurance for virtual battles. “Oh, this is gonna taste so good!” exclaimed one cherub-faced YouTuber, Michael, his unmade bunk bed in the background.
G Fuel and a competitor called GungHo are a new incarnation of energy drink, growing in popularity while the energy drink industry as a whole has been under scrutiny because of deaths and hospitalisations linked to consumption of caffeine-and sugar-laden beverages.
Traditional energy drink makers have also been playing to the growing gamer culture in some labels — Mountain Dew Game Fuel (with extra doses of caffeine) and Nintendo Power Up Energy Drink. The Facebook page for Monster Energy Gaming declares: “Next time you are looking for some gaming fuel, grab a Monster Energy and Unleash the Beast on some noobs!” The industry is tapping into the rock-star allure and young online fan base of ‘professional e-athletes,’ analysts say, with sponsorships of gaming competitions and players. Gamma Labs, the company selling G Fuel, heavily promotes a Call of Duty clan including those would-be snipers in the video ad.
While major energy drink makers — including Red Bull, Rockstar and Monster, voluntarily agreed to stop marketing to children under 12 because of the adverse health effects publicly associated with them, a congressional report released this year excoriated those companies and others for continuing to target teenagers, whose brains and bodies are not yet fully developed.
The newer gamer drinks are sugar-free and vitamin-infused, but they often contain levels of caffeine that rival or exceed those of some other well-known products, according to Caffeine Informer, a website that provides scientific and consumer information on caffeine levels in food and drink. One maker promises a drink to enhance ‘brain energy,’ while another calls it his ‘natural Adderall.’
Health complications
Dr Marcie Schneider, an adolescent-medicine specialist in Greenwich, Connecticut, worries that most parents do not recognise the dangers of the drinks. “I feel like we have a better sense of how many kids are smoking pot than how many kids are using energy drinks,” Schneider said.
She was one of the two lead authors of a study for the American Academy of Pediatrics that recommended that children and adolescents should never consume energy drinks because of caffeine’s potential to disturb sleeping patterns, increase heart rates and slow brain development. But business is still booming. Sales of energy drinks and shots in the US are projected to rise to $21 billion by 2017 from $12.5 billion in 2012, according to Packaged Facts, a publisher of market research in the food and beverage industry.
The makers of the new drinks say they are natural, without chemicals. People who drink them say they don’t cause jitters or crashes like other energy drinks. “I don't think you can even compare the ingredients that are in G Fuel to the ingredients of some energy drinks,” said Clifford Morgan, the founder and chief executive of Gamma Labs, which makes the G Fuel drinks.
“They’re so toxic. They have so many chemicals.” But, caffeine and other stimulants remain central ingredients. G Fuel’s caffeine content, 150 milligrams per 12 fluid ounces, is higher than many of the Monster and Red Bull drinks, according to Caffeine Informer.
GungHo does not disclose its caffeine content, according to Danny Mason, the company’s chief executive. While G Fuel and GungHo do not have the distribution of the big energy drinks, their products may soon become more widely available. Basic Research, the company that makes GungHo, is in talks with major drug store chains to bring the product to mass retailers' shelves, Mason said. Morgan and Mason say their energy drinks are appropriate for teenagers and both let their children drink the products.
Jonas Feliciano, a senior beverages analyst for Euromonitor International, said targeting the video game culture made sense for an industry trying to maintain a rapid pace of growth potential in the non-sports market.