Thursday, September 16th 2021

IKEA is Finally Ready to Sell You its ASUS ROG Co-branded Gear

Just over a year ago, IKEA and Asus teased that they were working on something together and from October, you'll actually be able to buy the first products. There will be more than 30 new products in total, ranging from "gaming" desks and chairs, to key "gaming" accessories like mug holders and neck pillows.

It's highly likely that the pandemic has delayed these products, since they launched in China back in January, but now it seems like stock should be arriving globally. In total, there will be six product families, although the press release doesn't go into detail of what product is in each product category. The six families are UPPSPEL, LÅNESPELARE, MATCHSPEL, GRUPPSPEL, UTESPELARE, HUVUDSPELARE, which pretty much are all borrowed from various football (soccer to our American readers) terms in Swedish.
IKEA estimates that there are no less than 2.5 billion gamers globally and they obviously want a slice of the gaming cake. The most amusing part of the press release from IKEA, are the quotes from Asus. How some furniture can be exciting gaming innovations is a bit hard to imagine, but we're sure Asus knows a lot about gamers pain points, based on how angular some of their gaming products are. Note that some of the products appear to be in stock already, so if you're interested, try searching your local IKEA website for the product names above.
"Gamers globally know and love the Republic of Gamers brand and they trust it to deliver the most exciting gaming innovations in the market," says Kris Huang, General Manager of the ASUS Gaming Gear and Accessory Business Unit. "Our new partnership with the experts at IKEA will allow Republic of Gamers to find new and interesting ways to delight gamers in and around the home."
"We know a lot about gamer needs, pain points and expectations, and we want to design solutions for ultimate, immersive gaming experiences." - says Johnny Chan, Asus Republic of Gamers designer.

Update: It turns out IKEA has some nicer products in the lineup that will arrive early next year, including a chair with real grain leather that's priced at around US$350 in Sweden, but that price includes 25 percent VAT. The only thing we'd like to see are some more adjustments on these chairs, as they still seem to have fairly basic adjustments, even at this price point. The pictures of the additional products are above.
Source: IKEA
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56 Comments on IKEA is Finally Ready to Sell You its ASUS ROG Co-branded Gear

#51
Valantar
Vayra86Right... now, let's get both feet on the ground again and circle back to the context in which 2.5 billion was used here.

Do you really think we have 2.5 billion non-couch-gaming, desktop-oriented gamers that can somehow make use of the IKEA gear on offer? Whát is the stereotype room you see here? Heck, its not even console gamer oriented as it shows. The couch is an object they're not marketing here.

You're right, but you're also kind of missing the point - or at least reading the marketing copy differently than I am. I don't think anyone at Ikea has ever thought "there are 2.5B potential customers for this lineup", and I don't think that's even remotely what they're saying. Rather, I think they are saying "there are freaking tons of people playing games, gaming is a dominant cultural phenomenon, and the "gamer" identity/sterotype/style is overall very popular - thus there are lots of people who might find these products interesting/desirable." If a coffee maker ... maker? says "there are X billion coffee drinkers in the world and Y billion mugs of drip coffee are brewed every day", I don't take that as them saying "we expect/want/think we can sell our product to each and every one of them". Rather, I read it as saying "we occupy a niche within [product group]" (in this case, coffee) "and coffee is a huge market, thus our niche also has the potential to be huge". A niche within a huge phenomenon is (likely) bigger than a niche within a small one, right? The main point of marketing statements like this is not saying that all of these people necessarily want to buy your product, but that the overall group that people who do fit within is sufficiently large for that group to also be large. If 2.5B people play games regularly, how many of those think the "gamer" style looks cool? Probably a few hundred million at least. If, say, 500M people played games instead, the market for products like this would be far, far smaller.
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#52
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
ValantarGaming is not an exclusive hobby, and self-proclaimed "gamers" need to get over themselves and realize that this is a great thing.
Sure, gaming may not be an exclusive hobby if you count the filthy casuals playing games on their phones. But I don't count those lesser beings as actual gamers. So sure Ikea can make some outrageous claim like 2.5 billion gamers without having any real evidence of such a claim so long as they count mobile phone casuals as gamers.
Posted on Reply
#53
Valantar
Easy RhinoSure, gaming may not be an exclusive hobby if you count the filthy casuals playing games on their phones. But I don't count those lesser beings as actual gamers. So sure Ikea can make some outrageous claim like 2.5 billion gamers without having any real evidence of such a claim so long as they count mobile phone casuals as gamers.
Well, you're just proving my points about elitist attitudes at this point. I don't see what anyone gains from looking down on other people sharing the same interests, but you do you.
Posted on Reply
#54
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
ValantarWell, you're just proving my points about elitist attitudes at this point. I don't see what anyone gains from looking down on other people sharing the same interests, but you do you.
Personally, I do not see what anyone gains from looking up to other people who share the same interests.
Posted on Reply
#55
Valantar
Easy RhinoPersonally, I do not see what anyone gains from looking up to other people who share the same interests.
... wait, so, there are only the options of either looking down on or looking up to other people? Sorry, you've got me kind of confused here. At least in my mind, doing neither of those two is quite viable.

(Also, just to be clear, your elitist stance strongly implies that the so-called "filthy casuals" should look up to "gamers" because "gamers" are better than them. So you're kind of contradicting yourself here.)
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