WEBVTT

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- Take a look at these PCs.

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Now, without me saying anything,
you know what they're for:

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gaming.

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I mean, what gave it away?

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Was it the color?

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The sharp edges?

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The metal pipes?

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No, it was the lights, right?

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For 25 years, manufacturers
have been designing

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very specific hardware for gamers.

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But in the last few years,
we started to see a shift.

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And as gaming becomes
more and more popular,

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some gaming gear is being
designed for a broader appeal.

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Instead of PCs that
scream, "I'm a gamer!",

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these new machines look
like they're for someone

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a little more adult.

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But how did we get that original gamer

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aesthetic to begin with?

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And with this big cultural shift,

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what's the future of gaming
hardware gonna look like?

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- The personal computer
first kind of came,

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became an object in the
consumer marketplace,

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let's say, beginning in the late 70s.

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But really, picking up
steam in the early 80s.

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There was a lot of people,

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didn't know what this thing was for.

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If you think about the ways

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that people imagined
computers prior to that,

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it was huge mainframes
that took up giant rooms.

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It was things like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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The idea was that computers

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had always seemed
foreign and exclusionary.

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- This is Laine Nooney,

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a professor of Media Studies at NYU,

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who's working on a book about
early video game history.

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And according to her,
you can't talk about the

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gamer aesthetic without talking
about the computer history,

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right at its point of inception.

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- There was a lot of effort

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put into the industrial
design of these machines

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to figure out how to get
the personal computer

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to look like something
that belonged in the home,

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so you get that, that kind
of moment of beige plastic.

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- The earliest personal
computers and gaming consoles

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really tried to fit into
your home and look like other

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appliances, so people
would feel comfortable.

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I mean, look at this Atari 2600 from 1982.

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For a lot of people,

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the first home computer
wasn't a personal computer.

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It was a console just like this.

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It's kinda scary.

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It's got all these weird switches

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and this big port in the
front for the cartridge.

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And then all these extra ports on the back

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for the controllers.

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This is kind of intimidating,

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made a little less intimidating
by the wood paneling,

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and this need to be friendly

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wasn't just limited to the '80s.

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For two decades,

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manufacturers tried to make
PCs look innocuous and nice.

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By this point, computers
were really starting to be

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adopted into homes.

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Finally.

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But they all looked like this.

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Boring.

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Even at the turn of the century,

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computers made people nervous.

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Like, think about your
parents or grandparents

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and how they feel about Alexa.

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It's the same thing.

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- What the hell is wrong
with this blasted thing?

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Amanda!

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(people laughing)

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- Soft, smooth, plastic-y design.

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These mainstream PCs at the time

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were designed to blend
seamlessly into your home.

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And this design language is reflected

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in the Super Nintendo from the early 90s.

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The SNES was seeking out the same people

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who wanted to buy a MAC and IBM clones.

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But other gaming companies
weren't just trying to play dead.

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(upbeat guitar)

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- If you think about the
industrial design differences

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between the Super Nintendo
and the Sega Genesis,

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the Super Nintendo is a toy.

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And Nintendo knew that,

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and they marketed to that demographic

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of kind of eight to twelve-year-old 
boys.

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Sega went for a slightly
older male demographic.

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They were trying to market to teenagers.

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And if you think about that
black, slick, curved console,

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right, it looks like a mix of something

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from Star Trek meets Aliens, right?

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- Sega!

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- All of the design of
it is meant to be aggressive.

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It's meant to be different.

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And I think that's where
we begin to pick up

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that kind of black plastic aesthetic.

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That mode of marketing
becomes very effective

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in getting people to tie,
in particularly young men,

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to tie certain aesthetic decisions

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to their concept of what
it means to be a gamer.

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- This thing feels
dangerous, and different.

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And while the console
giants may have figured out

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what their brand looked like,

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the PC companies were
taking a different path.

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Gamers started building their own rigs,

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and some smart companies soon joined them.

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To get a better understanding
of that history,

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I spoke with Chris Garcia.

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He's been a curator at The
Computer History Museum

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in Mountain View, California,
for the last 20 years.

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- We start seeing companies
making gaming-focused

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rigs in the early 90s.

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There were several.

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And there were actually, you
could find them advertised

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in the back of all the magazines.

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But then, you know,

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you've got a couple of
significant ones in the mid 90s,

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that really changed everything.

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The biggest one is Alienware, of course.

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- This brings us to Frank Azor.

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He's worked at Alienware almost
since its creation in 1996.

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He started out boxing
up PCs in the store room

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and now he's a Vice President at Dell,

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which bought the company in 2006.

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- Trying to remember
PCs 20 or so years ago,

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everybody was really
focused on reducing the cost

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because computers were very
expensive at the time.

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We came in with an approach
that said, "Hey, um, these

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things are kind of ugly.

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And everybody is like pulling
features out and pulling

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technology and performance out.

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What if we did the complete opposite?

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What if we put the best
performance into this thing?"

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And we actually made
it look really, really cool.

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- Forget SEGA coming for
Nintendo, Alienware took on

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the entire PC industry
up until that point.

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I mean, look at this compact.

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And now look at this.

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The Alienware Area-51.

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This thing is cool as hell!

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And like the SEGA,

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it's also a little
aggressive and scary looking.

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- Alienware

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makes computers

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that look like Alienware computers.

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What's really nice about
what they have done,

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is they have given an
experience of their gaming

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that is not just the
ability to deeply interact

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with the game, it's the
ability to deeply interact with

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a device that is a definition
of them as a gamer.

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- Alienware introduced its first really

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alien-looking computers in
2002 with the Area-51 M laptop.

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In 2003, the Area-51 Predator 1 desktop.

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In two years, it forced
the industry and consumers

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to reconsider, not just the
desktop, which had a big

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community of gamers building
their own wild PCs at home,

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but laptops, which until
that point were either

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brutally average or Apple.

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In over the decade, others followed.

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Not just other companies,
who were bought by bigger

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companies, and now live on as
branding for corporations like

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HP and Asus, but even people
at home building their

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own PCs.

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People building these things,
including me, were nerds.

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When we weren't playing video
games, we were watching movies

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with pretty similar plots.

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You know, space age, guns,
ships and aliens, or disaffected

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computer lovers yearning
for something more.

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- Tron had a massive effect.

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Because as we're seeing the
generation that were buying

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PCs for their own in the early 90s,

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they were kids when we got Tron.

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They were, they had this
idea that "Oh, the future has

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bright string lights."

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- Things like how, right.

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With the lights, right.

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Star Trek is an obvious obvious case.

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- Tron's absolutely been an
inspiration for our industrial

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design.

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We actually internally refer
to it as Tron lighting.

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- Tron lighting is not just
about loving the movie Tron.

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It's about the very core
of this gamer setting.

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Setting yourself apart.

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Custom paint job or a line
of piping is expensive.

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A couple of customizable
LED strips are cheap,

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which is nice because an
inexpensive LED strip makes

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each gamer an individual.

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Their computer, like them, is special.

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Also loud, big, and intimidating
for anyone who isn't

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just like you:

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a gamer.

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So what happens if you like
playing games and don't want

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your computer looking like a spaceship?

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- When Razer came into the gaming space,

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I think there was already a
gaming aesthetic out there,

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but it was of the one that
we found that was matching

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what we wanted, we were expecting.

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From the beginning, from
purely from a design language

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to speak to you.

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We wanted something a
little more, um, minimal?

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- Stephane Blanchard
is the Director of Design

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at Razer and he's been there since 2006,

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a year after the company started,

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when it was just making
neat little peripherals.

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A big reason Razer stands
apart from other gamer brands

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is because of him,

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which means he was also there
when the Razer Blade laptop

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was introduced in 2011,

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nine years after Alienware first

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made those wild looking gaming laptops.

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- When we started going
to the laptop business,

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there was already
big brands like Alienware.

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They were doing these very
thick and powerful products

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and we found that it
was not what we wanted.

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We wanted very thin but powerful.

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Everybody looked at us as like we are crazy.

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You have no idea what
you are talking about.

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- So compare the Razer Blade -

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Even the one in 2011, to any
of the Alienware laptops.

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They're pretty different, right?

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The Razer's pretty laid back
and nothing like previous

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gaming laptops.

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There's no giant loud fans or exhausts.

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No wild colors.

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Even the lights are subtle and toned down.

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It's thin, relatively light.

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It's sacrificing just a little power

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for more approachability.

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Universally.

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And with this new design
language implemented by Razer

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and its laptops, we
witnessed another transition.

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Gaming devices that were
designed for the masses.

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- I mean I think one of the
things that we're learning

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from the bump in PC gaming
that's been happening,

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certainly something everyone
has been paying attention to

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with the rise of mobile, is
that gaming is more diverse,

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it's more plural.

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There's a much bigger audience
for it than I think a lot of

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these companies were
necessarily considering.

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Everyone is sort of becoming
aware that gaming is,

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the majority of the population does it.

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It's done across both genders.

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And for a lot of people, it
might be perceived as a hobby

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or there's not necessarily
this interest in that being the

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primary motive identification.

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- Over 150 million Americans
play games, but not every one

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of those people ascribe
to the gamer identity.

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If people aren't ascribing
to that gamer identity,

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then the companies that cater
to that identity need to step

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up and start making stuff
for all those other people.

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Razer's willingness to
sacrifice power for portability

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caught on at the right time.

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In 2011, laptop sales
were at an all-time high.

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People wanted advice on the go.

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Companies noticed.

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In particular, Nvidia, which
makes the graphics cards

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in nearly every single gaming laptop.

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A few years ago, Nvidia
realized it could push

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design forward, forcing laptop
makers to consider thinner

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and more portable devices, Max-Q Design.

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Rather than me explaining
it, here's Mark Aevermann,

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Director of Product Management in Nvidia.

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- What Max-Q is trying to
solve is really the fundamental

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observation that gamers are
people and gamers want to be

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able to of course game on
their laptop and have a

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fantastic gaming experience,
but they also want a device

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that they can take with
them for any of their needs.

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There's a ton of gamers
out there who want a device

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that's both powerful and portable.

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So Max-Q is about solving that challenge.

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- Nvidia put Max-Q out there
to make these laptops smaller,

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more portable, and friendly.

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The idea is Nvidia provides
laptop makers with advice and

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guidelines as well as specifically
designed graphics cards

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to make thinner laptops that
will sacrifice a little power

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that most people won't
miss, in order to improve

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battery life, thermal demands,
and just general portability.

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Not quite the 80s beige box,
but something a little more

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approachable than this
monster from Origin.

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This guy is about power,
customization, identity.

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Max-Q Design is about coffeehouse appeal.

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But making a laptop that can
move nimbly from a round of

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Apex Legends to a quick
PowerPoint presentation

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without awkward conversations
about being a gamer,

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isn't as easy as it sounds.

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- Laptops, gaming laptops in
particular, are one of the most

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complex design challenges
in modern computing.

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If you think about it,
gaming laptop has to balance

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a ton of factors:

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It has to balance weight
constraints, thermal constraints,

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noise constraints, performance
constraints, and notably

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cost constraints.

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- So let me break this down
for you on how hard it is to

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engineer a gaming laptop.

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Let's say you have a gaming laptop and you

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want it to run faster.

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Well, that means it's going to get hotter,

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which means you're gonna need more fans,

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which means the fans
are going to get louder,

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which means you can't sit
on your couch, watching TV

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while playing with the laptop
because it's going to be

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too loud,

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which means, okay, let's make
it thicker so that we can allow

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more air in.

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Oh no, now it's way too big.

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That's complicated.

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- We saw an explosion in
gaming laptops somewhere around

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5, 6 years ago.

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Kind of why that is,
fundamentally boils down into

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you know, from my perspective,
really the GPU itself

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got much more efficient.

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- With graphic cards
becoming more efficient,

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Max-Q Design being adopted
by the flashier laptop makers

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like Alienware and Origin,
things are starting to shift.

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Gaming laptops are getting
thinner and more approachable.

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They're willing to sacrifice
power and flash for broader

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appeal, which means we're
going to see a lot more devices

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like this pink Razer Blade Stealth.

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Which fits a decent enough
graphics card inside something as

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thin as a MacBook Pro.

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And a lot fewer

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of the beasts

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like the Alienware Area-51 M.

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Gaming laptops are probably
going to start looking like

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every other laptop.

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And I mean, except for the lighting.

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Even people who don't
call themselves gamers

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can love some flashy lighting.

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(electronic music)