Your customers aren’t just those browsing aisles at grocery stores or clicking through online shops. Some are deep into their screens, locked in intense gaming battles. Energy drinks are a go-to for many of them, but they often fall short in meeting the unique nutritional needs. High sugar content, excessive caffeine, and lack of essential nutrients lead to energy crashes, dehydration, and trouble focusing.
There are over 1.5 billion gamers in the Asia-Pacific region alone. This presents a significant gap in the market: snacks and beverages that not only boost energy but also support mental clarity, reaction time, hydration, and overall well-being during extended gaming sessions.
Food companies are creating products that are solving the challenges of this niche market segment. Their innovations range from ingredient formulations to AI softwares. This research explores five innovations helping gamers stay focused, energized, and perform at their best while supporting a healthier lifestyle.
High Protein Beverages are Enhancing Gamers’ Endurance Without the Sugar Crashes
A study on 119 elite esports athletes found a clear link between protein intake and better cognitive performance during gameplay. Those consuming ≥0.8 g/kg of protein daily performed significantly better across 18 sessions of visual cognitive testing (p = 0.018). These tasks measured tracking speed, divided attention, and sustained focus.
Despite these improvements linked to protein intake, many athletes still fail to meet the recommended levels for other essential nutrients like protein, choline, and omega-3 fatty acids.
In 2024, Arla Foods Ingredients recognized a gap in the esports nutrition market and introduced Progamer, a high-protein beverage tailored to meet these needs. Launched in Brazil, where e-sports is rapidly growing, Progamer is set to expand across Latin America. The beverage features Lacprodan SP-9213, a whey protein isolate that supports gamers’ cognitive focus, mental stamina, and hydration needs.
Clear shake concepts like “Go Natural” and “Go Fresh,” which also use Lacprodan SP-9213, received strong positive reviews for offering refreshing, fruit-infused, and lemonade-flavored protein options. These products have already set a high standard in the market for clean-label, high-protein hydration.
A novel, nutrition-focused generation is emerging in the gaming sector. PROGAMER allows manufacturers to formulate unique, refreshing, clear, high-protein solutions for gamers who want more from their energy drinks.
Cido Silveira, Arla Foods Ingredients Marketing & Business Development Manager – South America
Non-Messy and Healthy Snacks for Gamers
For many gamers, long hours spent in front of screens are often accompanied by snacks that are not only unhealthy but also messy. Crumbs, sticky fingers, and spills are common distractions that interfere with the gaming experience.
In response, Darcey Maken, the top female Twitch streamer, and Pokimane launched Myna Snacks. The snacks are gluten-free and non-crumbly, making them easy to enjoy while gaming. They also provide additional health benefits, such as Vitamin D, to support gamers’ specific nutritional needs, and use coconut sugar and agave for sustained energy.
While Myna Snacks doesn’t explicitly target gamers, it addresses their need for convenient, nutritious snacks that enhance gaming performance and promote better health.
Author’s note: We saw a similar trend emerging in the chocolate industry. Read more about it here.
Caffeine-Based Ingredients to Provide Energy Boost
Caffeine is a go-to energy booster for gamers, offering quick relief from fatigue and a surge in alertness. However, while its stimulating effects are well-known, caffeine’s metabolites, particularly theobromine and theophylline, can carry varying degrees of toxicity that might affect gamers’ long-term health. This can pose a risk when gamers use caffeine regularly to stay focused during extended gaming sessions.
Ingenious Ingredients, a Texas-based startup, has introduced Enfinity, a product that contains paraxanthine, a safer caffeine metabolite. Unlike caffeine, which can cause side effects like jitters or energy crashes, paraxanthine offers similar cognitive benefits with minimal toxicity and no noticeable negative effects.
The product is designed for flexible consumption, allowing gamers to use it at any time during or after gaming sessions.
According to a patent filed by the company, doses of 2 mg to 800 mg of paraxanthine can improve key gaming skills, including accuracy, decision-making, reaction time, hand-eye coordination, and overall game performance, by 10% to 70%.
Silent Snack for Gamers
For many gamers, the sound of snacking can be an unexpected frustration. Studies show that one-third of gamers find the noise of crunching snacks annoying, and one in five have even considered logging off because of it.
To address this, Doritos and Sips & Bites, a creative agency under PepsiCo, spent six months analyzing over 5,000 crunch sounds to develop a solution. In 2023, they collaborated with software developers at Smooth Technology to launch “Doritos Silent”, the world’s first AI-augmented software designed specifically for gamers. This innovative product uses Crunch Cancellation technology, a real-time AI-driven system that mutes the sound of chip crunching as gamers snack.
Initial user feedback has been largely positive. One reviewer who tested Doritos Silent through a standard voice call reported that once activated, the crunching sounds were silenced entirely, even across a range of different snacks. The technology also proved smart enough to detect and ignore fake crunches.
While currently limited to Windows PCs, the product has received positive feedback from users. They’ve praised its ability to reduce distractions and improve communication during gameplay, proving its value in real-world gaming environments.
What are the developments in precision nutrition for gamers? – Ask Slate!
Gaming nutrition is facing a unique set of R&D challenges. Players need sustained cognitive performance without sugar crashes, yet the market is flooded with short-lived, stimulant-heavy products.
Meanwhile, nutrition teams are struggling to validate functional claims, track fast-moving ingredient innovations, and identify emerging players shaping this space. Brands and R&D teams in this space face questions like:
- Who is patenting new ingredients for cognitive performance in esports?
- Which companies are developing gamer-focused functional beverages?
- What patents are companies using to support their product claims in gaming nutrition?
This is where Slate, our AI-based research tool, comes in. With Slate, you can easily access highly relevant, research-backed information from patents and scientific papers, saving you time and helping you stay ahead of the curve. Simply type in your query, and Slate responds within seconds. It delivers the most accurate and up-to-date results, giving you the insights needed to make informed decisions.
