Do you think we will be able to "smell" in games soon?

[Deleted]

Seeing and hearing is what games have always used: you can see things happening on your screen, you can hear the music and sound, but what if we were to get smell in games? I remember reading an article in a science magazine a pretty long time ago where a company tried to create a "box" that would send out chemicals that smelled a certain way when we did things in a game, but i guess they failed because im sure we would've heard of it by now.

I could use a game like BF3 as an example: You can smell the gunpowder, the diesel from tanks, the sweat when you run for a long period, etc etc.

Im not saying it would necessarily be a good idea, but it could be a way to add immersion. What do you think?

[Larath]

I would not want that at all as off right now, I don't need to smell different things.

[Deleted]

Undercity would be... interesting then :P

[Deleted]

Undercity would be... interesting then :P

XD

I would welcome something like that, I dunno if I would use it too much because of guts and bloody being spilled a lot so I'd probably be overwhelmed by the smell but I would happily buy one to try it out.

[Kisho]

God I hope not. You have any idea of how utterly awful the vast majority of game characters must smell after a couple hours of doing what they do?

Think Spec Ops: The Line. Think Resident Evil. God of War? And I don't think anyone needs to know what those evil things in Dragon Age smell like.

[Blueobelisk]

I doubt it because it'd require your console to do something, not the CD. And I don't think a console is going to be able to produce smells without being premade to do so. Unless you make a specific console per game.

I think the closest 'revolution' we have is "touch" with the vibrations and especially the Wii motion.

[Bluesftw]

i hope not , i dont want to smell hundrets of rotting gnomes/spacegoats/mongrels i slay every day in bg;s ^^

[Deleted]

Looking at it from a logical standpoint, both your visual and your audial indications are energy. Vision in the form of light waves generated by your screen, audio in the form of sound waves generated by controlled vibrations in your speakers or headphones. Smell, on the other hand, is particles, or matter. We are not yet able to produce matter from raw energy, and it can be debated if we ever will be, but that's neither here nor there.

The conclusion we can draw from this is that in order for us to experience the smell of games, we'll need externally-supplied smell molecules. Which makes it a resource that needs to be intermittently, and most likely frequently, exchanged. Furthermore you'd need quite a bit of it to permeate the air around where you're sitting in order for you to easily and distinctively notice it, unless you're wearing a sort of "smelling mask" in which case the area it needs to permeate is significantly smaller - but it will also be a lot bulkier.

So no, I don't believe we're currently anywhere near smelling our games, so to speak.

Edit: Also, the device you're talking about in the OP is probably the ScentScape, which does exist and works. However, it is limited in the amount of capsules exists for it and only being able to accept a single type of capsule (read: smell) at a time.

[Sj]

I have a really acute sense of smell. Please god no.

[vizzle]

From my latest Cracked article (because I love plugging myself):

http://www.scientificamerican.com/po...smell-11-06-18

Engineers Take Step Closer to Smell-a-Vision
A proof-of-concept design shows that including a system to generate smells to accompany TV images is "quite doable." Karen Hopkin reports

Yes, we will have smell.

[checking facts]

I really don't want to smell anything in zombie apocalypse games lol

[Baracuda]

Focus on good music instead, that's way more nostaglic than smells.

[Deleted]

Horde cities, or the whole faction, wouldn't be very popular if you could smell them. Have fun in Thunder Bluff, you know how a place full of cows smells like...

Although it would be interesting to be able to "smell" stealthed rogues and druids who haven't bathed in some time. A thin green cloud following them in the air...

I could use a game like BF3 as an example: You can smell the gunpowder, the diesel from tanks, the sweat when you run for a long period, etc etc.

...and exhaust gases, blood, smoke, burning flesh, decomposing bodies, infected wounds...

[Digglett]

I want to, especially Saya no Uta, and Orr in GW2, I want to smell them, I want to taste them too. I've always wanted to rub my face into a Redead in LoZ, and just take a big long hard wiff. Mmm.

[Mortezu]

Well adding scent to certain things in a game could be nice I suppose, like cooking for example. It'd be a nice touch. I have no desire to smell sewers in GW2 obviously.

[OrcsRLame]

We don't need to give Fromsoftware another way to make the Souls series cheap. The games would actually be hard then. "You walk into a sewer filled with slimes and zombies" *barf*

[Fuzzzie]

Enough games stink already.

[Deleted]

Thats interesting, it will be easier(or harder?) to play zombies-based game, sound, view AND the smell, that could add an element(and wind maybe, to disturb us)

[Sj]

Enough games stink already.

And Fuzzzie scores a zinger!

[strangerdanger]

I'm not sure about soon.. but it'll happen.