Razer Gaming Products Interview with Jun Shen Chia
Sean W. Gibson / Jul 5th, 2011 No Comments
Razer is one of the leading peripheral products manufacturers within the gaming industry with a wide fleet of highly rated gaming mice, keyboards and other products. Their products are used by quite a few pro gamers and pro gaming circuits, with recreational and professionals alike using their products on a daily basis. Recently Razer announced a gorgeous mice and keyboard product line specific to the new BioWare/EA MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Already aligned with other top-notch gaming brands such as Blizzard Entertainment and others, Razer’s popularity continues to grow. We sat down with Razer’s Jun Shen Chia, their top product marketing specialist, to discuss what’s in the future for this popular company.
GI: This is Sean Gibson and Carl Armstrong from Gaming Illustrated. We’re here with Jun Shen Chia at Razer.
JSC: I’m Jun, I’m a product marketing specialist for Razer, Global Marketing Guy.
GI: So you may not have the biggest booth here at E3 but you certainly have one of the most popular. Razer is a brand name recognized by all the gamers, especially the PC gamers as a favorite. Could you talk about what it means to be in that space right now with gamers?
JSC: Well to be honest, this is something that’s really exciting for us because we’ve come out onto the show floor so well. We’ve certainly built our brand really, really big in a global way nowadays. So when we came down to E3 we wanted to show things that are really going to excite people like our Star Wars line and our 4G mice. So it’s really, really cool especially for me. I’m a big gamer guy and just to have people come down and say wow we love your products on a daily basis, that’s rewarding.
GI: One of those reasons that everyone loves your product is the quality. It may not be the cheapest but with gamers they’re power users, they’re willing to spend extra in order to get that extra quality product. Obviously you can’t give away all the secrets of the trade here but what we’re curious about is the commitment to quality and how you work that into your daily workflow.
Razer - SWTOR Mouse
JSC: One of the things that we’ve got is although we’re growing as an organization, our CEO, Min, he’s really, really big on being hands-on. Along with our design team, we really sit down and look at what’s in the space right now and what’s really necessary for gamers. Our process can take from six, seven, eight months to like a couple of years even.
With a Razer Switchblade this is something that we’ve been developing in our lab for the longest time. It’s a conceptual design, and we are excited about the new technology we have implemented into it, such as the dynamic tactile adaptive keys. This new technology is also demonstrated in our upcoming Star Ward the Old Republic keyboard. At Razer, we create cutting-edge, top quality products, and we are very proud of what we do.”
GI: Now let’s talk a little bit about marketing and branding. You have alliances in the industry, as we’ve seen, with another Southern California company in Blizzard Entertainment. We’ve seen some very exciting things as well with The Old Republic with your pranded products for BioWare/EA’s new MMORPG. What does it mean to have an alliance with those people?
JSC: Here at Razer, we are all gamers. Many of us are StarCraft fans, so it came natural to take this step in creating the StarCraft II line that enhances gameplay and gives gamers the competitive edge. So I think one of the great things is that, not only are we challenging ourselves to make products that are really competitive but products that are part of a specific game universe. So we’re challenging ourselves in a design way. For instance, with our StarCraft keyboard we’ve got an APM lighting system so it flashes when you’re really increasing your actions per minute. This is one example that enhances the gameplay of StarCraft II, and also provides a competitive edge. Or with our Star Wars line – it’s completely new, it looks like something exactly from that universe. It comes with the fonts syles and everything.
So I think what we’re doing is definitely something special because we’re showing gamers, hey we know what you’re after; not just a great product for gaming, but a great product that also represents the games you love and further enhances the gameplay experience.
Razer Chimaera 5.1
So yeah, audio is definitely something we look into especially since our CEO is really a huge fan of audio stuff. He’s like a true connoisseur. He goes and plays with amp tubes and everything. So he’s really in tune with what’s in the industry and we’re trying to incorporate that technology into our audio.
GI: I think another thing that makes you guys so popular is that especially in the competitive gaming world your mice make competitive gaming so much easier. People can just customize World of Warcraft or something other game which helps them dominate and move up to the top. You know have your sponsored guys like Swifty, letting them be able to use your product and getting the name out there is a big endorsement. Moving forward, is that one of the things that you guys like to focus on in making games easier competitively, making sponsored guys better and showcasing your products with the guys that are making it in MLG and other pro gaming circuits?
JSC: That’s a very interesting point because we just recently looked very closely at our eSports segment. We have been supporting eSports from the start. We sponsored a lot of tournaments and given a lot of products to a lot of professional gamers.
But very recently if you’ve been following this, I think in the last two or three months we’ve just revamped our team site. It’s basically very focused solely on competitive gaming. We don’t want to just throw ourselves out there and use it as an opportunity for advertising. What we’re saying is that since we’re part of gaming, we love to support our gamers. So all we’re doing is just making sure that they’ve got the products to make them really, really the best. So you’re going to see a lot more of that.
All the time our products are all competitively driven. But you’re going to see a lot more press releases and people we’re going to be supporting, like we just signed on SlayerS_`BoxeR` for StarCraft II. He has a proven track record and is huge in Korea. Because of his impressive skill set, and ability to compete on a professional level, we have added him on board with Team Razer. But we’ve got him on board now. We got more coming. And Swifty, he’s always happy to help us out. Yeah so that’s something that we’re definitely focusing on.
GI: Final question here – do you have a message to your loyal customers?
JSC: Sure. Well thank you very much for continually supporting us. We’re really happy for the support that you keep giving us and with that we’re just going to keep giving you guys better products.
GI: Sounds good. Thank you so much.
To learn more about Razer and their products, visit http://www.razerzone.com.
Sean W. Gibson
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