In 2008, the fast-talking expletive-spewing video game reviewer Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation coined the phrase “The Glorious PC Gaming Master Race,” joking about how snobbish PC gamers allegedly looked down upon their “dirty console playing peasant” counterparts. (I remember it being quite funny at the time.)
Then, something unfortunate happened: the PC gaming community decided to brand itself that way. “PC Gaming Master Race” became the community’s biggest subreddit, and in 2014, some guy also decided he’d use it to sell mousepads, mice, and keyboards to people, Nazi-era connotations be damned.
Some guy has now realized the error of his ways — and so his company, “Glorious PC Gaming Race,” is ditching the name. It’s just “Glorious” now; the logo and products are going to change, and the company says its website pcgamingrace.com will be retired in favor of a new domain name.
“The intention of this rebrand is to better align the public face of the fast-growing startup with its own core values,” reads a press release, which quickly points out that founder Shazim Mohammad was 24 years old when he started the company and implies he didn’t know better — he was just going along with the meme. (Then it points out how successful the branding was: “The unusual name drew attention within the crowded industry, especially from other members of those online communities,” it reads.)
I am older and definitely should have known better, but I admit my own “Glorious PC Gaming Race” mousepad snuck into the photos for my Odyssey G9 monitor review before I retired it in shame.
Unfortunately, it sounds like it may be a while before the company can truly ditch the phrase that apparently served its business well until today. It will be a “multi-year transition period,” the company writes, though new product launches are already going that way.
While we’re on the topic of cringe gamer branding… Acer, are you listening? It might be time to stop encouraging your customers to find their inner predators.
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I joke… but only kinda.
wazup.