Wyrmwood, long known for a wide variety of luxury wooden gaming accessories, is expanding its offerings into home furniture. The heir to the throne of Geek Chic expands with the Wyrmwood Modular Desk, a solid wood home work solution with an optional sit/stand function. It may be the most elegant new PC gaming peripheral released this year, but it will cost you at least $3,000 to reserve your seat in line to receive one.
Founded in 2015, Wyrmwood has long focused on the gaming space with innovative solutions for dice and miniature storage, as well as over-the-top gaming tables and Dungeon Master screens. But in 2020, it launched an ambitious campaign for the Wyrmwood Modular Gaming Table, which raised an incredible $8.8 million on Kickstarter during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. That project has helped the company, which now has a second production facility in the US, expand and upgrade its tools. But the economics of that project didn’t work in the company’s favor.
“It could have been the end of us,” co-founder Ed Maranville said in a recent interview with Polygon. “We knew it could go both ways. Either we’d go out of business, or we’d be a very different company—and a much bigger company—than we had ever been. […] We have been operating at a loss for the past few years. This year, however, we are out. We’re actually turning that around and all the investments we’ve made in recent years will pay off.’
The Modular Desk is available in a standard (60” by 30”) and an XL (78” by 36”), both in a fixed height and as a motorized sit/stand desk with built-in memory that recalls three different heights. Additional accessories include a robust cable management solution, customizable storage and magnetic add-ons for cups, mugs, headphones and game controllers. The system also offers multiple options for dedicated streamers and podcasters, including holders for microphones and lighting.
The cheapest option in the Wyrmwood Modular Desk line starts at $1,750, but when the Kickstarter goes live Tuesday, potential consumers will have to spend a lot more to reserve their desk. Wyrmwood sets the minimum buy-in at $3,000 for the first wave of 1,000 desks offered on Kickstarter. Maranville said the goal is to open additional tranches of desks at a lower buy-in price during the campaign, if possible.
Why such a high buy-in? Maranville said it was due to several factors. First, previous campaigns have shown that few consumers choose Wyrmwood’s cheapest solutions. In this case, $3,000 represents what the company’s leadership expects consumers to spend on an agency. The quality of the product itself, including solid wood panels and drawers with refined joinery, also adds to that cost. But that high price is largely just a byproduct of Wyrmwood’s maturation as a company.
“It’s not just us anymore,” Maranville said, referring to himself and co-founder Doug Costello. “We are responsible for these lives. […] In total we are approaching 200 people in two states. That’s a lot that depends on where it goes. So now we’re moving to furniture, because then we can scale up that way. There’s a huge market for it, and hopefully we can give everyone here a better income. And ourselves too. But in the end my responsibility has shifted.
“Ultimately, we’re a premium company,” Maranville continued. “Because we make things in the US, we have to aim pretty high. […] It’s like double the price [of the Modular Game Table] because it just has to be sustainable.”
The Wyrmwood Modular Desk campaign begins October 18. Orders will be completed on Backerkit at a later date.
Update: We’ve updated this article with more clarity on the desk’s price compared to other Wyrmwood products.