Office Chairs Vs. Gaming Chairs: Why Functionality and Comfort Should Be Priority for Long-Term Savings

Highlights

• When looking for a chair focus on ergonomics, not aesthetics, to ensure comfort and prevent long-term issues with your back and neck.
• Do not overspend on name-brand gaming chairs that prioritize looks over true comfort and longevity.
• Test chairs in person at local stores before purchase to ensure the best fit and avoid unnecessary features that drive up the price.

A good chair is a critical part of any gaming setup, but if you’re buying the biggest name-brand gaming chairs, you might not be getting your money’s worth. A sturdy office chair is a much better choice for both your back and your wallet.

Ergonomics Are Key

Many of the big gaming chair brands like DXRacer and Secretlab tend to claim that their chairs are the most ergonomic seats on the market, especially for those who spend a lot of time gaming. Having gone through at least three myself, I can safely say that most of them felt similar in terms of comfort and how well they worked for my body type.

fizkes/Shutterstock.com

Sure, they recline much more easily than others and have a much higher back to support a taller stature, but I still have to put a blanket on my Secretlab chair to make it soft enough to sit on for a long time. On the other hand, a regular old office chair is likely to be softly cushioned with built-in backrests and neck support that doesn’t require a memory foam pillow to be packed in the box with it to prevent your neck from hurting.

Don’t Pay for the Name Brand

Gaming chairs are expensive, more so than the average office chair. You might expect that paying more will pay dividends when it comes to comfort and longevity. But, a lot of gaming chairs prioritize aesthetics over comfort. Even if they say they are made with ergonomics in mind, the real money comes from sponsorship and influencer testimonials.

In other words, when you buy an expensive name-brand gaming chair, you’re paying more for the aesthetics of looking like a professional gamer than you are for comfort or features. Office chairs have a much broader demand across more demographics, meaning they have less of an incentive to focus their marketing on looks and can just focus on making comfortable chairs.

Get Hands-On With Chairs You Can Actually Try

Some companies that make gaming chairs, namely Secretlab, have charts for customers to pick the best chair for their body type and height to ensure maximum comfort. The “comfort” features usually aren’t all that different from other chairs, though, and you end up paying a lot more just for needing a bigger size

Sarah Chaney / How-to Geek

To make matters worse, name-brand gaming chairs tend to be sold exclusively online, meaning you can’t even sit down on them to see if they offer a good fit before you buy. Alternatively, your local office supply store might have some you can actually test. A lot of places like Walmart, Office Depot, or even IKEA have chairs out on display for customers to sit in and check out, so it might be worth it to just go and see what you find.

Gaming Chairs Don’t Last as Long

In my personal experience, chairs made specifically for gaming tend not to last nearly as long as something made with office work in mind. This is partly due to all of the extra mechanisms they often use. I noticed that the metal frame started poking through the back of one of my old gaming chairs before the whole thing broke off entirely, and another started leaning over to one side after a while.

Many of these issues are down to the fact that gaming chairs tend to be made with much thinner frames, which makes them more prone to breaking under a person’s weight. Every office chair I’ve ever owned, on the other hand, has lasted far longer without many issues and others are still going strong in storage somewhere, waiting for a chance to return when my gaming chair finally gives out.

Pointless Features Drive up the Price

Aside from branding driving up the cost of a gaming chair, many seats tend to come packed with extra features or “improvements” that increase the overall price. For instance, my Secretlab chair has armrests that can swivel and an adjustable backrest. Both of these were key selling points on the website, though I rarely ever utilize them.

Justin Duino / How-To Geek

Many of these features either have niche appeal or are flat-out useless, adding to the number of things you have to keep track of when maintaining your chair. An office chair with the ability to recline and armrests that can move up and down are usually enough when it comes to extra features, and those are fairly standard anyway.

While I had my fun feeling like I fit in with all the Twitch streamers I used to watch from the comfort of my fancy gaming chair, at the end of the day I go to bed with more neck pain and arm strain than it’s worth. In the future, I will invest in a sturdy, cushioned office chair so I don’t have to spend all my time at my setup sitting on a blanket to make it more bearable.

There are always more things to look out for when it comes to ergonomics since everyone is different in some way. Make sure you keep track of what to look for when purchasing a gaming chair . Alternatively, check out our list of top recommended office chairs if you’re ready to drop the branding and invest in your posture.

Also read: