If you’re shopping for a new chair you might notice that gaming chairs and office chairs are the two predominant types of options available now. At first glance, you might think the two different types of chairs come down to simple aesthetics, but there are also ergonomics and features to consider. We’re here to help you understand the differences between a gaming chair and an office chair so you can spend your money wisely and save yourself from awful back and neck pain.
Gaming Chair vs Office Chair Design
It’s easy to tell if a chair was made for gaming or office work in mind. Gaming chairs often feature an oversized backrest with wings, a bucketed seat, support cushions, and large logos plus bright colors. Office chairs on the other hand tend to be much more subdued and simple with flat seat cushions, a mesh or a padded backrest, and some form of built-in lumbar support.
Most gaming chairs feature a design heavily inspired by race car bucket seats, which normally feature oversized frames to support helmets from behind and bolstered sides to keep racers in place while they're turning hard.
While you won’t be traveling at high-speed and experiencing extreme gravitational forces, this type of design helps support gamers for long stretches of sitting in place. The long backrest ensures your entire back is supported at all times. Meanwhile, the side bolsters help support your legs and back so you can sit up straight for long periods without less effort. Unfortunately, those tall wings on the seat also make it hard to sit with your legs folded.
The design of office chairs varies, but for the most part, they feature mesh backs and a flat seat cushion. They also offer support to be sat on for hours on end, but a flat seat and back aren’t nearly as supportive as the design of a gaming chair. That said, the flat and waterfall seats found on most office chairs also help better support your thigh muscles all the way to the edge.
The lumbar support on office chairs is also often more effective and adjustable than moving around a support pillow or the internal mechanisms found in some gaming chairs. The only thing most office chairs lack is a headrest as it’s often seen as a premium feature.
Gaming Chair vs Office Chair Ergonomics
Ergonomics are as important, if not more, than how your chair looks. Without good ergonomics, you’ll be in a world of hurt with a sore back, stiff neck, worn wrists, and worse. Adjustability is the name of the game here, so here’s how gaming and office chairs perform in this department.
Most gaming chairs come with support pillows for your head and lower back that attach to the frame via stretchable straps. Beyond that gaming chairs offer seat height adjustment, adjustable armrests, a tilt lock, and the unique ability to lean back up to 180-degrees – so you can lounge back between matchmaking sessions.
Office chairs are often far more adjustable with the ability to adjust the depth of the seat, seat height adjustment, tilt tension and locking, adjustable armrests, and built-in lumbar support that slides up and down. Sadly you can lean this type of seat back all the way like you can with a gaming chair.
Gaming Chair vs Office Chair Features
Gaming chairs are already a bit excessive and so it seems natural that they would uniquely have more features than their office-bound cousins.
These days you’ll find gaming chairs equipped with heating pads and/or cooling fabric. Additionally, we’ve even seen a few gaming chairs that come with a massage function built-in. And if you’d rather have a seat that vibrated in relation to the games you play, the Arcadeo features haptic feedback.
For something more aesthetically cool, a few gaming chairs equipped come equipped with RGB lighting. And of course, we can’t forget that some of the very first gaming chairs came with integrated speakers, which a few continue to today.
Gaming Chair vs Office Chair Price
Gaming and office chairs start off at very low prices, but these extremely affordable options aren’t worth buying. Instead, you’ll find better value by spending a little more.
You can get a quality gaming chair like the Respawn 200 at $219. And if you’re comfortable with spending a little more around $300, suddenly you get access to a lot more fantastic options like the $300 Razer Enki X and the $319 Respawn Specter.
Most quality office chairs start at a higher premium with one of our lowest cost favorites being the Autonomous ErgoChair Core at $349. From there well equipped options get significantly more expensive like the $609 Secretlab NeueChair or the $899 Steelcase Think.
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Kevin Lee is IGN's SEO Updates Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.
