ATi-Forum.de

Wir haben den Razer Guy getroffen und zu einem Interview gebeten.
Wir trafen Razer Guy alias Robert Krakoff seines Zeichens Inhaber und Gründer vom weltbekannten Unternehmen Razer. Wir stellten Fragen über die Entstehungsgeschichte von Razer und vieles andere. Sehen Sie selbst!

Um fälschliche Interpretationen aufgrund von Übersetzungen zu vermeiden, belassen wir das Interview in der englischen Sprache.

ATi-Forum.de: Welcome at ATi-Forum.de and thank you very much for the chance to do an interview with you. Please tell us first something about yourself and your position at Razer and your work.
Robert Krakoff: My name is Robert Krakoff but everyone calls me Razerguy because besides being the founder of Razer I am the longest active company member at 12 years. As the President of Razer it is my main job to represent the company to both the public and the media.

ATi-Forum.de: So we come to the first point of the interview, the origins of Razer. How did you get the idea to found Razer and how were the first years with Razer?
Robert Krakoff: I started playing console games in the late 1970’s on the Atari 2600, ColecoVision and the Mattel Intellivision. When Wolfenstein and Doom came out I began playing competitively via a modem. At that time I realized that my hardware could not keep up with the game and that the game developers were light years ahead of the hardware providers. The Razer Boomslang grew out of this need for a more accurate and competitive mouse.

The early years were fun because we were always creating new ideas but frustrating because we were always out of money. We were a very small operation with only 15 people in one office and we all had to wear many hats. When I realized that I was getting paid for playing games I knew that I was in the right business.

ATi-Forum.de: Now Razer is an international company with an good reputation. How do you see the situation of Razer on the market?
Robert Krakoff: In the last ten years the gaming world has grown to be an international force. Gamers in general are the best educated, most wired consumer in the world and they let us know what they like and dislike about our products. We were very smart in the beginning to immerse ourselves into the gaming community and that involvement has paid us tremendous dividends for not only the brand but for product innovation and technology development.

Today the gaming economy is still very strong despite the global recession. Razer is proud to say that we did not lose one person to the economic recession due to layoffs.

ATi-Forum.de: Now let us come to the products of Razer. Razer was and is famous for high quality and high tech products. But there are more and more companies which want to play with you or let us better say with Razer on the market like Microsoft Hardware, Roccat or Logitech. How do you want to fight with this competitors to stay at your position on the market or to improve it?
Robert Krakoff: Actually we see competition as a good thing. Competition makes us better and it keeps prices competitive for the end user. If one company dominated the hardware category they could get lazy and charge whatever they wanted. Competition is really good for the gamers. Also the economic recession will play a factor on who will survive. Due to this situation only the very best of the best will survive long-term. Bad times tend to separate the great companies from the pretenders.

Yes, a lot of companies have emulated Razer’s success, but there are a few areas where we stand out. One is our insane commitment to outside innovation and product validation. From day one we have immersed ourselves in the global gaming community in order to exceed the unmet needs of the gamer and provide a real advantage to using our products.

Secondly we design, engineer and develop every product we make today. We now have two major design/development studios on two continents.

And lastly we design and develop all of our own firmware, drivers and add-ons in house – something that makes Razer so unique and advanced.

ATi-Forum.de: First there was a huge boom with First Person Shooter, now there are MMO-Games. How do you see this transformations and how important is it that Razer react to the market?
Robert Krakoff: A couple of years ago we started using an internal slogan for development … we called it “the right mouse for the right hand”. What this means to us was that there are so many hands, styles of play, sensitivity differences and game genres that we didn’t want to think in terms of just “gaming mice” (or any other hardware) any longer.

The DeathAdder was the first mouse to be designed for a specific user, low sens players, and the Naga is a wonderful example of a mouse developed for a MMO user. As long as we can enhance the play of a game you will see more of this in the future. Razer is opening some excellent relationships with game developers and publishers with the objective to improve game play through unique hardware devices.

ATi-Forum.de: Razer released now the MMO-Mouse Razer Naga which we reviewed. Will Razer release more products to the MMO product segment?
Robert Krakoff: Perhaps, but we need to see the response and demand from the gamers themselves before we go farther. Products like these take years to develop the right way and of course millions of dollars of investment capital. Of course we are looking at expanding the in game Add-Ons, again based on user demands.

ATi-Forum.de: How important are the MMO gamers for Razer or are they even more important than the FPS gamers?
Robert Krakoff: FPS is where we cut our baby teeth and there will always be a warm place in our hearts for that genre. MMOs and RTS are the fastest growing segment and also where many of the new gamers are coming from. You can’t play either genre on a console.

ATi-Forum.de: How do you see Razer in the future and what are your goals for the future?
Robert Krakoff: While we are first and foremost a gaming hardware company there is always the temptation to venture out toward interactive entertainment and iconic technology products in the audio and video categories. With all the talent within the company today it would be a shame to censor creativity.

ATi-Forum.de: You said, that your goal are iconic technology products in the audio and video categories. What do you mean with products in the video categories? Does it mean, that Razer will probably release an own graphic card segment?
Robert Krakoff: Unfortunately we are being tracked by a number of competitors and it would unwise to tip our hand as to specific products or even product categories. I think you will all have to wait until next year to be amazed.

ATi-Forum.de: We thank you for your time and and for the interview.
Robert Krakoff: I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to share my views with your readers – your questions are original and it’s always a pleasure to meet and greet the German gaming audience. GamesCom and of course 11 years of attending CeBIT have provided me many close relationships with both the press and our Razer fans. We are all so grateful to the gamers who have supported us for these many years and plan to keep making products that you love and help make you better gamers. So keep on gaming – it’s the most fun you can possibly have.

Wir sehen, dass wir von Razer viel erwarten können. Vielleicht sogar eine eigene Grafikkartenserie? Wir werden wohl warten müssen und sehen, was uns die Zukunft bringen wird.

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