This is the second article from the author's time spent on a tour of Logitech's testing facilities in Switzerland.
Seated
in Logitech's Lausanne, Switzerland testing facility and sporting a
brimless baseball cap emblazoned with a big blue "G," former
professional gamer Andy Dinh offered a first-hand account of what it's
like to test products for the peripheral maker.
"We have a really good relationship ... they really take our feedback seriously," he said.
Based
on Dinh's choice of head wear - the "G" is the logo for Logitech's line
of pro-grade gaming peripherals - you could be forgiven for dismissing
his remarks as those of another sponsored eSports athlete singing the
praises of their perks-giving partner.
I
was a bit skeptical when Logitech invited me, along with other
journalists, to its Alps-surrounded headquarters for a tour of its labs
and a chance to speak with some of its engineers and sponsored
pro-gamers. Members of Cloud9, an e-sports team competing in everything
from Counter Strike to Super Smash Bros., Halo to Hearthstone, and Team
SoloMid, which specializes in League of Legends, were on hand, though
Logitech sponsors a dozen teams in total.
After talking
with the professionals who rely on these products to help make their
income, however, I came away with the sense the company's mantra of
"Gamers are our focus" was more than just a marketing-spun line spawned
to sell more mice.
It's not just about the perks
Dinh,
the 22-year-old captain of Team SoloMid, and Jason Tran, a.k.a.
"WildTurtle," one of the eSports athletes on Dinh's team, revealed how
they help design Logitech's gamer-centric products.
"There's
a whole process of testing," began Dinh. "They send a team and products
to our house in Santa Monica way in advance for testing. We test, say, a
mouse for months and tell them what we like and don't like about it.
They value our feedback ... it's actually more of a partnership, where
we help them develop the products.
"They give us
prototypes and let us see everything, then we test it," added Tran.
"They make equipment based on the feedback we give them."
When
pressed for a specific example of where Team SoloMid's extensive
testing may have resulted in a peripheral being tweaked with their
tastes in mind, Tran offered this: "The G302 model [Logitech's Daedalus
Prime, a dedicated MOBA mouse] used to be a lot smaller ... it felt
really uncomfortable sometimes. Now it feels great ... it fits in your
palm perfectly."
When I spoke with Logitech's senior director of engineering,
Maxine Marini, later in the day, he cited the same example, but added
the goal was also to make the G302 a peripheral pro players could use
for at least 10 hours a day (the average time an eSports athlete
practices) without experiencing any discomfort.
Marini
offered another example regarding a mouse he declined to name, when the
professionals' feedback led to a halt in development shortly before the
peripheral was to hit the production line.
"We changed a
mouse that was too heavy just a few weeks before mass production; we
stopped everything and decided we needed to cut 8-10 grams from its
weight. My team had to do plenty of overtime, but we listen to the pros,
and if we need to change something, even right up to the last minute,
we change it."
Not every Logitech G product needs to get
the pro-gamer seal of approval before hitting store shelves, of course.
And while eSports competitors certainly enjoy some pampering and perks
courtesy of their sponsors, they also act serve as a resource for
Logitech, one it considers when designing and producing its products.
