Hello, please introduce yourself!

My name is Theo Sanders. In the online gaming world I’m known as “araxas”. I’m a Dutch expatriate working in California for Razer as the Product Director since late last year. I’ve been gaming since the time I had to program my own games in BASIC on a ZX Spectrum 128k computer around 1987. It’s a hobby that’s stuck with me ever since.

First off, could you please tell me little bit about your past, I heard you worked for Blizzard earlier, why did you leave?

In 2004, I decided to turn my gaming habit into a career and worked as a Producer at Blizzard for several years, primarily focused on competitive multiplayer gaming across all their titles. There’s no exciting story behind my parting ways with the company; it was just time for a change. I wish them all the best and want to congratulate the team over there on the recent Starcraft II launch.

Tell us a little about a typical day in the life of Theo Sanders, where you go, and what you get up to? What exactly is a Product Director responsible for.

As Product Director, my main responsibility is to drive both Razer’s 24-month product roadmap as well as the individual product development cycles. Really what this means is ensuring that the products we have on the horizon resonate with our customers, and offer gamers some competitive edge by using them.

Razer has development facilities around the world, so quite a bit of my time is spent shuttling around as well as meeting our global technology and strategic partners. I’m not sure there is such a thing as a “typical day” at a company like Razer. It’s a dynamic, constantly changing environment. One day I might be working with our Product Analysts focusing on how to best address a specific customer need, while another might be spent with R&D studying the technology.

Which Razer product is your personal favorite?

Although I’ve been very happy to see the gaming community’s reaction to the DeathAdder, it’s actually our Armadillo that’s my personal favorite. It’s a daily sanity check that products need to retain their purity of purpose when making design trade-offs. It’s easy to lose your direction with gimmicks like “triple fire buttons” while not actually doing anything to improve your customer’s experience.

Can you talk about some of the enhancements to Razer products you have made recently?

Most recently, we’ve been introducing Vista-compliant drivers across our product range which are available on our support website. However, we’ve also continued to make improvements and cleaned up a few bugs with ongoing driver and firmware updates.

Do you seek inspiration from other companies that are out there? Is it possible for you to reveal your favorite none Razer product?

Absolutely. Although we do keep tabs on our competitors, Razer isn’t in the business of parity products. That means taking note, but looking several steps ahead of what they’re doing. Often you’ll find more to inspire you in other industries. We’re always looking at cars, designer goods, sports, and even home appliances for ideas. Yep – your Razer mouse might make toast someday too.

What do you think is the most exciting aspect of a developer's job in Razer?

The most exciting part is the end of the process. In the past few months I’ve made trips to CeBIT in Germany as well as several trips to our local LAN center, Howie’s Game Shack. It’s great fun watching gamers use and interact with the products you’ve worked on.