Why are all gaming chairs so bad?

CRNeo

CRNeo

CRNeo

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This area is full of people saying "do not buy a gaming chair, they are complete ****" etc.

I'm looking at various options at the moment, quite like the look of the secret labs omega, also the gt omega element. Apparently despite the many good reviews from other sources there's an overwhelming amount of advise to say do not buy one of these chairs, your back will be destroyed, you'll be deformed, the chair will fall to bits and the material will peel etc. etc.

Yet every youtuber/streamer etc. still seems to have one.... are they all really THAT bad?

Been looking at options £250-300 and been on the likes of 2ndhnd and corporate spec but I just can't decide what to go for - I also don't want it to look awful either... I mean I quite like the steelcase please v2 but it just looks a bit .... meh.
 
Well, there's 4 main areas to judge a chair on. Looks, support, build quality and cost. gaming chairs get a bad rep because they have that gaming tax pre applied and generally are worse built, support less and cost more than a comparable office chair. There are of course exceptions but you just have to judge them on an individual basis - there are some cracking gaming chairs but they are all relatively megabucks. Looks are completely subjective of course.

as for 2ndhnd and the like, that's a whole 'nother point of discussion. If you are willing to give a reconditioned office chair a punt, then there's no gaming chair you can buy new that will compare to it for the cost. You just have to be aware that it IS a punt and you might have to deal with their CS if the chair isnt 100%. That's the gable when you're paying what, 1/5th the price of a new chair like the steelcase you mentioned.
 
CRNeo said:
Yet every youtuber/streamer etc. still seems to have one.... are they all really THAT bad?
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Being given a chair or sponsored to use one in your videos doesn't mean they'd use one as a preference IRL. It's a big money spinner as it is free advertising in literally every video they make, and with the affiliate links etc. they make a fortune from chairs that likely cost £25 to make and sell for £100's. Utter madness, but I am sure there might be one or two useable chairs out of the hundreds available.
 
CRNeo said:
I'm looking at various options at the moment, quite like the look of the secret labs omega, also the gt omega element.
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Looks aren't everything. Have you actually sat in any of them, though?

Go look at all the decent chairs made by actual chair manufacturers rather than gaming companies and, paying especial attention to the ones designed for long periods of use, and the ones designed for support.
Notice how no 'Gamer' chair ever looks anything like those designs.

CRNeo said:
Apparently despite the many good reviews from other sources there's an overwhelming amount of advise to say do not buy one of these chairs, your back will be destroyed, you'll be deformed, the chair will fall to bits and the material will peel etc. etc.
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Based on my limited experience of other people who bought these things, the chairs certainly are cheaply made overpriced junk that will fail far sooner than you'd believe...

CRNeo said:
Yet every youtuber/streamer etc. still seems to have one.... are they all really THAT bad?
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As above - Stuff given out as freebie advertising. Doesn't mean it's any good.
 
I kinda agree with all the comments above to an certain extent.... I mean they can't be /that/ bad, these guys must be thriving and selling loads of chairs and surely they can't be purely surviving off the fact the chairs kinda look cool?

Also most people seem to say they are overpriced but yet only really compare the pricing to that of very high end office chairs 2nd hand... I've yet to see a really good brand new office chair recommended in the £200-300 price range.

My current office chair is a standard leather type affair like this...

https://www.bestbuy-officechairs.co.uk/media/img/shop/pd/010821.jpg

** Do Not Hotlink Images **

It is real leather mind, hence why I suspect it's lasted so long, it was very expensive and very 'comfy' having said that I'm not sure that it's offering any decent support, even at full height it's quite low and the tilt lock is fubar so it keeps pinging forwards. (hence the lookout for a new chair) I'd have thought even the likes of a secretlab chair would be better than this?

This other one has interested me on 2ndhnd as it doesn't look too bad and I like the idea of folding the arms out the way when I want to... not sure if it's any good mind. It's hard at the moment to really find somewhere to try all these out before you commit to buy (or even impossible in some cases)

https://www.2ndhnd.com/products/ahr...headrest-and-folding-arms?variant=19788064006
 
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What you've got there is a bog standard office chair, rather than the mega-bucks ones which gaming chairs are being compared to by the people vilifying gaming chairs.

A cheap gaming chair will likely be no better than that. But a good gaming chair (talking £300 to £500 probably) will be far superior. Then again, a high end office chair (£1000+) will be better again, ergonomically.

I have a Noble Hero. It is night and day better quality in every way than the office chairs I used to have - which were similar to the one you picture.
 
I challenge you to find any gaming chair that doesn't have some people somewhere claiming it's complete garbage and caused them permanent injury etc...

You will always get people with chronic back problems expecting their chair to magically fix it, which won't happen, then putting the blame on the chair and complaining loudly online.

Personally I'm using a generic "leather executive chair" which I've had for about 22-24 years. In terms of ergonomics it's garbage - you can adjust the seat height, that's it. No lumbar support pillow, no headrest, the arms are fixed position and not removable. I've got a nice fat cushion on the seat since the padding gave out years ago, and I added my own padding (foam wrapped in leather) to the arms since they are hard plastic. The important thing though is posture - mine is not ideal but I've had this chair so long that my posture fits it perfectly, I don't get any back problems. In fact I don't dare replace it in case I then start to suffer from problems!

In terms of what to look for though, faux leather (PU leather) will certainly start to crack/disintegrate/whatever after a few years. If you want your chair to last longer than that, either go for real leather (which seems to be very expensive now for some reason) or cloth instead. Other than that just look for suitable adjustment features and make sure you use them properly!
 
bazzabear said:
What you've got there is a bog standard office chair, rather than the mega-bucks ones which gaming chairs are being compared to by the people vilifying gaming chairs.
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I don't go in for the megabucks Ergo-Posture-Humanform-IKEA-Whatever type chairs, even if Jennifer Aniston does appear in their adverts. I just look at the features of each within the same price bracket, and always find proper office chairs either to have more and/or are better built. Most of the gaming chairs have some cool features, but they're too flimsily built to last.
The other way to look at it is to see how many non-gamer users are using the gamer chairs. The requirements are exactly the same, so if they were any good they'd be more popular outside of the target market niche.
 
Randomface74 said:
Well, I have the noblechairs hero real leather, that's a good chair. Not cheap, but you won't be throwing it away in a year either.
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Dunno about that.. I've had mine for a year and a half and I'm ready to whip my old chair out the garage and throw the hero in the local skip. 2 replacement parts later and the thing still wobbles and creaks and clangs everytime I move on it... Biggest waste of money I've spent on a chair. There was a post about the hero chairs on here recently that got deleted with about 20 replies reporting differing problems with them. Bad for business I assume:cry:
 
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because most "gaming" chairs are just $50 chairs bougfht off alibaba with X brand's logo stitched onto it

Once you actually look into it what you'll find is that more than half the price of your chair comes from 1) Shipping cost and 2) Storage cost. It's insane how expensive it is to ship and store chairs

Buying local made chairs would be better
 
Gaming chairs are usually alright, they just tend to be lower quality than their price tag implies. I've had mine for about 7 years now and the foam has deformed. It needs a pillow to make it comfortable now.

If you have the money and like the look of the chair then I wouldn't worry about it, but you tend to get similar quality for less money with mid end office chairs.
 
Coowhan said:
Dunno about that.. I've had mine for a year and a half and I'm ready to whip my old chair out the garage and throw the hero in the local skip. 2 replacement parts later and the thing still wobbles and creaks and clangs everytime I move on it... Biggest waste of money I've spent on a chair. There was a post about the hero chairs on here recently that got deleted with about 20 replies reporting differing problems with them. Bad for business I assume:cry:
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They would have been better off having Noble reply saying "sorry a small amount of chairs are defective, if we haven't already supplied replacement parts, contact us and we will".

Unless of course all their chairs are defective.

I like my Leap. A reasonably priced simple fabric chair without the decoration would have got me as a customer. The focus on gaming is the reason why i discovered Stealcase.
 
Its very much worth the time to visit a showroom that has these expensive office chairs for demo-ing. Was originally going to get a gesture but when I visited and tried it against the leap v2 i found myself very much preferring the latter.
 
I've tried all sorts - rarely anything lasts more than a year for me - even on the expensive chairs the material starts to get crazy cracking after awhile or mechanical parts are no longer as firm as they used to be even after tightening, etc. etc.

I've just grabbed a mid-price office chair for now but the ergonomics suck - the surfaces have actually stood up OK but the gas lift is starting to struggle (I'm not even that heavy - 11 stone/70kg).
 
Rroff said:
I've tried all sorts - rarely anything lasts more than a year for me - even on the expensive chairs the material starts to get crazy cracking after awhile or mechanical parts are no longer as firm as they used to be even after tightening, etc. etc.

I've just grabbed a mid-price office chair for now but the ergonomics suck - the surfaces have actually stood up OK but the gas lift is starting to struggle (I'm not even that heavy - 11 stone/70kg).
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I find they last the obligatory 2-3 years before they begin to wane. My office chair I moved from work to home is still in good nick and reasonably comfortable. My 'gaming' chair I have had for near seven years now but it makes strange noises and the arse padding is shot.

They do need to find a middle ground and not call them gaming or office and cater for 'chairs that dont claim to be gaming nor office - just comfortable and practical'. :D
 
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