If you sit at your desk for long, or game for a considerable number of hours, you need a good chair to be comfortable enough to carry out your task without quick fatigue. While you’d either need an office or gaming chair respectively, these two share a lot of features that it can be confusing pick one over the other for office work.
At the same price point, a gaming chair is better than an office chair at office work. A gaming chair beats an office chair at back declination, head and lumbar support, and armrest adjustments. An office chair beats a gaming chair at the backrest and seat design. An office chair also looks more formal in design.
The comparison below is based on which of the two is the best at office work.
Gaming Chair vs Office Chair: Similarities and Differences
The main comparison points for the two types of chairs include the following:
| Gaming Chair | Office Chair | |
| Backrest | Winged backrest | Wingless backrest |
| Backrest recline | High recline degree | Low to high recline degree |
| Armrests | 3D, 4D and higher adjustments | 2D, 3D, 4D adjustments |
| Headrest | Movable and adjustable headrest | Adjustable headrest |
| Seat pan | Bucket seat design | Flat design |
| Lumbar support | Detachable and adjustable support | Fixed or adjustable support |
| Seat edge | Raised edge | Flat or waterfall design |
| Colors and looks | Flashy and colorful | Often in a single calm color (like gray, black, brown) |
Which is better gaming chair or office chair?
To answer this question in detail, we need to compare the most important points between the two chairs. They’re as follows:
1. Seat Design
The design of the seats for the two types of chairs is different in several ways. Generally, while the office chair has a flat seat, the gaming one is designed with a bucket design similar to that of racing cars. Their main differences are as follows:
- The sides
A gaming chair has a seat with raised sides, just like a racing car. This is meant to keep the user in place as they swerve around during a game. On the other hand, an office chair seat has a flat edge to it. This allows free movement from side to side. You can thus have more sitting positions with an office chair.
- The front lip
Again, a gaming chair has a raised front lip which is another aspect borrowed over from racing cars. The raised lip helps prop the legs correctly for the gas pedal and break. An office chair, on the other hand, has a flat or waterfall design for the front of the seat. This leaves your feet to fall flat on the floor encouraging blood circulation and a natural posture when seated at your desk.
From these two design approaches, you’re better off with an office chair at your desk than a gaming chair. This is because the flat design without raised edges or a front lip allow for a natural sitting position without limiting your motions. You can easily move about while switching sitting positions without restricting your blood flow in the lower body.
Winner: Office Chair
2. Backrest Design
While an office chair will have a flat or ergonomically curved back, a gaming chair often has a winged backrest with the wings meant to keep the user in one position or a limited range. Again, it’s a design borrowed from racing cars with the wings on the sides meant to provide a snug feel to the gaming process.
However, this backrest design doesn’t do much good when it comes to sitting at your desk for long hours. To a gamer, this is important. To an office user, they’re a hindrance to the free movements you need to make when sitting for 8 hours each day while working.
Winner: Office Chair
3. Levels of Back Recline
Unlike the convention, sitting upright (at 90 degrees to the floor) isn’t the best sitting position on your back. The best position that exerts the lowest pressure on your back is 135° backwards (35° back from the upright position).
Gaming chairs come with lots of levels to recline to with some going as far back as 180° which essentially makes them miniature beds. This helps a lot in keeping your back healthy especially if you work or play games for extended periods of time.
On the other hand, office chairs have a low level of reclination with some not even going to the recommended 135° of reclination. Instead, most will go to about 120° backwards. This tends to lead to backaches and even long-term damage to the back.
Winner: Gaming Chair
4. Head and Lumbar Support
Both types of chairs offer good quality lumbar and head support. The difference is that gaming chairs come with removable head and lumbar support pillows. They can also be adjusted in position by moving them either upwards, downwards or sideways.
On this aspect, a midrange gaming chair outdoes a midrange office chair. This is because midrange office chairs rarely have adjustable lumbar or neck support since this are features reserved for the costlier office chairs. A midrange gaming chair will usually come with these pillows.
Winner: Gaming Chair
5. Headrest Height and Design
The headrest on a gaming chair is usually high and fixed with a few adjustments made possible by a removable head support pillow. Most gaming chairs will a high back past the head of the user with the headrest within the top part of the chair. On the other hand, only the most premium office chairs have high backs and headrests of this design.
Headrests help remove the weight from the shoulders and the neck allowing you to work or play games for longer.
Winner: Gaming Chair
6. Armrest Design and Adjustments
In terms of armrest design, the two types of chairs share similar designs. The two main designs are single and double attachment.
- The single attachment has the armrest with one point of attachment to the chair which is either on the seat or the backrest.
- The double attachment has the armrest attached to the seat and backrest hence the two points of attachment.
In design, it’s a draw between the two.
In terms of the number of adjustments, there are the following:
- 2D: can be adjusted forwards and backwards.
- 2D, 3D: can be adjusted forwards, backwards, up, and down.
- 2D, 3D, 4D: can be adjusted forwards, backwards, up, down, inwards and outwards.
A midrange gaming chair will have 2D, 3D adjustments while midrange office chairs have mostly 2D adjustments. The more the adjustments you have for the armrests, the better.
Winner: Gaming Chair
The Verdict
Gaming chairs are great for gaming, and office chairs for office work. However, if you’re considering a gaming chair for your office desk, you can get one based on how much you want to spend.
If you’re either on a low or medium budget, a gaming chair is the better option. You’ll simply get more features at a lower price with a gaming chair than an office chair at that price point.
If you have some money to spend and can afford a premium chair, you’re better off with a premium office chair since it’ll have great features with the added waterfall seat edge and wingless back. This is because, at the same price from the low to medium categories, you’ll get a gaming chair with better features than an office chair.
FAQs
- Are gaming chairs more comfortable than office chairs?
For the same price, yes: gaming chairs are more comfortable than office chairs.
- Is a gaming chair a good office chair?
This is true for periodic sessions at your desk. However, the raised seat edge and winged backs become uncomfortable for long sessions of office work.
- What is the difference between gaming chair and normal chair?
The difference between a gaming chair and a normal chair is in the design with the gaming chair having a more striking design with a race car seat approach while a normal chair has a laid-back style.
