WEBVTT

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when you're playing a video game you want to feel immersed as much as

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possible you want your character to feel like an extension of yourself you want

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to see what they see hear what they hear feel what they feel and when an enemy

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suddenly lunges out of nowhere you want to let out just a little bit of pee but

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isn't there a sense where leaving out is it really enough that I can see here and

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feel Kratos what if I could also smell

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Kratos taste him maybe not that is exactly the kind

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of question that startup game send makers of game sent is hoping to answer

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with a recently released game sent scent system which they claim automatically

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translates onscreen action into a number of cents that number being six and those

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cents being Forest gunfire storm explosion racing cars and a neutal

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pallet cleanser they've also got a few upcoming scents like ocean fresh cut

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grass sports arena and blood the perfect combination of smells to simulate Mario

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Tennis but is this the future of hyper immersive video games or just another

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Flash in the pan gimmick well let's look at the history of smellable media and

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see if past is prologue a few theaters and Cinemas experimented with adding

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sense to performances in the late 19th and early 20th century it's hard to know

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exactly what audiences thought of this back then they didn't have Rotten

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Tomatoes so they just threw literal Rotten Tomatoes in smaller venues they

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might use a cloth soaked with scented oil and a fan to waft the desired smell

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across the audience but in larger venues they typically just pumped perfume in

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through the ventil ation system or sprayed it down from the ceiling of

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course this required a lot of perfume to pull off and the smell tended to linger

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sometimes for days afterward that's a problem both because it's potentially

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expensive and because it means that it's hard to switch between scents without

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them winding up mixed and muddled piling up on each other just imagine if you

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went to see mamam Mia in the theater and it still smelled like the Fast and the

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Furious in there smells like family or you get home and your wife demands to

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know why you smell like Mulan roue it was also easy for the film or play to

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have already moved on by the time the smell really hit you it's also notable

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that these experiments were mostly done by venue owners rather than filmmakers

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meaning that the audience getting misted with perfume like a fancy vegetable

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wasn't necessarily the experience intended by the creator of the content

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one of the first filmmakers known to have considered including sense was Walt

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Disney as part of 1940s Fantasia though

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this was dropped due to expense perhaps the most famous of these early

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experiments was smello Vision originally called covision which was demonstrated

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at the 1939 World Fair smello Vision

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used a system of connected pipes which all fed to individual theater seats

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thereby allowing the amount and timing of the scent to be tightly controlled by

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the projectionist smell Vision got a lot of excited press coverage but the film

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industry they just weren't interested in part because it wasn't cheap for a

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theater to install an estimated $25 to $30 per seat as of 1959 around 250 $50

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to $300 in real terms the original smell

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of vision only wound up in one movie 1960s scent of mystery where the smells

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were designed to provide important hints about the film's plot unfortunately the

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film was a massive stinker making back only 15% of its budget also while some

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of the smells were pretty accurate others weren't and still others were

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accurate but too revolting to really be desirable modern day showings of scent

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of mystery typically use a system of scratch and sniff cards instead Which is

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far cheaper more of a distraction than an integrated part of the experience you

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can also still experience something like smell of vision at Select theaters that

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offer 4dx experiences which also involve

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haptic vibrations wind water fog and occasionally bubbles various researchers

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and entrepreneurs have played with the idea of a home version of smellable

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media but outside of scratch and sniff Concepts it largely hasn't been

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economically viable enough to even go to market there was that one VR sense

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system developer kit that was covered by our sister Channel lus Tech tips but

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it's difficult to tell how much progress they've made towards an actual consumer

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product in the time since we covered it but if smell Vision the concept not the

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20th century product has never ever worked on a broad scale why does anyone

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think it could work now how are modern video games a better choice for

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smellable media than mid-century Cinema we'll tell you right after this

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and use code techwick for a sweet 20% off let's take that basic smelly idea

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and apply it to video games can products like gam scent actually overcome the

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pitfalls we've discussed can smell Vision perhaps gain a to hold NVIDIA

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games where it's been unsuccessful in television the Baseline bar that a

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modern smellable medium needs to surpass is technical competence and ease of use

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first it needs to provide the player with a clear recognizable scent in sync

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with the action on the screen this is pretty easily accomplished through a

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small module placed on your desk or a nearby tripod you could also probably

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use a mask of of some kind to pump the scent directly into your face holes

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that's probably where we begin to see a clear trade-off in terms of comfort

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which might negate the immersion benefit it's very likely that similar to early

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VR smelly video games will only see limited consumer uptake and consequently

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limited developer support which can be a self-reinforcing cycle gam scent though

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proposes getting around the need to have individual developers add smell support

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by using Advanced AI to Simply process what's happening in the game and

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generate appropriate sense accordingly finally AI to the rescue due to the

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tendency for sense to linger because they're literally molecules hanging in

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the air and going up your nose video game sense would probably work best as a

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subtle ambient background smell like grass when you're standing in a virtual

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Meto there might even be some value in playing a VR racing game and actually

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being able to smell fresh asphalt with a hint of burnt rubber so long as it's

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relatively subtle in a tight narrative experience like a good film like we

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talked about before it's all cut relatively fast with scenes typically

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lasting at most a few minutes and jumping quickly between times and

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locations NVIDIA games however you're usually following the action in real

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time allowing for a gradual transition between smells that feels more natural

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another issue to overcome is simply the range of smells available in current

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video game systems which includes both game scent and predecessor oselia unlike

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with color there isn't a small set of primary smells that can be combined to

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create every other smell it doesn't work like that you're going to need more than

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six cents to capture the range of most gaming experiences plus while our scent

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imitating abilities have definitely gotten more sophisticated since the 1960s there's still a lot of stuff we

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don't know how to fake well smellable media done well also requires easy

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customizability because while many players probably don't want to smell

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blood or gasoline others would probably appreciate the viscerality of these

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arguably unpleasant smells still it's pretty hard to imagine a large large

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constituency of Resident Evil players who want to smell rotten flesh and

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sewage when they're fighting a zombie in Alleyway turn that crap down but

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probably the biggest hurdle is simply economic viability it's worth mentioning

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that several large VR experiences that places like theme parks have had Al

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Factory effects as far back as the 1990s it's just that those effects haven't

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been able to make the same jump to viable atome use as VR headsets now we

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all know that many gamers are very willing to spend a lot of do on fancy

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Niche peripherals but those peripherals still typically have to provide decent

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value for the money likewise scent cartridges will need to be relatively

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long lasting and relatively cheap to replace or once this thing loses its

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novelty just going to be a stinky paper weight it's also hard to see the ability

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to smell a game being a better immersion gain than the addition of a VR helmet so

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it's very likely to lag far behind VR in adoption even after if it starts to gain

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traction still there is an argument to be made that television for all that

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it's been a punchline for the last 80 years was just a good idea before its

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time even the latest iteration game sense is limited in that it's a third

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party trying its best to procedurally match sense to a scene made by other

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creators just like those theater owners we mentioned before in an Ideal World

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there would be a standard toolbox of sense that creators could work with to

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craft a scented experience that matches their create a vision for the content

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regardless of which smelly box does the stinking though if YouTube supported it

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I'd probably turn off autoplay so thanks for watching guys if you like this video

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hit like hit subscribe and hit up our other video where we discuss pneumatic

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tubes the history of those and why we don't really use them that widely but

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they're cool