Robert Razerguy Krakoff, co-founder and former president of the Razer gaming hardware company, died last week at the age of 81. You may have never heard of Krakoff’s name, but you may have been influenced by his distant legacy.
In 1999, Krakoff was behind the first gaming mouse of its kind: the Razer Boomslang. Not only was this the basis of Razer’s now huge range of gaming mice, but it could also give a new start to the entire peripheral gaming industry. Below you can see Krakoff himself in an advertisement promoting the Razer Boomslang mouse in 2002 – along with professional gamer Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, who signed a historic sponsorship deal with Razer long before the word “esports” entered the lexicon.
Origin stories can be complex, and Razer’s story is more complicated than most. Razer was not really a company until 2005 – it was a trademark of a company called Kärna, which had invented an optical-mechanical coding wheel that could track mouse movements at 2000 dpi, a far higher resolution than other mice. this time. (Yes, the first gaming mouse spun on wheels, although optical mice were becoming something.)
Kärna went bankrupt in 2001, and Krakoff co-founded Razer with current CEO Min-Liang Tang in 2005, but none of them invented the gaming mouse: This case (pdf) describes 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 disputed: Razer’s first press release said the Boomslang was “designed by Fitch, Inc.” for kärna ”.
Razerzone.com in 1999. Screenshot via online archive
But it also quotes “Robert Krakoff, general manager of Razer” – who will not only become a public face of the company for the first decade and change, but will make an incredible impression as one of the most accessible public figures of a company you can ever has the pleasure of knowing.
You’ll get a little message from Razerguy with every Razer product you buy, and his public email address wasn’t just for display. He was known for meeting fans and sitting for interviews with confused journalists who barely had followers. Sometimes he gave them jobs. According to his Facebook page, he himself studied journalism at UCLA, although he did so with a football scholarship.
He was also remarkably candid: in 2009, he told me, Sean, also an unknown journalist, that the company didn’t really need to sell any of its brand new Razer Mamba wireless mice at its then-exorbitant $ 130 price tag. The goal, he said, is to inspire a huge audience of gamers with the innovation, knowing they will choose other cheaper mice and Razer products.
A well-known leftist, he also told me that he wanted Razer to be able to make a left-handed mouse, but that he had no authority as president of the company to do so – the board had obviously decided that it made no financial sense. A year later, I smiled when I saw Razer launch the first left-handed gaming mouse, a mirror version of its best-selling DeathAdder.
While Krakoff still advised the company for years as “honorary president,” Razer was not his last act. He also founded MindFX Science, a brand that focuses on selling energy drinks and supplements that serve as a “healthy alternative to high-caffe energy drinks and pre-workout products.”
Fitness seemed to be an important part of Krakoff’s life. He played for the Los Angeles Rams for five years in the 1960s. Growing up, Krakoff said he loved playing tennis, cycling and fitness training. He and his wife, Dr. Patti Krakoff, even ran a blog focusing on fitness and nutrition tips for seniors, and wrote a book on the secrets of staying young.
Krakoff has always looked a decade younger than you might think
But under the name RM Krakoff, he also had his own literary career, writing a dozen books since 2009. After working as a copywriter, Krakoff said he put his proverbial pen where his mouth was (the ink tasted like shit). He is involved in both fiction and non-fiction, writing everything from black comedies to science fiction. His description of America Unbound: Fighting Demons in a Disappeared Democracy is … a lot.
On Krakoff’s Facebook page, he said he would split his time between Jalisco, Mexico and Peoria, Arizona, because he likes to be “a sunbird and spend six months a year in every home.” He leaves behind two children, Scott and Robin, and five “very cool” grandchildren. Scott contributed to the cover of most of his novels.
“We are saddened by the death of co-founder and honorary President Robert Krakoff, known to all as RazerGuy,” Razer said in a statement on Twitter. “Robert’s unwavering drive and passion for games lives on and continues to inspire us all.”
We are saddened by the death of co-founder and honorary President Robert Krakoff, known to all as RazerGuy. Robert’s unwavering passion and drive for the games lives on and continues to inspire us all.
Thank you Rob, you will be missed. pic.twitter.com/2HKNcFaOj2
– R Λ Z Ξ R (@Razer) April 28, 2022
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