The Red Bulletin December 2020 (UK)

RAZER TOM GUISE
PLAY
The game
changer
How one video gamer’s need to
skill-up changed the way we play
Min-Liang Tan is currently
playing Fall Guys: Ultimate
Knockout, the cutesy
multiplayer battle royale game
that has taken the world by
storm. And the 43-year-old
Singaporean has an edge over
his opponents: all the gear –
including the PC – that he’s
playing on was designed by
him and built by his gaming
company, Razer. The business
earned him a place on the top
40 list of the most powerful
people in video games in 2012,
and five years later, at 40, he
became Singapore’s youngest
self-made billionaire.
And yet the former lawyer's
success in the industry was
merely born out of the simple
desire to be a better player.
“When you miss a shot, you
never think, ‘It’s my skill,’” Tan
laughs. “I just wanted a better
mouse, so we built one.” That
was in 1999, and the result was
the Boomslang, the world’s
first dedicated gaming mouse.
Today, Razer applies that
same mindset to building
gaming laptops, headsets,
smartphones and more, and
the brand – and Tan – have
generated something akin
to a personality cult. “We
get thousands of photos of
people with Razer logo
tattoos,” he says. “Somebody
even tattooed my face on
himself,” Last year, a fan
even named their son Razer
after the company.
For Tan, though, this is
less about corporate success
and more about community.
“I’ve never thought of myself
as a CEO,” he says. “I’ve
always been a gamer.” And
Tan applies that ethos to
everything he does: “It’s
about finding that competitive
advantage to help you win.”
I’ve learnt to trust
my instincts
“With the Boomslang, we
didn’t set out to make a huge
amount of money. It was more
like, ‘This is something I need,
and I’m sure there are others
who’d want it, too.’ When we
redesigned the gaming laptop
to be super-thin, we got a lot
of hate. Everybody said, ‘This
isn’t what gamers want – they
want something thick and
powerful.’ But we brought in
thermal engineers and made
it thin and powerful. Now it’s
the industry standard.”
If it works for gamers,
it’s for everyone
“It’s cool to see non-gamers
using our products. We’ve got
medical professionals getting
them for their precision, and
I’ve seen a space programme
using our mousepads on TV.
People don’t do competitive
Excel spreadsheets, but
VENTURE
Gaming
Min-Liang Tan: gamer, billionaire businessman and zombie (as
seen in the 2015 gaming spinoff film Dead Rising: Watchtower)
we’ve had requests from the
financial industry saying,
‘Our traders are using Razer
mice and keypads to do fast
actuations. Would you make
office stuff?’ But we’re not
going mainstream – we’re
more interested in the
mainstream coming to us.”
Class of 2020: the Razer
BlackShark V2 Pro, a state-ofthe-art
wireless gaming headset
Bad ideas are poorly
executed good ideas
“We were the first to go with
the whole matte-black theme
that has become the colour
for gamers. Then we added
LEDs, starting with single
colours and then RGB lighting.
Designing with light is
incredibly difficult: if you
use too little, it’s pointless;
too much and it’s garish.
I’m in meetings about how
many millimetres of light
we’re going to put into the
stairway of our new building
– it’s four storeys high, and
we’re doing multiple models
just to get the perfect
amount of light.
Great solutions are
always in demand
“Recently, I slipped a disk.
Then I got a whole bunch
of gamers saying, ‘I’ve got
the same problem from
playing too many games.’
I summoned my head of
engineering and said, ‘What
are you gonna do about it?’
And he goes, ‘You should
be asking an orthopaedic
surgeon.’ But I said, ‘You
guys are going to design
something, because I’m sure
other people will want the
solution. Let’s come up with
something good and maybe
it’ll ship hundreds of millions
of dollars of product.’”
Sometimes I need to
keep my mouth shut
“One gamer really wanted
a Razer toaster. I said, ‘Get
to a million likes and maybe
I’ll make it.’ I check in on
him from time to time. Then
somebody said, ‘I’ll get a
Razer toaster tattoo,’ and
I made the mistake of
saying, ‘Get 10 people to
do it and I’ll make one.’ I think
today they may have 15
people with that tattoo.
I promised to make it, but
I didn’t say when. We’ve had
some early prototypes, but
it’s not up to par yet, So I’m
still working on it. It’s got to
be the ultimate toaster.”
razer.com
THE RED BULLETIN 87