Tapping Captive Audience

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Eli Szasz was working in robotics, and Aaron Rasmussen was a software developer. You might not expect them to come up with a new brand of energy drink.

But that’s what they did, and with an added twist: Their company, Harcos Inc., is marketing the brew to video gamers, offering Mana Energy Potion as fuel for all-night play sessions. The duo bottled the drinks in containers shaped like the magic potions used in popular games such as “Diablo.”

The first batch of 32,000 drinks, available through the company’s Web site and at a handful of retailers, sold out last year.

More than 3,300 stores now carry Mana. This year, Rasmussen and Szasz introduced another drink, Health Energy Potion, and a third beverage is in the works. The names of the drinks are references to in-game potions that restore a character’s strength and magic.

“We’re big video game geeks,” noted Szasz, who along with Rasmussen is co-chief executive of Santa Monica-based Harcos.

Xfuel, a startup founded by two teen brothers in Livingston, N.J., also markets a drink for video gamers. But Harcos’ packaging sets it apart.

Harcos originally sold the drink in glass bottles, but there was a significant breakage problem.

“It was an epic, epic failure,” Szasz said, so the bottles are now plastic.

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