Maingear, Unikrn Bet on PC Gaming's Future

The future of the PC has looked mighty bleak in recent years, with low-powered systems, tablets, and phones capturing much of the traditional computer market. But two big names in the PC gaming space are betting on untapped potential.

In an exclusive interview with PCMag this week, the heads of boutique computer manufacturer Maingear and the e-sports wagering service Unikrn, Wallace Santos and Rahul Sood, announced their companies are joining forces.

Unikrn has acquired "a significant stake" in Maingear, said Santos. Neither he nor Sood, who founded the luxury manufacturer VoodooPC in the early 1990s (it was later acquired by HP) and subsequently worked at Microsoft on the startup project that eventually became Microsoft Ventures, disclosed the exact details of the deal between the companies. But Sood was careful to state that he sees Maingear as a strategic investment with an allure going well beyond the gaming market.

"On the hardware side, there's really very few companies that have the brand cachet, or at least the potential to be a big brand in gaming," he said.

If recent history is any judge, Maingear has indeed attained a significant position within the industry, striking other deals with companies like Razer (on its new gaming desktop), HP (on its Omen laptop line, which, perhaps coincidentally, originated with VoodooPC), and even the Coca-Cola Company, for which Maingear has built a series of Coca-Cola–themed PCs with liquid coolant the color of the classic soft drink and the reservoir constructed from an actual bottle in which it's sold. And since its inception, Maingear has won a number of industry awards, including PCMag's Editors' Choice, most recently for the Rush X99 Super Stock —a high-end desktop costing nearly $10,000 (pictured below).

It remains to be seen if joint Unikrn–Maingear products (if any) will sport price tags that hefty. Sood said he doesn't want to change Maingear's direction or what he sees as its commitment to quality.

"If anything, [the deal] is actually improving the overall quality," Sood said. "Because more volume is coming in, more quality control is coming in, we get better deals on hardware, and a lot more resources."

What's their vision for what the two companies can accomplish together?

"Eventually we see the companies doing a lot more together," Sood said. "Right now, we're completely separate companies, but I see a ton of potential with Maingear and where it's going to go, especially over the next year. The audience for gaming continues to expand both in age and demographic, and in the next five to 10 years, everybody on the planet in the developed world is basically a gamer. So how do we turn Maingear into this truly global brand? I think we're at a stage where we can do that.

Santos founded Maingear in 2002 out of what he describes as a "passion" for building high-end computers. He and Sood have known each other for years, and Sood acted as a mentor for Santos during and after his time with VoodooPC.

"Our goal is to grow our business without losing focus on what we do best," Santos said about the new relationship. "And we do build the systems from the inside out, so you'll see a lot more of that in the near future."

Does that mean there's a specific new product in the works? "We have a few projects we're working on," Santos said. "We'd love to say, but it's not ready."

Sood, said Santos, is "an amazing brand guy," whereas "I'm more of a technical guy." At Maingear, Santos's goal "was to build the world's best PCs," but with Sood on board, we'll hopefully "not just find our soul, but hopefully point the ship in the right direction, find the focus."

Both men were insistent that this will not affect the quality of Maingear's products; its systems, Santos said, will continue to be constructed and supported out of the company's Kenilworth, New Jersey, headquarters.

Given Sood's involvement in e-sports (and he admits to being a fan of betting himself), one natural conclusion is that Maingear will power the next generation of, say, slot or video poker machines, but Sood says that's not necessarily the case.

"What you'll see is PC gaming will be a much bigger part in entertainment," he said. "It's not really a gambling machine as much as it is PC gaming is a form of entertainment that's really popular, it's only growing. Young people love playing PC games, they love playing games in general, and we want to create really fun environments that will bring people to properties, retain them on properties, and keep them coming back. It's not always about gambling, is my point.

"Eventually, I think the world of entertainment is going to change. I think, between VR, gaming, on-premise experiences, that sort of thing is all going to come together, and we want to be a big part of powering that. Unikrn wants to power that. And we want to bring in the best hardware and the best experiences around it to pull it all together."

For more, check out PCMag's interview with Santos and Sood in the video above.