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In , the ergonomic office chair made its debut.
The astronauts aboard the Skylab Space Station were then observed by NASA scientists. While resting, the astronauts always assumed neutral body postures. Scientists discovered that these positions are the most effective at offloading musculoskeletal tension and thereby lowering spinal pressure.
There were three core ergonomic principles in the first ergonomic office chair.
-Lumbar supported recline: a 90-130° recline combined with a supported lumbar curve puts the least amount of pressure on the spinal discs.
-Adjustable arm support: armrests that adapt to the user relieve neck and shoulder strain. This lowers disc pressure even further.
-Seated movement: changing positions frequently keeps muscles engaged while increasing circulation. This reduces the negative consequences of sedentary behaviour.
The Herman Miller Aeron was introduced in to meet the needs of desktop computer users.
A series of economic developments triggered the rise of the professional Esports business around this period.
Cheap Office Seating Takes Over in
Non-ergonomic workplace chairs remained common despite the rise of healthy ergonomic seating. The cost was a major consideration. B2B sales to firms, schools, and government offices are the center of the multibillion-dollar office chair market.
In , the world's first gaming chairs were released.
On the bright planes of Michigan at the turn of the century, a young company sprang forward to create luxurious racecar seats. Their release coincided with the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing market meltdown. They had a lot of chairs but no one to sell them to because the car industry was decimated.
An unexpected benefit!
DXRacer had been the startup, and it focused on the growing popularity of video games.
Esports and newly discovered streaming sites were the talk of the town. Ordinary chairs, on the other hand, were not designed for long periods of sitting. Gamers were essentially choosing between their careers and their health.
DXRacer introduced the world's first gaming chair, a guardian angel, in . The ergonomic and comfortable racecar seats were a dream come true. Thus came the era of racing-style gaming chairs. The design was used as a template for future projects.
The neutral posture technique was transferred into an ergonomic office chair twenty-one years later.
Early Esports players required the same ergonomic support as office workers, but without the formality. The world's first racing-style gaming chair.
As the popularity of competitive Esports expanded, more players turned to gaming seats for a competitive advantage.
(-) Furniture companies starts creating their own gaming chairs
Gaming chairs were at once an intriguing novelty for furniture manufacturers. They immediately discovered, however, that manufacturing gaming chairs provides much-needed variety to their existing furniture inventory.
The United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Sweden are home to the world's largest and most prestigious furniture companies. However, it was Chinese furniture businesses that were the first to try to replicate DXRacer and AKRacing's achievements.
The early imitations were not very effective. Sure, they looked like DXRacer chairs, but instead of high-quality materials like steel framework, they used low-density foam and cheap plywood.
Gaming Chairs with Speakers were already available from major brands ()
Gaming chairs were, on many levels, simply a better way for gamers to sit. People wanted to know if they were comfortable, if they affected a player's concentration, and if they were even worthwhile.
On the other hand, GTRacing produced more than just a gaming chair. It provided music to all of the snoozers. They followed in the footsteps of Homall creators, using the DXRacer blueprint. They saved money while maintaining a pleasant gaming experience.
GTRacing designed a chair that is more comfy than Homall's, less expensive than DXRacer's, and comes with a unique feature: speakers.
The company is the world’s best Gaming Chair With Bluetooth Speaker Wholesale supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.
German Furniture Companies ,Maxnomic and Noblechairs Enter The Market (, )
German engineering is well-known around the world. When Homall became popular in , it was also noticed in Europe. Engineers at Maxnomic and Noblechairs in Germany began developing their own designs.
It took them several years, but these office furniture businesses have undoubtedly created the greatest ergonomic gaming chair to date. The combination of ergonomic expertise and German engineering resulted in the development of gaming seats that resemble office chairs.
: Secretlab Rises To The Top
A couple of Starcraft players in Singapore saw a quality gap in the gaming chair business. Alaric Choo and Ian Alexander Ang formed a business in to address the problem. By , the company has sold $15 million worth of chairs.
In Secretlab advanced to a new level.
Heliconia Money Management established partnerships with its first round of venture capital. The Series chair enhancements were then launched. These were vastly superior to prior models.
Gaming Chairs becomes Extremely Popular in
The global shift to working from home has thrown the gaming chair sector into the spotlight. Chair sales exploded in late February and haven't stopped since. Many popular brands were out of supply and trying to keep up with demand by early spring.
Price increases in
In the gaming chair business, three major events in were highlighted. First, industry-wide price increases resulted from a substantial increase in transportation and materials prices. Several brands increased their pricing by 10%. Secretlab and Herman Miller, for example, have increased their costs by more than 20%!v
Final Thought
We have no way of knowing what new designs the future will bring. We do know, however, that the gaming chair market has grown from zero sales in to over $1 billion in .
What follows has already been established. The world is transitioning to a multi-device, always-on computer era. The Esports and gaming chair industries have already risen to the occasion.
The science of healthy sitting landed from outer space in . Then came the internet, the dotcom bubble, other economic crashes, and the rise of pro esports. These events led a Chinese company called DXRacer to release the first ever gaming chair in . That spawned an industry that now generates hundreds of millions in sales each year. Find here the complete history of gaming chairs from to .
DXRacer released the Formula Series gaming chair in . But the racing-style gaming chair origin story started in . That was when NASA first discovered the biomechanical science of healthy sitting.
Yet, it was the rise of the internet and three economic crises that made DXRacers prototype a reality.
Condensed history: in , a global recession hit South Korea. Jobless teens flocked to internet cafes to play Starcraft. By , South Korean gameplay got so hot that corporations like Samsung started sponsoring televised tournaments using cheap, non-ergonomic office chairs. In , emerging ergonomic science gave DXRacer a blueprint to convert exotic car seats into gaming chairs. DXRacer arrived in the U.S. as the official chair of Twitchcon . Soon after, elite streamers like Ninja, Tfue, and Pokimane all started using DXRacer chairs. The rest is history.
Youtube Version: The Complete History of Gaming Chairs (14:18)
was the year that gaming chairs broke through to garner mainstream attention. Then, COVID lockdowns closed offices worldwide. At that time, the office furniture industry was almost wholly focused on B2B sales.
When lockdowns surged the demand for WFH furniture, most major players (Herman Miller, Steelcase, etc) were not equipped to handle consumer sales.
Well-developed gaming chair business-to-consumer (B2C) operations filled the gap, breaking sales records. That skyrocketed gaming chairs to the mainstream as viable ergonomic chairs for working from home.
Homo sapiens have existed for around 200,000 years. For around 90% of that time, they lived hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Sitting full-time didnt become a thing until the late s.
Roughly, the history of the desk chair is only 120 or so years long. The history of the ergonomic chair landed from outer space in :
The story of the ergonomic office chair begins in . Then, NASA scientists observed astronauts aboard the Skylab Space Station.
The astronauts always fell into neutral body postures while resting. Scientists learned that these positions best offload musculoskeletal stress, thereby reducing spinal pressure.
Neutral Posture Origins & Biomechanics
In , the World Wide Web first became publicly available. Adoption rose steadily in America, reaching around 75 million users by .
also saw the release of Windows and the Starcraft video game. With so many computing attractions, sedentary habits began to rise, while activity levels fell.
Within a similar timeframe, U.S. teen and childhood obesity levels also surged. As symptoms of excessive sitting mounted, it opened the door for new seating technologies to emerge.
Sedentary Health Risks In The Computing Era
NASA documented its neutral posture findings in the s. This clarified the damage done by unhealthy sitting. In , Herman Miller ported NASAs tech into the Aeron, the worlds first mass-marketed ergonomic chair.
The Aeron included three adjustable features. In , the 1st edition Handbook of Human Factors & Ergonomics would define these are the core features any chair needed to qualify as ergonomic:
This formula proved a hit. Soon after, a flood of competing ergonomic chairs hit the market.
Thus began the story of the ergonomic office chair industry. Track its evolution:
A Complete History Of Ergonomic Office Chairs
The Aerons asking price of $ wasnt outlandish in Silicon Valley circles. As internet adoption rose, venture capital flowed into Silicon Valley dotcom startups.
From until , the NASDAQ composite stock market index rose 800%. Many promising dotcom companies raised cash through IPOs. Many employees received stock options and became instant (on-paper) millionaires.
In , American consumers set a record for new car sales. That year saw 16.9 million new passenger cars, pickups, minivans and sport-utility vehicles sold(1). In , DXRacer was one of many Chinese companies to descend into the red-hot market.
In , it wasnt clear that the dotcom bubble had burst. DXRacer arrived from China and set up offices in Michigan (the U.S. car manufacturing hub) in . The companys plan was to sell exotic car seats to dotcom millionaires.
However, by , it was clear that the dotcom bubble had burst. As the demand for exotic cars dried up, so did the demand for DXRacers exotic car seats.
Despite this setback, DXRacer continued its Michigan operations, waiting for the economy to rebound.
The 1st edition Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics was published in . It was the first major publication to port NASAs neutral posture findings into ergonomic seating.
This provided designers (like the ones at DXRacer) with a clear blueprint. To qualify as ergonomic, a chair needs adjustable lumbar support, adjustable arms, and a reclining backrest.
Now in its 5th edition, the Handbook remains the defining text for design engineers, human-computer interaction specialists, safety professionals, and others.
After the dotcom bubble burst, high-end furniture sales slowed. Yet, the office furniture industry still thrived by focusing on B2B sales.
The industrys main clients were corporations, schools, and government offices. Most facility buyers in those sectors focus on price, style, and durability when buying chairs in bulk(2).
As a result, ergonomic chairs remained niche items for senior executives. To best serve the bottom line, most office workers still use basic office chairs.
This formula was lucrative, earning the office furniture industry billions in annual revenue. That led them to ignore the consumer seating needs from an emerging esports industry.
A post 9-11 stock market crash crippled the U.S. economy. The Iraq War (-) resulted in higher gas prices. Then, sales of gas-guzzling American cars plummeted.
As the dotcom bubble further deflated the NASDAQ, America lost 5.7 million (33%) of its manufacturing jobs(3).
That left DXRacer stuck with warehouses of exotic car seats unlikely to be sold. By , the company clearly needed a miracle to survive.
With the U.S. auto market crumbled, Nissan Motor Company engineers got a chance to innovate. They used NASAs neutral body posture (NBP) foundation to develop ergonomic car seats.
Like astronauts, car drivers need support to efficiently operate a vehicle for long periods. With good ergonomic support, they should suffer less fatigue.
To achieve that, Nissan developed a prototype to support a neutral spine. Based on NASAs NBP studies, it aimed to reduce muscular loading on a drivers back, pelvis, and torso.
In , Nissan published the results of its study. It confirmed that its prototype seat supported the spine from the pelvis to the head and improved blood flow.
The driver was able to maintain a near-perfect NBP in the experimental seat. That significantly reduced fatigue over long periods of sitting(4).
Condensed history: DXRacer released the first gaming chair in . Early product testing was done in China. In , the company arrived in the U.S. as the official chair of TwitchCon. The same year, Secretlab and Maxnomic arose with higher-end pro esports gaming chairs. Soon after, elite streamers like Ninja, Tfue, and Pokimane all started using DXRacer chairs. When COVID lockdowns hit in , the massive office furniture industrys B2B model halted. That freed gaming chair companies (with well-developed B2C processes) to fill mainstream demand for ergonomic WFH chairs. Today, gaming chairs generate hundreds of millions in annual B2C sales.
Youtube Clip: The - Rise of DXRacer Gaming Chairs
Unable to sell their exotic car seats, DXRacer engineers got creative. The same year Nissan published its ergonomic car seat study, DXRacer engineers slapped wheels onto car seats to make desk chairs.
In , DXRacer released the Formula Series, the worlds first gaming chair. It came with adjustable lumbar support, adjustable arms, and a reclining backrest. That qualified it (per the Human Factors Handbook) as fully ergonomic.
The F-Series provided full back support with deep recline functionality and adjustable armrests. It also came with adjustable neck and lumbar cushions to keep the spine aligned. Caster wheels attached to a 5-pointed base with adjustable height.
From its factories in China, DXRacer sent Formula Series chairs to local internet cafes. Then, word began to spread about a new type of affordable seating that let gamers sit comfortably for long periods.
Video Summary: The Rise of DXRacer in Asia
DXRacer brand: review all models
Over the next two years since the DXRacer launch, the esports industry hummed along. Annual prize revenues jumped from $4.6 million in to $6.4 million in . But the player ergonomics were still very basic.
Also in , AKRacing launched as the second big gaming chair company in the industry. Like DXRacer, this Taiwanese outfit made luxury car seats in a crumbling auto market.
Seeing the success of DXRacer and the growth of the esports market, it was a no-brainer. They started making their own versions of DXRacers blueprint. They also jumped into esports promotion. Over the years, AKRacing has sponsored the World Cyber Games and partnered with major teams like Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team Dignitas.
Circa , AKRacing chairs continue to follow the original DXRacer blueprint. All models feature a tall padded backrest, adjustable arms, and adjustable support pillows.
AKRacing brand: review all models
In response to AKRacings challenge, DXRacer decided to boost the profile of its chairs. First, they secured a partnership deal with the World Cyber Games (WCG):
Then, the company followed up by providing official chairs for the and WCG as well. Like the WCG, both of those tournaments were held in China.
In , DXRacer began marketing its chairs to American audiences. They did so with a splash, providing the official chairs for TwitchCon in Long Beach, California.
That brought awareness of gaming chairs to the worlds most influential streamers. For the next few years, popular streamers like Ninja, Tfue, Pokimane, and TimtheTatman all streamed while using DXRacer gaming chairs.
Best Full-Back Gaming Chairs : Cutting Edge Ergo-Tech
Video Summary: The Rise of DXRacer in America
As DXRacer gaming chairs gained popularity, several cheap knockoffs started flooding Chinese websites. These looked like DXRacer gaming chairs, but inside, they used cheap plywood stuffed with surplus foam.
For most people, DXRacers concept was too new and too expensive (around $300 per chair). Those who tried cheap knockoffs were disappointed. As a result, gaming chairs remained a niche product only of interest to hard-core gamers.
That kept gaming chairs out of reach of the masses until Homall showed up in .
In , Chinese furniture company Homall launched a gaming chair division. Their mission was to reverse-engineer the best features of DXRacer chairs to sell cheaper products. Instead of cheap plywood, they used a cheap steel frame.
In place of cheap foam, they used high-density foam blocks. The result was a hit, bringing the concept of gaming chairs to the masses. Today, Homalls Classic Series remains one of Amazons best-selling cheap gaming chairs.
In December , a pair of Singaporean semi-pro Starcraft players founded Secretlab. Ian Ang and Alaric Choo came together to make the best gaming chair on the market. For the next two years, they did all of their R&D in Singapore.
In early , Secretlab chairs first became available in U.S. markets. Its flagship Titan gaming chair set itself apart from the DXRacer design with these groundbreaking features:
After three years of steady growth, Secretlab broke through with record-breaking sales during COVID lockdowns.
Needforseat.com launched in to sell DXRacer chairs in European markets. In , the company started making its own gaming chairs under the Maxnomic brand name.
Like the Secretlab Titan, Maxnomics flagship chair had an integrated, depth-adjustable lumbar support system. Also like the Titan, Maxnomics chairs were first marketed to pro esports players.
Secretlabs U.S. launch was a rousing success. That year, the company generated $15 million in chair sales. In , the company generated $44.5 million in sales.
Also in , Secretlab secured a round of venture capital from Heliconia Capital Management. Next, they released Series chair upgrades. These offered big improvements over previous models.
Starting in , Secretlab began amassing partnerships with elite pro esports teams. First came Team Secret, then Cloud9, Astralis, T1, and more.
Beyond esports, Secretlab has also penetrated into mainstream entertainment markets. Via an HBO partnership, Secretlab offers three Game of Thrones gaming chairs. A Warner Bros. deal resulted in a Batman, Joker, and Harley Quinn chair.
To date, no other gaming chair brand has achieved such a massive level of exposure.
Secretlab and a few other gaming chair brands broke sales records in FYE . Chinese cheap chair maker Anji Wanbao reported that their sales doubled. Secretlabs FYE earnings were more than double that of the previous year.
In contrast, lockdowns decimated office furniture sales. For one thing, that killed demand from the office furniture industrys B2B clients (schools, corporations, and government offices).
For another, most big office chair brands (Herman Miller, Steelcase, etc) were only equipped for B2B sales to corporate clients. In sharp contrast, most top gaming chair brands had well-developed business-to-consumer (B2C) platforms in place.
As a result, when the demand for office furniture surged during lockdowns, big office furniture players were left on the sidelines. That freed several brands (including Secretlab) to break through to reach mainstream appeal.
Learn more: Lockdown Trends: Gaming Chair Vs Office Furniture Industries
Secretlab is the clear gaming chair industry leader in . For one thing, it has more top-50 gaming chair partners than any other chair brand.
For another, the company has been breaking its own sales records each year since . (Secretlab is the only privately-owned gaming chair brand that shares its annual sales figures).
Despite steady year-over-year growth, post-lockdown shipping and materials expenses have been extreme. As a result, despite earning $329 million in FYE , the company expects to post a net loss for the first time ever.
Key takeaway: factoring in sales from all other brands, its likely the entire industry generates close to a billion dollars in annual sales. However, because of high production costs, profit margins are likely very slim.
Secretlab Revenue Report For FYE -
Condensed history: the rise of televised esports began in South Korea in the late s. Most players sat on cheap, non-ergonomic desk chairs. DXRacer started sponsoring esports tournaments in . In , the Twitch streaming platform launched. In , DXRacer provided the official chairs for Twitchcon . Soon after, many of the worlds most famous streamers started using DXRacer gaming chairs.
The pro esports story begins in . That year, Atari released Space Invaders for the Atari . To promote the game, the company held a national championship. Over 10,000 people turned up to the New York finals, making it the first large-scale esports tournament(5).
The gaming ergonomics of the time were horrendous. Players sat on steel chairs while craning their necks to see TVs positioned too high. This type of gamer seating was the norm until the early s in South Korea.
The birth of pro esports was the result of a South Korean economic crash. From the s and s, four Tiger economies arose in Asia. Hong Kong and Singapore became international financial centers. South Korea and Taiwan developed into high-tech electronics hubs.
In Korea, power corrupted. Prosperity led to cronyism and corruption between chaebols (Korean mega-corporations like Samsung) and the government(7).
Chaebols wasted huge sums on wasteful projects like luxury hobby cars and feature-length films. They also maintained bloated rosters of overpaid, unionized employees.
In late , several chaebols were unable to pay off their loans. Staff cuts began, and protests broke out. Then, the stock market crashed, halving the value of the Korean currency(8).
The South Korean government got an emergency $58 billion loan from the IMF, but it wasnt enough. Japan, America, and others also lent cash to save the Korean economy from collapsing.
A year after the financial crash, Blizzard Entertainment released Starcraft, a complex strategy game. Gameplay involves tactical thinking and crisp resource management.
Success demands a high level of manual dexterity. The best Starcraft players can execute hundreds of discrete actions per minute.
This proved a perfect fit for hordes of overeducated, underemployed Korean youth. Before the economic crash, Seoul had hundreds of stock trading cafes. After the crash, many trading cafes converted into PC bangs (gaming rooms).(9) Across hundreds of back-alley Seoul cafes, the modern concept of competitive esports was born.
Starcraft exploded in popularity. Big business interests got involved. In , Samsung and SK Telecom started putting money into pro esports teams. Korean TV channels Ongamenet and MBCGame started running Starcraft tournaments(10).
Players competed for cash prizes, with games broadcast live on each channel. Record audiences tuned in as their idols played their favorite games for high stakes. Despite all the buzz, player ergonomics remained an afterthought.
As the South Korean Starcraft frenzy took esports to new highs, ergonomics were brutal. Pictured below is the setup for the Cyber Games, with white plastic chairs for the players.
In , Call of Duty arrived and quickly became an esports classic. A year later, COD esports tournaments offered $2.8 million in cash prizes(11). In , COD tourneys offered $4.3 million in prizes. But despite growing prize pools, player ergonomics remained crude.
In , a study of UK internet users found that the average time spent online had increased to around 10 hours(12). As seated computing time went up, so did back pain cases.
Thats because as esports grew in popularity, gamers spent longer periods sitting at computers. With the crude seating of the era, back pain was inevitable.
Despite the growing need for healthier seating, it wasnt until that someone stepped up to fill it.
This year was a major turning point for the esports industry. Before the arrival of streaming services, esports were only broadcast on TV. Market penetration hit another level when the streaming service Twitch launched in .
Twitch began broadcasting tournaments online. That gave casual gamers easy access to a new spectator sport based on their favorite video games. Over the next few years, games like League of Legends, Overwatch, and Dota 2 exploded in popularity. Millions began tuning in.
A year after it launched, Twitch averaged 6 billion minutes of content(13) watched every month. Aspiring pros would spend full-time hours sitting to build an audience. Any time they left their computers, theyd risk losing viewers to another channel.
Former streamer Joe Marino nearly died pursuing a streaming career(14). His advice: Find that balance. Get up, move around do something other than sit. Standing desks help but it wont fix it. You have to move.
In , a 23-year old Taiwanese gamer ignored that advice. Chen Jung-yu paid for 23 hours at a Taipei Internet cafe. At the end of his 23 hours, the clerk noticed him sitting rigidly with a blackened face stone-cold dead(15).
With sedentary behavior on the rise, DXRacer proved to have excellent foresight. For two big reasons, their models proved the perfect solution for the era. First, gaming chairs promote good posture. Second, good posture yields physical and mental benefits that help gamers perform at a higher level.
Dynamic Neutral Postures: Gold Standard Ergonomic Method
After a well-received run testing its gaming chairs in China, DXRacer prepared to breach the U.S. market. The company became the official chair of TwitchCon in Long Beach, California.
DXRacer chairs offered a solution to the dreaded Twitch sitting disease. Whats more, unlike pricey Herman Miller chairs, DXRacer models cost under $400.
Soon after its debut at TwitchCon , many of the worlds top streamers started using DXRacer gaming chairs. THis brought gaming chairs to the attention of video gamers worldwide.
In March , Blizzard Entertainment released StarCraft, a science fiction video game. Success required strategic thinking and clever execution. This provided the perfect means for jobless, over-educated Korean youth to spend their time.
As a result, many flocked to the game. Big business began to take notice. At the same time in America, the auto industry was imploding.
Three seemingly unrelated factors brought the gaming chair into being. First, Starcraft-crazed Korean marathon gamers. Second, an auto industry crash in America. Third, a DXRacer warehouse full of unsold luxury car seats.
The gaming chair origin story resembles a classic story plotline. It begins with the introduction of a problem (poor seating). The climax comes during the lockdown, when gaming chairs reached mainstream acceptance as viable ergonomic seating.
In , gaming chairs remain a viable alternative to high-end ergonomic office chairs. While both are fully-ergonomic (adjustable lumbar + arms + recline), gaming chairs offer more versatility.
I recently did extensive testing using the best gaming and ergonomic office chairs. Pitting the Secretlab Titan Evo (gaming chair) against the Herman Miller Aeron (office chair) yielded two interesting conclusions.
First, both support biomechanically perfect neutral postures for long periods. Second, the biggest differences between these chairs impact the psyche more than the spine. Learn more:
Gaming Vs Office Chairs: Titan Evo Vs Aeron
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