Wyrmwood, famed for its beautiful hardwood gaming equipment, is moving into home furnishings. The heir apparent to the Geek Chic throne is expanding out with the Wyrmwood Modular Desk, a solid wood work-from-home solution with an optional sit/stand function.
It may be the most attractive new PC gaming accessory announced this year, but it’ll cost you $3,000 just to book a spot in line.
Wyrmwood, founded in 2015, specializes in dice and miniature storage, as well as over-the-top gaming tables and Dungeon Master screens. In 2020, it launched an ambitious campaign for the Wyrmwood Modular Gaming Table, which raised $8.8 million on Kickstarter during the first two months of the COVID-19 epidemic.
This initiative helped grow the firm, which now has a second U.S. production site, and improve its tooling. The economics of the project didn’t work to the company’s advantage.
“It might have been the death of us,” says co-founder Ed Maranville in a recent interview with Polygon. “We knew it might go one of two ways. Either we’d be out of business or a lot different and bigger firm than before. […] We’ve lost money the previous two years.
This year, though, we’re out. We’re turning it around, and all the investments we’ve made in recent years are going to pay off.”
The Modular Desk is offered in a normal (60″ by 30″) and an XL (78″ by 36″), in both a fixed height and as a motorized sit/stand desk with inbuilt memory that recalls three distinct heights. Additional options include a cable management solution, customizable storage, and magnetic add-ons that store cups, mugs, headphones, and gaming controllers.
The system has various choices for dedicated streamers and podcasters, including microphone and illumination attachments.
The least priced Wyrmwood Modular Desk starts at $1,750, but when the Kickstarter goes live on Tuesday, shoppers will need to spend much more. Wyrmwood will set the minimum buy-in at $3,000 for the first 1,000 desks sold on Kickstarter. Maranville said the objective is to open more tranches of workstations at a cheaper buy-in price if possible throughout the campaign.
Why such a hefty buy-in? Maranville said it’s because of various causes. First, earlier ads have proven that few buyers choose Wyrmwood’s least-priced alternatives. In this scenario, $3,000 is what the company’s leadership expects consumers to spend on a desk.
The quality of the product, which features solid wood panels and drawers with intricate joinery, also adds to the expense. This high price point is a result of Wyrmwood’s development as a firm.
“It’s not just us anymore,” Maranville added, referring to himself and co-founder Doug Costello. “We’re accountable for these lives. […] We’re reaching 200 individuals across two states. That’s a lot that depends on how things happen.
Now we’re expanding into furnishings because we can scale up that way. There’s a huge market for it, and we can hopefully provide everyone here with a better livelihood. And ourselves, too. But at the end of the day, my obligation has changed.
“We’re a luxury company,” Maranville said. Since we make goods in the U.S., we aim high. […] It’s double the price [of the Modular Game Table] to be sustainable.”