Razing Towards the Future with Razer's Min-Liang Tan

It's busy times at Razer as per usual. The company seems to always add new product areas and concepts to their line-up, and recently we had an opportunity to talk to CEO Min-Liang Tan about the state of things and what's next, including everything from esports to <a href="http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/500023/Razer+CEO+Inevitable+that+VR+killer+app+will+come/>VR</a>.

Gamereactor: Where do you see Razer today, your position and the direction the company is going in?

MLT: Well I think long and short today in the industry we are considered probably the definitive life sell brand for gamers everywhere, right? So any gamer in the world will be familiar with Razer, they know our brand, they know what we stand for, they know our motto "for gamers by gamers" but I think over and above I'm incredibly gratified and honoured for Razer to be recognised as probably one of the most innovative companies in the world, We just came off our seventh best of CES win in Vegas. So i think on the innovation and design and technology aspect that is something we are also truly recognised with.

And I think on the third bit following the brand and the design innovation as well as technology I think the third facet of Razer is we really our focus on gamers, that has always remained from the founding of the company till today. And that has always been the same so I think we stand alone in terms of companies all over the world that 100% focus on gamers be it with its peripherals, systems or software and remain hyper focused on gamers and that's what we are.

GR: Let's dig a little deeper into that second part with innovation. Razer certainly doesn't seem afraid to dip its toes into new areas. What goes into that decision process?

MLT: I think fundamentally one huge difference between us and many other companies, well, two big differences, is that first up at Razer all our engineering and design is all done in house. I think at many of the other companies out there, they outsource their design or engineering to companies, to factories in China or Taiwan. For us you know we do end to end level of design work. All the way from concept to idea, from engineering to manufacturing I think we take a lot of that in house and we do all of that ourselves at Razer, so that's the first thing that's completely different from everyone else.

Now the second thing that is completely different from everyone else is our single minded focus on gamers so traditional companies will say that they are good at making mice and keyboards so I'm going to add on instead of just productivity mice and keyboards I'm going to add on a gaming line because I think we are going to be able to make money off that. Likewise I think with laptop companies or system companies that's what they do business laptops or productivity laptops lets just add a gaming laptop to that. Now that's the second big difference I think for Razer, because we are probably one of the few companies in the world that put the gamer right in the center of everything we do and that's essentially the two big differences that allows us to do all kinds of crazy stuff in gaming. People call us the mad wizards of gaming or the Tony Stark of gaming and stuff like that because we constantly design new things that are incredibly different from the status quo and just for gamers. And having the enginnering and design capabilities and the focus on gamers allows us to do that

GR: What can you tell us about the new products or prototypes that you showed us at CES this year?

MLT: So at CES this year I think we created quite a lot of excitement. There were two big products that we launched. There was Project Valerie, the world's first triple screen monitor laptop and we've also got Project Ariana which is in a single line it's a projector that allows you to bring games inside the room itself.

With Project Valerie we essentially designed the world's first triple screen laptop. You can unfold the laptop and it gives you a super immersive view of that and that got a ton of best CES awards. It was probably one of the most decorated products at the show. Ariana is kind of hard for me to explain, but essentially what we have done is we've gotten the game content and pulled it out of the screen and so that it is projected into your entire room. So if you think about it, it's like a VR experience without a VR headset. So that actually won the official best of CES at the show this year. It is our seventh straight best of CES win.

GR: With these sort of prototype products, same as with VR, we're still waiting to see whether the technology is going to be viable in terms of getting applications, whether it will take off or not. There's a risk in being there on the cutting edge of technology. How do you view that risk?

MLT: I think fundamentally at Razer we're not one of those traditional companies where we care about market sizes and stuff like that. I think for many people who are familiar with Razer we're a company of gamers, right. For gamers by gamers. And we really believe in that. We just design stuff that we're passionate about. So we don't measure success in terms of sales numbers. We measure our success in whether our products are well received by gamers.

What we will say is that we will definitely go where the gamers want us to go and we see success from that perspective.

GR: In terms of application, which is of course the other side of it, of course, bringing out a three screen laptop, I think everyone can see the application of that, but this room projection needs applications that make sense. How do you see that and how do you deal with that?

MLT: When it comes down to immersion every gamer wants to get immersed in their games. And that's the application. That's the single liner. Unfortunately Ariana, which is project name, it really needs you to experience it, because for many of the people who lined up, the line was huge [at CES] around the wall just to experience Ariana. It's one of those things that once you play with it, you can't imagine how games were not done or designed that way.

Making great gaming experiences is everything that we do whether it's from our laptops or peripherals or our software, Ariana is an extension to that. So Ariana is actually the third iteration of what we like to call Razer Chroma. So Chroma today is the world's biggest RGB platform. We've got 5 million devices out there, a lot of gamers use that. What we announced at CES is that we've now opened up the Chroma eco system to bring in multiple third parties like Philips and Wicked Lasers who are now integrating together with Chroma, such that when you play a game your entire room actually becomes part of the game. And Ariana is the third future generation of that, it's concept design right now, but we wanted to be able to show gamers that you can actually put yourself right in the middle of the game. So that's why it won best of CES, because it just blew everyone away who attended the demo.

GR: This progression of Chroma was that always part of the plan or has it just grown out of it?

MLT: I think it's just been the success of Razer and our products, you know what I mean. We are probably the de facto brand that every gamer thinks about. We've got millions of devices out there. Chroma is the only RGB platform natively supported by Blizzard, Activision, etc., because rarely do you hear about any game developers so invested and keen on a new platform. So like Overwatch is natively integrated with Chroma, Call of Duty is natively integrated with Chroma. And many of the other games are right now. So you've got game developers who actually write code for Chroma, so that's something that we think is just a natural progression of the work that we do.

GR: If we move on to something slightly different, how would you say that esports and the rise of esports in recent years influences the direction of Razer?

MLT: We are actually one of the pioneers of esports. We were supporting esports from the very early days. It's a little known fact, but we were actually the world's first sponsors of the first $100,000 [US dollar events] in the world. Back then $100,000 tournament was massive. Nobody ever did a hundred thousand dollar tournament and we were the first to sponsor that. We were also one of the first to actually sponsor esports athletes. Back when Fatality was one of the first esports athletes out there, this was a very long time ago. This was even before esports as a term existed, terms like pro gaming.

I think for us we've grown alongside and I think the esports community recognises that we are one of the pioneers of esports and we continue to support that. Today, Team Razer, which is our esports brand, we've got over 250 esports athletes that we sponsor. We are consistently on top of the podiums and it's a fact that more esports athletes use Razer products than anything else. So that's our continued commitment to esports.

GR: Are esports athletes important when it comes to designing new products?

MLT: The esports athletes are actually an integral part of our validation process. For us we use top engineers and designers. Designers and engineers make great product, but esports athletes actually field test prototypes for us in tournaments. They extensively give us feedback and allows us to design better product. So they're definitely a part of the design process for us.

GR: How do you view the state of VR gaming today and how do you see it evolving?

MLT: We are excited about VR. We think it's a huge platform and we are continually investing in VR. The key thing is, and we've seen some great strides for VR in 2016 and we see some great strides 2017 whether it is Oculus or Vive or Daydream or Samsung Gear, etc., I think we're all still waiting for the killer application. We're waiting for that and hopefully that comes about as soon as possible. In the meantime I think gamers are just rooting for VR at this point in time.

GR: Do you see such a killer app coming soon or do you think it will be a while still?

MLT: I think it will be a while still, but I think it's inevitable that it will come. Like all new platforms there's just so many smart people and so much money being invested in this space. We think it's a matter of time, but we are being very patient about it and we are very invested in this space.

GR: If we return to your showing at CES, there was some darker news coming out of the show as well with some prototypes having been stolen from your booth. Do you have an update on the case?

MLT: Unfortunately that is something that didn't just get covered in the tech scene it got propelled into mainstream media with like BBC and CNN covering it. It was probably a very sour note close to probably one of the most successful CESes that we've ever had. Unfortunately, Project Valerie we had two prototypes that were stolen. We've had a lot of feedback. We've provided for a $25,000 reward to anybody who can give us credible information on this. But no, unfortunately we don't have an update at this point in time.

GR: If you were to look beyond Valerie and Ariana, where do you see the next area that Razer wants to innovate in and that you think gamers will move onto next?

MLT: I think this is something that the entire industry looks to us for. We are the first to create this entire high performance gaming peripheral space. We mae the world's first gaming mouse. A few years ago when we said we were reinventing gaming laptops I think many people laughed, but today you can see that we've given birth to an entire new industry for high-performance, super thin, super powerful gaming laptops. I'm very excited that there are still a couple of new categories or industries that we hope to disrupt. That is just how we disrupted the peripheral or the laptop space. But like any good Razer product you have to wait and see, because I think the entire competitive landscape is kind of waiting for us to announce it.

So it seems as if Razer are pretty busy and won't stop being busy for a while, especially given their history of innovation. Time will only tell how their ventures like Project Ariana and Valerie turn out, but for now we're pretty excited to see what's around the corner for Razer.