They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway … and on a recent springtime evening there was music in the air and to my way of thinking it never sounded better. Razer is proud to be the “presenting Sponsor” for this year’s tour. The most recent tour stop was at the Beacon Theatre on Broadway. This landmark musical concert event was developed to help encourage and support the culture and art that video games have become … and boy did it ever!

Anyone who has followed my blog over time is aware of my point of view regarding gaming as a viable entertainment cultural event; right up there with movies, literature and theatre. Video Games Live (VGL) celebrates the music developed for our industry. It promotes pop-cultural credibility to video game composers over the last 20 years or so.

VGL synthesizes the influence & passion of a large symphony orchestra, a powerful vocal choir, blended with the enthusiasm and vigor of a rock concert and the technology and interactivity of a video game all completely synchronized to amazing cutting edge video screen visuals, state-of-the-art lighting and special on-stage interactive segments with the audience.

Razer was there to demonstrate in the lobby our latest and greatest audio products, led by the amazing Mako 2.1 desktop system. I was there to meet the masterminds behind the VGL, chat with the New York press (show off my new Razerguy shoes) and be entertained by the concert itself … and wow, was I ever entertained!

As I was quoted a few days after the event in the New Jersey Journal, “We’ve watched [gaming] grow up and this is just a part of the evolution,” Krakoff said. “People now are starting to recognize gaming isn’t just about blowing stuff up.”

To cover the specifics of this event I quote Troy Drier’s recitation …
“Doors opened an hour early as people flooded in for gaming displays and “Guitar Hero” and costume contests.

The concert itself started with a musical tribute to early arcade favorites, such as “Donkey Kong” and “Elevator Action.” Then the orchestra presented segments devoted to the music of The Legend of Zelda series, “Final Fantasy 7,” the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the Mario titles and even “Castlevania,” among others.

As the orchestra played, clips from the games were shown on a large screen overhead. A segment devoted to the movie “Tron” was a big hit.

Because the night wouldn’t have been complete without some actual gaming, the emcee brought audience members onstage for a live version of “Space Invaders” and a “Frogger” duel.”

The next event is June 5th in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada and if you are near or passing through the area I do encourage you to witness this musical spectacle and pay homage to the heritage and culture of the gaming community.

For someone who is active and travels as much as I sensible footwear is mandatory. I value my feet and in fact I seldom go anywhere without them. Having shoes that are 1) sensible, 2) comfortable and 3) articulating who you are by what you wear is obligatory if you are ever going to get anywhere in life.

A few weeks ago I visited the K-Swiss website in order to see what new footwear they were offering. Okay it was actually to see what Anna Kournikova was wearing (or not wearing) and while I was there anyway I actually found some cool kicks. These were customizable tennis shoes where you could select your color combination and even have an up to one 8 letter word or name printed on the back of each shoe. Coincidentally r-a-z-e-r-g-u-y has precisely 8 letters … oh my such luck!

Okay for you corporate communications purists out there the color green (802C) isn’t perfect and the font is not approved, but hey they’re close. So I don my new Razerguy K-Swiss specials and head for the bright lights of Broadway, New York City to see how the natives react to my new look.

The venue I select is the Video Games Live concert tour at the Beacon Theatre near Central Park. There are over 200 avid gamers in attendance and I’m ready for any and all notoriety. Before I left home my wife suggests a wardrobe adjustment by subtlety saying “you’re not going to wear those in public?” Undaunted I show up on time and in costume at the Beacon. The reaction was subtle. One gamer told me to get out of his way (this is after all New York and people are quite busy). Another said, “hey buddy, you’re stepping on my foot!”

I would have to say that the footwear reaction was somewhat restrained and I will need to conduct more field testing in order to determine if 1) I should apply for a provisional patent, 2) stop embarrassing myself in public places, 3) make these available to our fans through Razerzone or 4) stop buying dumb stuff and boring the heck out of our readers. My wife is leaning toward #4.

On January 31 of this year I blogged on The Gamer Disposition, from a past issue of the Harvard Business Review regarding an article that explained why today’s multiplayer online gamers possess five key attributes that they bring to the work place.

Now the May issue of the Harvard Business Review has yet another feature article entitled Leadership Online Labs. This article covers the tens of millions of executives and managers currently in the workplace who are sharpening their leadership skills by playing multiplayer online games. They subscribe to the theory that tools and techniques used to lead a raid, manage a guild or other such techniques allow them to function better in the RW of business.

Wow, this is very cool and in reality supports my beliefs about how superior gaming is for your brain. I encourage anyone interested, particularly those members of the press that regularly ask me if gaming causes violence, to read this article. Find the May issue at your newsstand or it can be download it for $6.50 at over at this link.

Here’s their article overview description:

Multiplayer online role-playing games are sprawling cybercommunities that offer a sneak preview of tomorrow’s business environment. Players who lead teams in these online worlds hone the skills that they will need as business leaders in the future. Games also provide an environment that makes being an effective leader easier and that today’s businesses might try to replicate selectively in their own organizations.

Two, hypertransparency of information about, for example, team members’ capabilities and teams’ real-time performance makes it simpler to match people with tasks and to empower individuals to manage themselves.

A few years ago when we first heard about Video Games Live™ the concept sounded very intriguing. Imagine an immersive concert event featuring music from the most popular video games of all time? Wow, how many times in my life did I go to bed with the sounds of Myst or Everquest on my mind. Video Games Live features top orchestras and choirs performing along with exclusive video footage and music arrangements, synchronized lighting, solo performers, electronic percussionists, live action and unique interactive segments to create an explosive entertainment experience.

Take a bunch of video games that span the last 20 years, get a world class symphony orchestra, throw in a choir, a giant screen, and about a couple thousand video game fanatics of all ages and you have Video Games Live.

This is a concert event put on by the video game industry to help encourage and support the culture and art that video games have become. Video Games Live bridges a gap for entertainment by exposing new generations of music lovers and fans to the symphonic orchestral experience while also providing a completely new and unique experience for families and/or non-gamers. The show is heralded and enjoyed by the entire family. It’s the power & emotion of a symphony orchestra mixed with the excitement and energy of a rock concert and the technology and interactivity of a video game all completely synchronized to amazing cutting edge video screen visuals, state-of-the-art lighting and special on-stage interactive segments with the audience.

Razer believes that by sponsoring VGL we can help call attention to the cultural contributions of the game developers and those of us who have grown up playing video games. We will always believe that gaming is as vital and healthy pop-culture as any other form of entertainment and we encourage all gamers in the world to witness and participate in this cultural phenomenon.

Where to start… what a hectic week! It all started when GaRpY left Birmingham so we could catch a train to Stansted airport. Anyways, he came round to my little caravan in the middle of nowhere to get set for the long trip ahead of us, but, before that, he found my Replica lightsaber and started playing around with it, and then started to poke my fat cat “merball”. Which she enjoyed

We soon left my home to head for the local train station, which kind of went wrong as I had no idea what time the trains were from this small station so we ended up having to wait 50 minutes. In the boredom, GaRpY was begging me to take a photo of him mooning an oncoming passing train. After a quick phone call to ODEE, it seemed to be a bad idea.

More travel trouble was to come when we arrived at London Paddington. The easy tube to Liverpool street was all delayed, so we had to make our way round via other lines. Already leaving late as it is from my house, I was kind of panicking and running around like a spoon. While GaRpY remained cool as a cucumber the whole time, as you can see, my eyes went a bit mad!

While running for the train to Stansted airport, I almost lost GaRpY at the ticket stand because of it. But he soon saw me stick me head out of the train yelling “Hurry the feck up, it’s going to leave any second,” and he got the idea and started to run .

Finally made it to the airport, no trouble at all…. and bumped into Rob aka Moyes from Team Dignitas, my old team leader whom I used to play World in Conflict with… he’s the Posh 1 in Dignitas

We met him in the check-in area where the TVs were showing footage of an airplane almost crashing due to strong crosswinds in Germany. Of course, seeing this before you fly to

Germany does help when you’re already scared of being in a tube with wings at 35,000ft but oh well, let’s go .

At last in Germany / Hannover, where Alex and Chris picked us up from the airport, which was nice as we had no idea where we were going. After driving for 30 mins we got to the flat at around 12am CET. We left at 3 GMT so we needed much sleep. But being gamers, we decided to set up our laptops and get on the Internet as I already started to get the shakesfrom not having been on the Internet for 6-7 hours. I is a geek :D.

Then we met Sebastian, the master of sound, and picked our rooms. I somehow ended up with the girly room of the flat. I can’t remember how but it was ok And GaRpY and Moyes got a little too comfortable.

After a good night’s sleep, Sebastian took us to the event. I had no idea it would be so big… took us 20mins just to walk to our part of the massive event and thinking this will be a standard event playing a few games…. Got to the Razer booth and met some of the Razer girlz :D. Hot stuff :D. And things started to kick off as soon as the first show started. I was like omg that was crazy, but some of the stuff later got to madness levels ;D

We then met more Razer staff like Ben and Celeste before we started, and even though I spoke to Ben many times on Ventrilo on the Dignitas vent, I couldn’t remember him when I met him in person till GaRpY said his nickname on vent was Zaduk, and I felt like I have the memory of a fish :P.

Oh well :D.

We started to set up the PCs with UT3. Took some time. We didn’t really finish it till the next day but we got through the games quite easily.

When the Razer show started, it got mad. Germans flying all over the place for freebies; falling all over each other for a wrist band! But Akidee really got the crowd going… he was awesome at bigging everything up – he was awesome :D!

There were a few days things really got mad at the Razer booth. It started getting kicked off with guys taking off their t-shirts, then down to their underpants and walking around the event screaming “Razer”. The whole crowd was so loud I almost went deaf. But it wasn’t just kids doing this, it was adults as well lol!

This image freaks me out a bit ….

But it got even crazier! Not only were the men doing it, but the women too! Which was nice ;D But they took it to the next level.

She then took the rest off… Crazy! And won a mouse. I don’t think anyone in the UK would do this… only in Germany

The same day, I was put to the test on my shoutcasting skills. It was my first time on taking the mic, and talking about UT3 wasn’t easy at all. I got stuck many times, but I was getting the hang of it at the end. Was also kaking bricks before I had to anything lol.

That night, we were invited to a hotel for a meal. It was in the middle of nowhere, and everyone from Razer was there FREE FOOD ya! Everyone from Razer was friendly and cool and I found it very easy talking to all of them.

It felt like they really cared about what gamers want in their products etc which was awesome and then Min-Liang Tan laid down the gauntlet and challenged us to a game of UT3, thinking he was all Pro. The smack talk soon followed :D. He then put a bet on the line: if he scores 1 frag, both me and GaRpY will have to dye our hair Razer Green for all to see and if we if we got 20 frags without Min-Liang killing us, we would get our own 10 limited edition mice with our own design on it :D! So we would play him the following day :D, but first we got a little drunk. I got some funny videos of GaRpY trying to do shots lol

But it was a really nice meal, after which we all decided poker was a good choice.

Now I love playing poker, but I was out within 2 hands as I tried a horrible call which ended up in GaRpY or moyes taking me chips. I can’t remember who, as I was fairly drunk lol so in my drunken wisdom I thought I would give everyone a hand in knowing what % chance they had of winning but since I was drunk I was a little off. And Team Razer beat Dignitas in the poker :p! My fault, I sux. Well, by this time, I was very wasted and needed to sleep for our big match vs Min-Liang Tan, CEO of Razer :D.

The next day, around noon, Min-Liang Tan turned up all fired up to slap me and GaRpY about. When we did a quick warm up, both me and GaRpY were surprised at Min-Liang’s gaming skills. He did some clever moves, waiting at the amours, but both mine and GaRpY’s skills were clearly too strong for Min even though he knocked GaRpY down to 3hp at one point. If one of us got fragged, it was over. Luckily, GaRpY got some health packs and soon hunted down the frags like the beast that he is :D.

Min-Liang was awesome to play against. He wasn’t bad at UT at all but has a few more things to learn if he’s going to beat me and Garps. Because we were going to get such an awesome gift from Razer and Min-Liang Tan, we decided to colour our hair anyways for i33 lol. So look out for that.

After even more crazy German-ness, we all had a booth party at the Razer booth with 400 euros going on drinks. It was insane!! Ze Germans know how to party and in style too. The tunes came out and thanks to the guys at Microsoft and EA, we were playing Rock Band for a while to see my drumming skills!

As you can see, with all this booze to drink, someone’s going to wake up a little bit silly in the morning. And, of course, it was moyes right here.

O dear, what he got up to. Let’s just say the poker that night didn’t finish because of the food. As the night went on, more crazy things happened.

After another recovery, we were all good.

So much has happened during the week, it was awesome. From everyone we met and saw to all the gamers and peeps just having a laugh As I’ve rambled on far too long, I think I’ll end this blog here :D.

We had an awesome time in Germany and I’d like to thank Razer for looking after us and putting up with us. And I really hope to work with them all again as they’re awesome.

I’ll leave you with some more pics on how crazy the Germans got I think CeBIT went rather well… don’t you?

Barely a week has passed since CeBIT 2008 came to a close and the roar of the frenzied crowd is still ringing in my ears. For those who weren’t in attendance, a good part of the excitement was drummed up by two gentlemen from Team Dignitas, who we invited—in their capacities as Team Razer progamers—to man our hugely successful booth. Here’s what one of them had to say about his CeBIT experience:

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“Hello, my name is Gareth “GaRpY” Marshall. I have just recently come back from CeBIT in Hannover, Germany. I was quite excited when Razer asked me to go to CeBIT because I have always heard about it but had never been.

On the first day when I arrived at CeBIT, I was totally amazed by the sheer size of the venue. It was like nothing I had seen before, with 35 football size stands, and it took about 30-45 minutes to walk from one side to the other, just to give you an idea of the enormity of the place.

The next thing that really popped into my head—and this really became really evident when we actually started the shows at the Razer booth—was how mental the Germans were!

It was like a battlefield as they all rushed in to get to the front of the stand where I was sitting waiting to do shootouts on Unreal Tournament 3 against the crowd for Razer prizes.

On Tuesday night, Razer took us out for a meal, where I got to meet most of the people who manage and run Razer. The one person who I had a real good laugh with was Min, the CEO of Razer. This is because, at the start of the meal, we introduced ourselves, and when I said I was a pro-gamer doing shootouts at the Razer stand in Unreal Tournament 3, he started to smack talk me, saying he was the best and that he would show us how to play… I started to laugh and said “I could beat you with my monitor turned off”. So he challenged me and my team mate to a duel the next day at the booth. All night long we were geeing each other up.

The next day at the booth, Min wanted to put a wager on the match, so if we lost, we would have had to dye our hair Razer green. If we won, he said he would produce 10 limited edition mice and keyboards for us! This was so cool – we could have our own logos, names or whatever we wanted, and he was going to add on to the back of the mice this phrase: “I pwned the CEO of Razer”.

Although I play in loads of competitions with large prize money and don’t get nervous or shaky, I was actually quite nervous when playing against Min because it was such an awesome prize if we won. Me and my team mate had to get to 10 frags before Min got 1 or we would lose.

Let’s just say if he took up my offer of playing with our monitors off, he might’ve stood a chance… ? [CEO’s Note: I had him down to 30 health at one point that lucky bastard! Rematch rematch!]

Another thing that really hits me when I think back is what the crowd would actually do to get their hands on Razer gear! On one particular day, the booth was rammed full of people and when the show was going on, a woman climbed up the side of the booth and shouted over: “I will strip if I can have a Razer mouse”, so everyone was like “yeah OK!” She came up on the stage and gave us a nice show; let’s just say she well-deserved that Razer mouse!

Also, what was really funny was that the lads in the crowd would come up on stage and strip down to their pants and run around the booth shouting “Razer! Razer! Razer!” I tell you they would do anything for Razer gear. It was just insane to see!

I hope to do a lot more with Razer because my experience at CeBIT was unbelievable and the Razer booth was simply the best stand there!

Ps. I won’t mention the Party or the Poker we had!

Cheers,
Gareth “GaRpY” Marshall”

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Discover more about Team Razer, GaRpY and Team Dignitas.

Some of the guys over at guys over at MNPCTech have done a really neat presentation on their SwordM AMD Phenom Spider Platform while giving a one over with our Razer Lycosa and Lachesis.

They got some footage on their design and build process and yes, go check out the rest of their other series too. Wicked stuff and case mod skills.

For three years running, CeBIT visitors always look forward to seeing Razer at the Hannover Messe. And they have very good reasons to in 2008. In case you weren’t aware, CeBIT (Centrum der Büro- und Informations technik; German for “Centre of Office and Information technology”) is the world’s largest computer expo. It is held each spring on the world’s largest fairground in Hannover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology. With an exhibition area of roughly 5 million square feet and up to 700,000 visitors, it is larger than the Consumer Electronics expo in Las Vegas or Computex in Taiwan.

The official launch of the new Razer gaming mouse, the Razer Salmosa, set the stage for the show at CeBIT this year (4-9 Mar 2008). The Razer Salmosa, equipped with the Razer 3G Infrared sensor (rated as the fastest tracking optical mouse sensor in the world) and ultra-light form factor, was well-received by the public and media.

Team Razer brought home the highest glory with Fnatic and Meet Your Makers (MYM) winning the top sweet spots of the World Cyber Games CounterStrike tournament – Germany Qualifiers. Top Team Razer pro-gamers from Fnatic, MYM, Grubby, Lucifer, Team Dignitas, Spirit of Amiga (SoA), Amazing Gaming and The Elder Gods (TEG) demonstrated their skills with daily show matches and met up with their fans at the Razer booth.

As usual, we had our fair share of enthusiastic Razer fans, giving all they’ve got to get our attention and lay their hands on a Razer tee-shirt and some Razer swag. Each show drew overwhelming crowds and escalating excitement. Crowds were queuing outside the booth for more than 2 hours before show time just to get into the Razerzone! The crowds were so fanatical that they almost brought the hall down.

It had been a crazy 6 days of never-ending action, much like a tornado that swept through CeBIT and left everyone unconsciously chanting “RAZER” in its wake. This was my 11th CeBIT and I loved it! We hope to see you all again at Games Convention later this year in Leipzig.

We’ve been getting quite a bit of queries on our Razer Lycosa’s backlighting features recently so we cooked up a few quick videos to show you how the backlighting feature works in both bright and dark conditions.

As Razer has grown it is now highly likely that we will look to hire a gamer in just about any role or position vs. a non-gamer with degrees and years
of experience. Yesterday at lunch the “new guy” in our San Diego office asked us, “why did you hire me; was it because I am a gamer?”

The answer was yes, yes and YES! In the recent issue of Harvard Review there is an article the explains why today’s multiplayer online gamers possess five key attributes the they bring to the work place.

1)They are bottom line oriented. Today’s online games have embedded systems of measurement or assessment. Gamers like to be evaluated, even compared with one another, through systems of points, rankings, titles and external measures. Their goal is not to be rewarded but to improve. Game worlds are meritocracies where assessment is symmetrical (leaders are assessed just as players are), and after-action reviews are meaningful only as ways of enhancing individual and group performance.

2)They understand the power of diversity. Diversity is essential in the world of the online game. One person can’t do it all; each player is by definition incomplete. The key to achievement is teamwork, and the strongest teams are a mix of diverse talents and abilities. The criterion for advancement is not “how good am I?” it’s “how much have I helped the team?” Entire categories of game characters (such as healers) have little or no advantage in individual play, but they are indispensable members of every team.

3)They thrive on change. Nothing is constant in a game; it changes in myriad ways, mainly through the actions of the participants themselves. As players, groups and guilds progress through game content, they literally transform the world they inhabit. Part of the gamers disposition is grounded in an expectation of flux. Gamers do not simply manage change; they create it, thrive on it and seek it out.

4)They see learning as fun. For most players the fun of the game lies in learning how to overcome obstacles. The game world provides all the tools to do this. For gamers, play amounts to assembling and combining tools and resources that current successes are resources for solving future problems.

5)They marinate on the “edge”. Finally, gamers often explore radical alternatives and innovative strategies for completing tasks, quests and challenges. Even when common solutions are known, the gamer disposition demands a better way, a more original response to the problem. Players often reconstruct their characters in outrageous ways simply to try something new. Part of the gamer’s disposition, then, is a desire to seek and explore the edges in order to discover some new insight or useful information that deepens one’s understanding of the game.

Together these five attributes make for employees who are flexible, resourceful, improvisational, eager for a quest, believers in meritocracy and foes of bureaucracy. Just the kind of talents and traits that Razer believes are essential to our growth and success.