Interview
Yiğit Mandıroğlu / Wraith Esports – Co-Founder
In Turkey, players have lived a life trapped in the mainstream for a long time, at least in terms of player equipment. Whichever product is very popular is widely spread, it is purchased and used without investigating the cause. It’s relatively new that we see gaming hardware and peripherals as a subculture.
One of the domestic companies that started this trend is Wraith Esports, which we have mentioned with the Player Mice File in the past and introduced itself to the players with quality skatezs. We had a long interview with Yiğit Mandıroğlu, the Co-Founder of the company, about games, hardware and new products Cosmic Glass Mousepad.
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Hello, let’s start with that inevitable first question of every interview and get to know you.
YM: Hello, my name is Yiğit Mandıroğlu. I am a graduate of Computer Engineering and my main profession is software engineering. I worked professionally on image processing and artificial intelligence for about two years, but now I only work as a co-founder/manager at Wraith Esports.
Leaving professional life aside, how are you with games? What species are you close to?
In fact, we can say that playing games is a hobby that I have never been able to perform. I have a constant desire to play games, but in recent years I have hardly been able to devote any time to playing. When I was playing games, I loved old-school RPGs, KOTOR is still the best game I’ve ever played. Other than that, I rarely wrap myself in a roguelike game and play until the morning. I played Apex Legends for a long time competitively, but I can’t really afford to fight anymore. Whether we have a ranking system or not, I think we are doomed to be ravaged by people who have a lot more time for these kinds of games than we do.
Wraith is a company that strives to remove the gaming hardware culture from the mainstream in our country and to make it personal. So how did you get started, what is your story?
In 2020, we wrapped Valoranta like everyone else. The company I worked for had switched to a remote working arrangement, so I had plenty of time. So I first bought myself a Logitech G305 and then a SteelSeries Aerox 3 mouse to make it lighter. When I realized that Aerox 3 didn’t slide as well as the G305, I discovered the existence of a product called Skatez. I ordered pure PTFE skatez from Germany for 250TL and it arrived after three weeks. I thought that the price of this product should not be so expensive and should be available in Turkey.
The field of esports has always been attractive to me as a sector. In my opinion, the logic of sports is that people use their talents at the highest level. Today, esports consists of the transfer of reflexes between the human brain and the computer through a number of equipment. That’s why we wanted to take our place in this market by establishing a brand in the field of esports equipment. As our first product, we chose a product that was not available in Turkey and even limited to the world at that time.
Until a few years ago, we were happily living with stock skatezs whose performance was generally low. Now we can’t rest easy without Hoverpad, why did you do us this evil? And why did you set out with the scale?
Skatez is one of the most basic equipment in the field of esports. We can say that the friction between the mouse and the mousepad, which determines the aiming sensation in FPS games. If we don’t count mouse shape and grip, there are three factors that affect aiming performance; mouse weight, mouse pad surface and skatez surface.
There was a big deficiency in this regard in Turkey, since skatez is a product that can only be obtained from abroad, most users continue to use their mice with outdated and bad skatez. We claim to be better than the stock skatezs that come under every mouse, and many of our customers are currently buying a new mouse and ordering a skatez from us for that model. Because they both prefer our performance and look for the same feeling in all their mice. Some of our customers are also very relieved to replace the skates they have used for months with the new Hoverpads they bought from us.
As for why we started with this product, we saw skatezi as our ticket to the field of esports equipment. In fact, we have brought a quality product produced in Turkey and a good customer service to an audience of equipment enthusiasts. The Skatez product will always be one of the core products offered by the Wraith Esports brand, but we think that the Wraith brand will be remembered much more than the skatez product in the coming years.
Remember your first gaming mouse? What is your favorite product today?
I used the Razer Taipan for 7 years at a time when I was completely unaware of the developments in the field of esports mice. Although it was one of the best mice of its time, when I finally decided to change it and switched to G305, I felt a really big difference. The mouse I’m actively using right now is the Finalmouse Starlight12, but my favorite product is by far the Lamzu Atlantis. Lamzu is a formation that we communicate with as a brand. The care they show to their products is really felt.
The Hoverpad V2 is one of the top skates, which we call Virgin Grade PTFE. What does it bring to players and why is it so much in demand?
Skatez is a kind of consumable, in fact, just as we need to change the tire of the car, the skatezs need to be changed periodically. The higher the performance and quality skatezs you get, the higher the performance you get from your mouse pad and therefore from your mouse. We think the Wraith Hoverpad is at the highest level in terms of performance.
Hoverpad has upgraded to its second version in recent months. You have explained, but what evolution is there between V1 and V2?
The Hoverpad product has been quietly changing and evolving since the day it came out. After a while, the product we were producing was so different and superior to the first product we offered for sale that we needed to change the packaging to V2. Briefly, we corrected the defects of the product and improved our production quality.
So how does the production process work? You have a model for every mouse that has managed to gain a place in the market. After what stages does a new product join this product range?
Since production takes place entirely under the roof of our own facility, it is actually quite easy to add a new model. First, we need to get the test mouse, then the measurements are taken and the skatez shape is removed. Within a week, the new model is tested and made manufacturable.
Let’s come to Cosmic Glass. With a very ambitious production, you are addressing a very niche audience with this product. What’s the story? What we need to know about Cosmic Glass.
Cosmic Glass is a turning point for Wraith. Cosmic Glass was the product that separated the company’s field of activity and identity from only skatezs and moved it to gaming equipment in general. We have known for a long time that we want to enter the mouse pad space, but we wanted to enter this market with a different product from the products that already exist in the market. Although there are glass mouse pad examples abroad, we wanted to make this product in a special way for ourselves. As a result, the product we have developed has met all our expectations and started a new era for us. From this point on, Wraith Esports’ R&D activities in the field of gaming equipment will be progressing much faster.
Do you have any plans to expand abroad? Will we see you competing with companies like Tiger and Corepad?
We want to be a world brand in our field. We have been doing some infrastructure work to operate in the European market for about 4 months. I predict that our official entry into the overseas market will be in 2023. It will be quite challenging for us to compete with other gaming equipment companies in the European and then American market. Because we will be competing with more than one formation in more than one field, not only in one field. If we can achieve the success we have achieved in Turkey in the world, we will have achieved our ultimate goal.
What’s Wraith’s next goal when it comes to player-facing products? Will we see a fabric gamepad or mod kits?
Our R&D studies on fabric mouse pad continue. We are working on a product that will bring innovation to the sector. Many different products for mouse modding communities will soon be available on wraithesports.com.
What is your view of the sector and your plans for the future? Do you have anything to say to our readers?
The most important entity we are currently working on for the domestic market is called the WGear Store. This new store will be accessible through wraithesports.com. Many products from mouse and keyboard switches to niche mice that are not available in Turkey will be available for purchase directly through WGear. This store under the roof of Wraithespor will be a platform for esports equipment enthusiasts where they can find everything they are looking for.
If we talk about the overseas market, we will spend the coming years doing R&D of products that will be successful in the world market and having the necessary technological competence. Our plan, which we call “endgame”, is to become a globally recognized esports equipment/technology company within five years. A challenging road awaits us, but I believe that we can overcome it with our ever-growing team.
I would also like to leave the following message to the readers of this interview: if you have a specific competence in the field of technology, industrial design, marketing or business development and you believe that you can make a contribution in the field of gaming equipment, please contact me. My email address yigit [at] wraithesports.com
Thank you so much for this enjoyable interview.
I thank you. 🙂
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