Gaming Chair vs Office Chair: Which Is Better for You?

If you’re shopping (or starting to think about shopping) for a new chair, you might notice that gaming chairs and office chairs are the two predominant types of options available right now. At first glance, you might think the two different types of chairs come down to simple aesthetics, but there are also ergonomics and comfort features to consider. Depending on what your primary needs may be, from your budget (you may prefer our Best Budget Gaming Chairs guide) to your at-home lifestyle (if you're a more casual gamer for example), we’re here to help you understand the main differences between a gaming chair and an office chair so you can spend your money wisely and feel confident in your choice.

We'll compare office and gaming chairs with the following factors in mind:

1. Design and Common Features
2. Ergonomics and Adjustability
3. Special Features
4. Best Price for the Value

Gaming Chair vs Office Chair: Design and Style

It’s easy to tell if a chair was made for gaming or office work in mind based on common features. Most gaming chairs feature a design heavily inspired by race car bucket seats, which normally feature oversized frames to support helmets from behind and bolstered sides to keep racers in place while they're turning hard.

Gaming Chair Common Features:

• An oversized backrest with wings
• A bucketed seat
• Support cushions
• Large logos plus bright colors
• Pro: better overall back support to support straight back posture
• Con: difficult to sit with legs folded

While you won’t be traveling at high-speed and experiencing extreme gravitational forces, this type of design helps support gamers for long stretches of sitting in place. The long backrest ensures your entire back is supported at all times. Meanwhile, the side bolsters help support your legs and back so you can sit up straight for long periods with less effort. Unfortunately, those tall wings on the seat also make it hard to sit with your legs folded.

Office Chair Common Features:

• Flat seat cushions
• A mesh or a padded backrest
• Some form of built-in lumbar support
• Pro: more leg support
• Con: usually lacks headrest

The design of office chairs varies, but for the most part, they feature mesh backs and a flat seat cushion. Although they also offer support to be sat on for hours on end, a flat seat and back aren’t nearly as supportive as the design of a typical gaming chair. That said, the flat and waterfall seats found on most office chairs also help better support your thigh muscles all the way to the edge.

The lumbar support on office chairs is often more effective and adjustable than moving around a support pillow or the internal mechanisms found in some gaming chairs. The only thing most office chairs lack is a headrest as it’s often seen as a premium feature.

Gaming Chair vs Office Chair: Ergonomics

When it comes to ergonomics for both types of chairs, you can be confident in having solid adjustability options either way. Without good ergonomics, you could be risking a potential sore back, stiff neck, worn wrists or worse. That said, chair adjustability is the name of the game here, so here’s a quick overview of how office chairs and gaming chairs perform in this department.

Most gaming chairs come with support pillows for your head and lower back that attach to the frame via stretchable straps. Beyond that, gaming chairs offer seat height adjustment, adjustable armrests, a tilt lock, and the unique ability to lean back up to 180-degrees – so you can lounge back between matchmaking sessions.

Office chairs are often far more adjustable with the ability to adjust the depth of the seat, seat height adjustment, tilt tension and locking, adjustable armrests, and built-in lumbar support that slides up and down. Sadly with an office chair, you can't usually lean back all the way like you can with a gaming chair, so this is something to consider if the recline is important to you.

In the last few years we've also seen a number of ergonomic gaming chairs. These types of chairs are easy to pick out because their styling is more subdued by losing the side bolsters and introducing a flat or waterfall style seat. Essentially, they look more like office chairs, but with blacked out upholstery and flashy highlight colors.

Additionally ergonomic gaming chairs feature dedicated and adjustable lumbar support that you would typically find on an office chair. This extra support and adjustable element is a big step above the usual lumbar support pillow found on most gaming chairs.

We've seen and reviewed more than a few ergonomic gaming chairs including the Cougar Argo and Cooler Master Ergo L. If you're looking for a chair to use for both working and playing, an ergonomic gaming chair might be the best option.

Alternatively, we've also seen some office chairs rebrand themselves for gaming by adding bold colors. Two key examples of this are the Herman Miller Sayl and Herman Miller X Logitech G Embody Gaming Chair.

Gaming Chairs Have More Special Features Than Office Chairs

Gaming chairs are already a bit excessive, so it seems only natural they would uniquely have more features than their office-bound cousins, which tend to be simple.

These days you’ll find gaming chairs equipped with heating pads and/or cooling fabric. Additionally, we’ve even seen a few gaming chairs that come with a massage function built-in. And, if you’d rather have a seat that vibrated in relation to the games you play, the Arcadeo features haptic feedback.

For something more aesthetically cool, a handful of gaming chairs come equipped with RGB lighting. And of course, we can’t forget that some of the very first gaming chairs came with integrated speakers, which a few continue to have today.

Price Comparison: Gaming Chairs vs Office Chairs

Gaming and office chairs start off at very low prices, but these extremely affordable options aren’t worth buying in the end. Instead, you’ll find better value and longer-lasting chairs by spending a little more. Gaming chairs tend to be more affordable in the end, with a variety of cheaper, high-quality options versus office chairs, which tend to have a narrow selection of affordable, high-quality chairs.

You can get a quality gaming chair like the Respawn 200 at $219. And if you’re comfortable with spending a little more than that, suddenly you get access to fantastic options like the $300 Razer Enki X and the $319 Respawn Specter.

Respawn 200 Razer Enki X Respawn Specter

Most quality office chairs start at a higher premium with one of our lowest cost favorites being the Autonomous ErgoChair Core at $349. From there, well-equipped options get significantly more expensive like the $609 Secretlab NeueChair or the $899 Steelcase Think.

Autonomous ErgoChair Core Secretlab NeueChair Steelcase Think

There's a lot to think about here, but we hope you have a better idea of which chair is best for you. In addition to our overall gaming chair buying guides, we also have a specific list for Big and Tall Gaming Chairs you may want to check out if the standard gaming chair size tends to be too small for your needs.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Kevin Lee is IGN's SEO Updates Editor. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.