Robert Krakoff, Razer co-founder and gaming peripheral pioneer/pitchman, dead at 81

[Middcore]

Summary

Robert Krakoff, who was the manager for the Razer brand under its original ownership at Karna in the late 90's/early 2000's and then helped resurrect Razer as a standalone company a few years later, has passed away. 

 

Quotes

Quote

 In 1999, Krakoff was behind the first-ever gaming mouse: the Razer Boomslang. Not only was it the foundation of Razer’s now-massive lineup of gaming mice, it arguably jumpstarted the entire gaming peripheral industry. 

 

Origin stories can be complicated, and the story of Razer is more convoluted than most. Razer wasn’t actually a company until 2005 — it was the trademarked brand of an entity called Kärna, which had invented an opto-mechanical encoding wheel that could track a mouse’s movements at 2000 dpi, far higher resolution than other mice at the time. (Yes, the first gaming mouse rolled on wheels, even though optical mice were becoming a thing.)

 

Kärna went bankrupt in 2001, and Krakoff co-founded Razer the company with current CEO Min-Liang Tan in 2005, but neither man invented the gaming mouse: This case study (pdf) details how a marketing agency named Fitch created the entire Razer brand, including the name, the iconic three-headed snake logo, the website, the packaging, and most importantly, the design and engineering of the Boomslang mouse itself.

None of this is in dispute: Razer’s first press release says the Boomslang was “designed by Fitch, Inc. for kärna.”

 

But it also quotes a “Robert Krakoff, general manager for Razer” — who would not only become the public face of the company for its first decade and change, but make an incredible impression as one of the most accessible public faces of a company you might ever have the pleasure to know.

 

My thoughts

Although I'm far from a fan of Razer's modern products generally, and though there's certainly been a proliferation of silly "gamer" products of all types, I think we're better off because the original Razer (and others) recognized that gamers have different needs in peripherals than somebody scrolling spreadsheets all day. Krakoff sounds like a really interesting guy, he played in the NFL for five years and was also an author. My prayers are with his friends and family.  

 

Coincidentally, LTT did a retrospective on the Boomslang just a few weeks ago: 

 

 

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/23050951/razer-co-founder-robert-krakoff-death-razerguy

[splootbloot]

rest in peace.

 

Godspeed

[wamred]

Rest in peace

[Falkentyne]

Well that sucks

It was Krakoff who sent me beta firmware for the Deathadder when I was posting about some tracking issues a LONG time ago on the old razer forums, and IIRC, he ended up sending me a razer shirt, and some swag with it.  I still have it too.  Although the shirt is a bit faded.

 

I think I remember seeing him at E3 when they were unveiling the original Diamondback mouse.

[Salv8 (sam)]

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