Where do you fall in the gaming chair debate?

destructoid.com:

I have a confession: I’ve never owned a gaming chair, nor have I ever really felt the need to get a gaming chair (well, maybe except for the Hello Kitty x Razer collab, but that’s only because it’s Hello Kitty). For one thing, they’re always super expensive, and I’m trying to ball on a budget over here. I’ve also heard mixed things from my friends — for the most part, they say they’re not super comfortable, although my roommate loves that it’s nice and firm and makes them sit up straighter. As someone who prefers soft, squishy chairs and mattresses, I’m not sold.

Yesterday I saw this TikTok come across my Twitter feed (man, what a 2022 sentence) and I thought the user @Kesswylie had a pretty good theory about why those good ol’ gaming chairs can make our backs ache after a while. His theory is that when companies started making chairs that they wanted to specifically brand as “gaming chairs,” they just made them look as cool as possible. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all, because apparently it’s only a gaming chair if it comes in one shape and design.

He then goes on to argue that regular office chairs are your best bet when it comes to comfort, because “companies want to improve peak performance of employees so that they are fine sitting in their office chair for over ten hours straight without hurting their health,” an idea that he calls “dystopian.” @Kesswylie doesn’t cite any sources that support this idea, and some people in the replies argue that if it’s all about aesthetics, corporations are doing the same thing, because they’re designing for what will look good in an office. If nothing else it makes you think a bit more about what kind of chair you choose to spend a majority of your day in.

Fun fact. Gaming