With the advent of new technologies, video games today games now feature better graphics, more complex gameplay, and, in many cases, demand more playtime. The most popular massively-multiplayer online game today has 10 million players worldwide, each of them playing an average of 17 hours a week. This rapid increase in the gaming population has also resulted in a change in the players themselves.

Take the rise of the professional gamer, for example- video game players who compete in video game events on national and international levels. For example, now there are professional video game players- gamers who play for money, in tournaments held nationally and internationally. In South Korea (where, as of 2005, some 35 percent of all males — 17 million people — regularly play videogames) professional gamers are treated like royalty. Gamers like these earn money from television appearances and endorsements, sign autographs, and are mobbed by fans in the street. Countries like the US, Germany and the United Kingdom are also churning out professional gamers, and televised matches are watched by millions all over the world.

And, as in sports, the rise of professional players has spurred the development of professional equipment- if you take your games seriously, you’ll want to invest in these. Take your ergonomic keyboard, for example. This keyboard is designed to relieve the strain of holding your wrists over the keyboard for extended periods of time. These designs are perfect for those marathon gaming sessions, where the wrists are held in a relatively still position for hours on end. For the gamer who already has to deal with eyestrain for the monitor and back-aches from sitting down for many hours, an ergonomic keyboard is a blessing.

Many keyboards also feature some useful functions for the serious player. Some brands feature high key responsiveness, meaning a shorter delay between the actual button press and the signal being registered by your computer. The difference between good and bad responsiveness in measured in milliseconds, but in shooter games and sports games, these milliseconds can significantly tip the odds!

Another feature that unfortunately not in your average ergonomic keyboard (yet) is the anti-ghosting capability. A feature like this prevents your computer from registering errors when multiple keys are pressed at the same time, which happens frequently in many games. Anti-ghosting hasn’t quite hit the ergonomic keyboard sector yet, but there are some design and manufacturing companies working on it, so we should be able to see a product like this soon.

The design of an ergonomic keyboard for gaming is tricky: it should balance efficiency and comfort, but also have the best in responsiveness and have features like anti-ghosting. But seeing how quickly things are developing in the games industry, I wouldn’t be surprised if one has been released in the time it took to write this article. So fire up the keyboard, and ready your mouse. Happy hunting!

Frank Barnett has been both writer, gamer, and sales representative for a computer retail chain for eight years. When not extolling the virtues of the ergonomic keyboard to customers, he spends his time online, dispensing advice on computer hardware and peripherals. He regularly plays flight simulators and first-person shooters on the PC , and dreams of one day turning pro.

- Frank Barnett

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