The first racing-style gaming chair emerged in 2006. Office chair peddlers were outraged! Seventeen years later, enraged office chair mongers still deride gaming chairs as scams. But the market disagrees. Circa 2023, cheap gaming chairs remain red-hot sellers. I’ve been using various gaming chairs since 2017. I’ve also gifted cheap models to many first-time ergonomic chair users. Based on my experiences and theirs, gaming chairs are well worth buying and trying. They’re especially worth it for first-time ergonomic chair users.
I bought my first gaming chair in 2017. Over 6 years, I gradually leveled up from cheap basic ones to pricier models with more complex settings. My trajectory gives the first hint about why a cheap gaming chair is worth it for ergonomic beginners.
Starting off your ergonomic adventure with a $1500 office chair can go wrong. Starting out with a goofy racing-style gaming chair is a sure way to internalize neutral posture fundamentals.
Low prices + ease of use suits these times. In 2023, ergonomic chairs are still niche items. Most desk workers still use standard, non-ergonomic desk chairs.
These let you adjust the seat height, rock the chair, or lock it upright. This presents two problems. First, standard office chairs are bad for your back. They don’t provide the support desk workers need to ensure good posture over long periods.
In contrast, ergonomic chairs are good for your back. But a second problem: many people confuse the term ‘ergonomic’ with ‘complex, high-tech magic’.
As a result, many first-time ergo chair buyers get duped into spending more than they need to on good back support.
Gaming Vs Office-Style ‘Ergonomics’
Based on institutional definitions, ‘ergonomic’ simply means ‘adjustable’. For beginners, starting off with simple, straightforward ergonomics yields better long-term gains.
In seating terms, all chairs that qualify as ‘ergonomic’ come with three essential features. The point of these features is the same, whether you use a gaming or ergonomic office chair.
In all cases, these components are designed to support users into neutral sitting postures.
However, for first-time ergonomic chair users, starting off with something like a $1700 Herman Miller Aeron chair is counter-productive.
For one thing, without experience, you’ll have nothing to gauge its performance against. For another, that also means you’ll have no reference points to manage a high-end chair’s complex settings. This matters.
For instance, the Herman Miller Embody is legit but complex. It features a lumbar-less support style that prioritizes good upper spine posture.
But without neutral sitting experience, getting the concept and subtle settings right is basically impossible (without help).
In contrast, with clear neutral sitting instructions, anyone can master healthy neutral sitting easily in a gaming chair. ChairsFX recently tested that with a first-time ergo chair user in GTRacing Pro Series and Ace S1 chairs.
Our model achieved a textbook neutral posture easily in both chairs. Right away, she internalized a crisp neutral posture.
With a few months of active practice, she’ll be self-educated enough about her body mechanics to level up to a more complex chair.
Best Ergo Office Chairs $800-$2300: Are They Really Worth it?
Why Cheap Gaming Chairs ARE Worth It
Based on my own experiences, a cheap gaming chair is ideal for first-time ergo chair users. I started my ergonomic journey in 2017. Then, I upgraded from a basic office chair to a cheap DXRacer gaming chair.
Over the next six years, I came to learn firsthand why gaming chairs are definitely worth it — for first-time ergonomic chair users.
- Educational: the crude adjustable features on racing-style gaming chairs qualify as fully ‘ergonomic’. These are easy to master and internalize.
- You don’t need perfect posture: esports doctors are on the cutting edge of computing performance science. Most agree that dynamic semi-neutral postures + fitness are sufficient.
- Fast-acting wellness benefits: mastering neutral posture in a cheap gaming chair = more energy, sharper focus, and expanding wellness benefits.
- DIY ergonomic expertise: clear neutral posture targets + experience in simple, fully-ergonomic chairs = an educated ergonomic chair buyer.
Easy To Master Neutral Postures
ChairsFX has set up several first-time ergonomic chair users for neutral posture success. The trick is to make sure the user has a fully-ergonomic (adjustable lumbar + arms + recline) chair and instructions.
For example, I gave a 5’8″ first-timer these instructions to achieve a neutral posture in a GTRacing Pro Series chair. First, configure your chair’s settings:
- Adjust the seat height to place hips higher than knees.
- Adjust the lumbar pillow to fit slightly above your beltline.
- Set the recline to between 100-110°.
Then, sit down in the chair. Tucking your hips and firmly planting your feet provide the primary power to hold your torso upright.
Follow these steps:
- Tuck your hips deep into the seat.
- Plant your feet firmly on the floor.
- Use the armrests to prop your torso up against gravity.
After a few days of sitting this way, your muscles will adapt. After a week or so, muscle memory should kick in to make upright sitting a subconscious habit.
Fat Lumbar Pillows: Great For Beginners
Compared to more complex back support systems, fat, dopey-looking gaming chair lumbar pillows are a great teacher.
I learned (the hard way) that setting it too high or too low causes back pain. In contrast, setting it just above my beltline yielded life-changing results.
Other users have reported similar. For more detailed healthy sitting tactics, see this:
Healthy Sitting Quickstart: For Gaming AND Ergo Office Chairs
Active Living Beats Perfect Posture
Many office chair peddlers insist that gaming chairs are ‘scams’. The only way to get ‘good ergonomics’ is to spend lots of money on a fancy, complex ergonomic office chair.
However, you’ll notice that many of the world’s top esports players and teams use gaming chairs. You might also notice that many pros use gaming chairs with less-than-perfect postures.
That’s because top teams also employ esports doctors and performance optimization specialists. For example, Dr. Jordan Tsai currently does physical therapy consulting for Evil Geniuses.
His view is a common one in pro esports performance optimization circles. It acknowledges the importance of a good chair — but as the least important performance optimization priority:
Fitness Beats Fancy Chair Postures
The esports fitness trend explains why so many pros use gaming chairs instead of $1000+ ergonomic office chairs. With healthy lifestyles and a good chair, performance skyrockets.
Any fully-ergonomic chair can support neutral postures — it doesn’t matter how much you pay. What does matter is how you use your chair.
With proper usage, any $120 beater can do the job just fine. Meanwhile, a $2000 chair used improperly can yield terrible results. Learn more:
Fast, Noticeable Wellness Benefits
Early benefits included reduced musculoskeletal stress, more energy, and sharper focus at the computer. Longer-term benefits included greater spatial & bodily awareness, sharper discipline, and a rekindled passion for physical fitness.
After 1.5 years in my ‘scam’ gaming chair, I had lost my beer belly, got a work promotion, and found new professional opportunities. Recently, I gifted a DXRacer to another first-time gaming chair user.
After setting him up for neutral sitting, I laid out this list of expected benefits:
- His posture would noticeably improve after a few weeks.
- He’d experience a noticeable surge in energy levels (a byproduct of reduced musculoskeletal stress).
- More energy would yield sharper focus and greater desk work productivity.
- He’d gain a greater awareness of his body and its surroundings. The first sign: a newfound cleanliness obsession.
- Having excess energy would eventually motivate him to hit the gym.
After two weeks, he had realized four out of the five benefits. It took around two months before he finally started a gym routine.
Learn more about expected benefits for all types of people:
Chair Ergonomics Become Straightforward
Many esports doctors and physical therapists insist that there’s no such thing as a perfect sitting posture. For instance, Dr. Elliot Smithson of 1-HP.org shared this oft-repeated mantra with ChairsFX:
True to that statement, my gaming chair postures have gotten more refined over the years. This involved practice, ergonomic research, and the help of some famous esports doctors.
Because of this experience, I’ve now got enough healthy sitting reference points. These help me to objectively assess the postural merits of the world’s most expensive desk chairs.
None of my evolution would have been possible without a cheap gaming chair to start with. For instance, many who start with a $1700+ Herman Miller Posturefit Lumbar will never find good lower back support — that’s not what it’s for!
In contrast, my DXRacer’s fat, goofy lumbar pillow was simple enough to figure out on my own. So what do I think about high-end chairs? Many are good — but well overpriced!
Cheap Gaming Chair Target Markets
Here are some generational definitions(1) from the Pew Research Center:
- Generation X: born between 1965 to 1980 (ages 43-58 in 2023)
- Millennial: born between 1981 to 1996 (ages 27-42 circa 2023)
- Generation Z: born between 1997 and 2012 (ages 11-26 in 2023)
Key Millennial & Gen Z Trends
This article hypes cheap gaming chairs as excellent starter models for first-time ergo chair users. In particular, statistics suggest them as ideal for Millennials and Gen Z ages:
- Huge teen market: according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates(2), there were 43,012,450 youth aged 10-19 in the U.S. in 2021 (13% of the total population).
- Millennial + Gen Z spending power: there are around 84 million Americans born between 1981-1997 with $2.5 trillion in spending power in 2020(3).
- Millennial + Gen Z tight budgets: cost of living expenses are skyrocketing. In 2020, top expenditures were groceries, takeout deliveries, and car maintenance(3).
- U.S. rising living costs: per capita disposable income decreased by 6.4% in 2022. In 2023, cost of living expenses are expected to grow as long as inflation does(4).
- Millennials are in rough shape: ages 27-42 suffer greater disease burdens than Gen X ages. SInce COVID, they’ve suffered more anxiety and PTSD than other generations. This generation also generates 22% more back disorder ER visits than others(5).
- Fitness beats chair posture: 34.5 million Americans suffered chronic musculoskeletal pain (MSK) in 2018. But esports doctors and clinical reviews have concluded: exercise reduces pain & depression while boosting quality of life(6).
- Gen Z Proactively Addresses Pain: this generation is on board with the esports fitness + deskwork model. A 2020 survey found that 36% of Gen Z (ages 11-26 in 2023) experience back pain between the ages of 11-15. 44% addressed their pain with natural methods like stretching(7).
- Gen Z is passionate about fitness: 48% work out several times per week; around 1/3 of those lift weights. 60% of Gen Z ages jog vs 26% among other generations. 42% wear fitness trackers(8).
Cheap Gaming Chairs For Millennials
In 2023, this group is aged 27-42. Millennials rush to the hospital for emergencies more than other generations. They also suffer more back disorder problems than other generations.
Meanwhile, here are common symptoms caused by long sitting sessions in a standard, non-ergonomic office chair:
- Wrist disorders: 4 million Americans suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Neck pain: the fourth-leading cause of disability in America.
- Shoulder pain: Americans average 4.5 million doctor visits and $3 billion in associated health costs.
- Elbow and forearm pain: 1-3% of all Americans suffer from elbow tendonitis, aka tennis elbow.
- Low back disorders: 31 million Americans are suffering from low back pain at any given time.
For Millennials still using a standard, non-ergonomic office chair, upgrading to a cheap gaming chair makes sense.
For less than $150, a good model can address the above issues while supercharging health, wellness, and computing productivity.
Cheap Gaming Chairs For Gen Z
This generation was born between 1997 and 2012 (ages 11-26 in 2023). They’re fully on board with the esports performance model. Here’s a summary by one of the top esports docs on the pro scene:
Statistics suggest that Gen Z ages have less incentive to buy fancy ergonomic chairs. Instead, when back pain arises, they resort to (standard esports) methods like stretching or walking breaks.
Meanwhile, Gen Z (aka the ‘Nintendo’ or ‘iPhone’ generation) is the heart of the video game industry’s market (valued at $195 billion(9) in 2021).
The promotional spearhead of this juggernaut is the pro esports industry (valued at $1.39 billion(10) in 2022). At most major tournaments, Gen Z watches their heroes achieve fame and glory using racing-style gaming chairs.
On top of that, many of their streaming heroes also use gaming chairs. Many others use fancy Herman Miller office chairs. But these days, most notable gaming stars credit fitness as an integral part of their success.
For instance, Arslan Ash is one of the world’s top Tekken players. His current chair of choice is a cheap racing-style gaming chair. However, like many other successful pros, he touts fitness as his secret weapon.
Bottom line: Gen Z is into fitness and in sync with the esports performance model. An ergonomic chair is essential — but the exact type doesn’t matter. With proper habits, any model that supports neutral postures can do the job.
Office Chair Peddlers HATE Gaming Chairs!
The first gaming chair emerged in 2006 to great derision. Arrogant office chair peddlers were dismissive. Seventeen years later, office chair peddlers are urgently deriding gaming chairs as ‘scams’.
Circa 2023, office chair peddlers are enraged. Some reputable sellers have even made Youtube rage videos to express subjective gaming chair hatred(11).
That’s ok. Looking at things historically, a shrinking market share — not ergonomics — is the root of their distress.
Beyond the frontline peddlers, the ergonomic office seating industry started taking gaming chairs very seriously during COVID lockdowns. Then, while office chair sales plummeted, gaming chair sales broke records.
Since then, many ergo office mega-corps hastily developed e-commerce systems to serve B2C markets. In recent years, many have gone a step further by endorsing gaming chair concepts.
Herman Miller Bends The Knee To The Gaming Chair
In October 2022, Herman Miller released the Vantum gaming chair. Herman Miller Gaming GM Jon Campell justified it by noting: “gamers require versatility. A strong active posture is critical for gameplay, but having an equally supported, reclined position for moments of relaxation is key.”
To that end, “The Vantum Gaming Chair supports the active-gaming-forward posture, a position proven to fuel focus and faster reaction times.”
Given all of these developments, the ire of office chair peddlers makes sense. It’s like the siren call of a bloated, once-dominant cubicle-style seating model.
Even so, in today’s tough economic times, promoting diversity beats spreading negativity and divisiveness. From that perspective, office chair peddler hatred for gaming chairs comes off as selfish and irrational.
This article counters the hate. There’s no shame in using a cheap gaming chair. Rather than shame, there are many benefits to enjoy.
Cheap Gaming Chairs: So Hot Right Now!
If money’s tight, cheap gaming chairs are well worth the investment for desk workers. After seventeen years on the market, cheap gaming chairs remain hot sellers on Amazon.
Gaming chairs have also disrupted the B2B office seating industry. As home gaming setups and work-from-home became ubiquitous, institutional powers took notice.
That’s why the world’s biggest office chair brands (like Herman Miller) are also now fully on board the gaming chair bandwagon. Meanwhile, the symbiotic relationship between esports and gaming chairs continues to this day.
As a result, more people are switching on to the esports performance model. Paired with frequent standing breaks and a healthy lifestyle, any ergonomic chair can provide the posture support that you need.
Finally, consider a child learning how to ride a bike. Using a goofy-looking model with training wheels will help them more than using a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
Similarly, there’s no reason to buy a $1000+ ergonomic chair with zero ergonomic seating experience. That’s where cheap gaming chairs come in. Many popular models are comfortable, easy to use, and good for your back.
Once you’re ergonomically educated, you’re then free to level up by making informed buying decisions. So are you a first-time ergo chair user? If yes, check out the best cheap gaming chairs of the year below:
Best Cheap Gaming Chairs Under $200
Gaming Chairs < $300 With Wide Seats | XL Gaming Chairs < $300 w. 400-pound Support
Footnotes
- Michael Dimcock. ‘Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins’. January 17, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- U.S. Census Bureau. ‘Annual Estimates of the Resident Population by Single Year of Age and Sex for the United States: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2021’. April 5, 2022, https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-detail.html, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- YPulse. ‘Millennials & Gen Z Teens’ Combined Spending Power Is Nearly $3 Trillion in 2020’. January 9, 2020, https://www.ypulse.com/article/2020/01/09/millennials-gen-z-teens-combined-spending-power-is-nearly-3-trillion-in-2020/, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- Ibisworld. ‘Per Capita Disposable Income’, March 22, 2023. https://www.ibisworld.com/us/bed/per-capita-disposable-income/33/, (accessed 15 May 2023).
- Health Action Council. ‘Millennials Exceed Older Generations In Chronic Health Conditions’, February 9, 2023. https://healthactioncouncil.org/News/2023-White-Paper-Announced, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- Grace Wang et al. ‘Older Adult Use and Outcomes in a Digital Musculoskeletal (MSK) Program, by Generation’. August 3, 2021, doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2021.693170, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- F4CP. ‘Chronic Pain in Gen Z Begins Before Age 16’. Survey taken in June 2020, https://www.f4cp.org/package/home/viewfile/infchronic-pain-in-gen-z-begins-before-age-16, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- F4CP. ‘Chronic Pain in Gen Z Begins Before Age 16’. Survey taken in June 2020, https://civicscience.com/7-quick-health-fitness-trends-that-lead-among-gen-z/, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- Grand View Research. ‘Video Game Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Device 2022-2030’. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/video-game-market, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- Yahoo Finance. ‘Global Esports Market Report 2023-2030: A $1.39 Billion Market in 2022’. March 20, 2023, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-esports-market-report-2023-140800513.html, (accessed 17 May 2023).
- BTODtv, ‘5 Reasons Gaming Chairs Are A SCAM’. Youtube Video, April 2022, https://youtu.be/FDszBK5T7NA, (accessed 16 May. 2023).
