Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, the co-founder and former president of gaming hardware company %Razer ($RAZFF), has died at age 81.
While not a household name, %Krakoff impacted most areas of the %VideoGameMarket during his life and career.
In 1999, Krakoff helped spearhead the invention of the first-ever gaming mouse: the Razer Boomslang. Not only was it the foundation of Razer’s lineup of gaming mice, it started the entire gaming peripheral industry.
Krakoff co-founded Razer, which began life as an entity called “Kärna” and invented an opto-mechanical encoding wheel that could track a mouse’s movements at 2000 dpi, far higher resolution than other mice at the time.
Kärna went bankrupt in 2001, and Krakoff co-founded Razer out of its ashes with current chief executive officer (CEO) Min-Liang Tan in 2005.
Nicknamed “Razerguy” in the video game industry, Krakoff made his email address public and was known to respond to fans. He studied journalism at the University of California, Los Angeles on a football scholarship and came to video games late in life. Krakoff played professional football for the Los Angeles Rams for five years in the 1960s.
Left-handed himself, Krakoff also prompted Razer to release the first ever left-handed gaming mouse, a mirror-image version of its best-selling DeathAdder mouse.
While Krakoff still advised the company for years as a “President Emeritus,” Razer wasn’t his last act. He also founded %MindFX Science, a brand that focuses on selling energy drinks and health supplements. He also wrote a dozen books, both fiction and nonfiction.