Seeing as the gaming community spends the majority of their time in front of a desk or television sitting down, it’s usually their gluteus maximus which get the most exercise. But when you’re sucked into a game of Overwatch, Battlefield, or DOTA 2, chances are you won’t have the luxury of thinking about small things like personal hygiene, body posture, or how your derriere is slowly falling asleep amidst your killstreaks.
Gaming chairs are nothing new. These large, cushioned thrones cradle a person’s most sensitive parts as their master remains entirely still for hours on end, standing up only to go to the bathroom or refill their Doritos stock. But since most of these chairs are mass produced to fit the general audience, getting the right “fit” for a gamer is a…well, a game of chance.
Swedish furniture company Ikea has seen this gap in the butt-comfort market and wants to do gaming chairs their way. In a collaboration between Ikea, educational eSport company Area Academy, and 3D printing medical company Unyq, these three teams are working on custom 3D printed gaming chairs to perfectly fit the derriere of any gamer.
Now, the final product isn’t entirely unique; it’s a chair, after all. But(t) considering you have to get your posterior scanned for the chair to be printed, this opens up a bevy of questions:
How will this work in the confines of a physical store?
Will they have enclosed stalls where you can imprint your butt on a piece of foam before giving it to the furniture makers?
Is there a chance you could scan your butt using your 3D scanner and just send it over?
Solve one comfort-related problem and a hundred more present themselves.
Now the project won’t be market-worthy until 2020, but the company has already presented a prototype stool which serves as a starting point for the rest of Ikea’s personalized furniture. With the gaming industry on the rise, this could very well be another market Ikea could “butt” into.
