From a design perspective, what is the difference between an office desk and a gaming desk? Obviously the aesthetics are different: Office desks try to project professionalism or minimalism, whereas gamers seem to prefer dark colors with splashes of neon. But beyond the looks, what functional differences are required?

From what I can tell, startup furniture company Livtab sees two differences: One, that gamers need more storage space to stow various controllers, peripherals and doo-dads for multiple systems (consider that a modern-day gaming setup might include a PC, an X-Box and a PlayStation, plus however many monitors). Two is that gamers apparently want lots of tech built into their desks.

Thus the company's CyberOne gaming desk addresses both of those things. (Whether it addresses them well is another matter.) From a storage perspective, the desk features two undermount drawers, a large vertical storage bin with an extra drawer hanging off the left side of the desk, a bracketed shelf meant to hold a heavy PC tower on the right side, and a vertical pegboard surface at the rear of the desk.

The drawers and storage bin make good sense, but to me the backsplash storage doesn't. With a dual-monitor set-up, for instance, very little of that hanging space would be easily accessible.

On the tech front, the desk seems to push the boundaries of what we'd believe would still be working in five years. It features dual motors to raise and lower between standing and sitting, with a collision detection system; the de rigueur LED lights; two Bluetooth speakers that pop up out of the desk at the touch of a button; a built-in wireless charging pad; a built-in coaster with both cooling and heating functionality; tons of outlets—four USB-A, four USB-C and two power outlets; and a smartphone app that allows you to control your desk's settings from your smartphone.

I still have a hard time believing that people want to interact with their furniture and appliances using smartphone apps, but the numbers don't lie: At press time the $1,500 desk had nearly $200K in pledges, and there's still 41 days left to pledge. In other words, this neon-festooned object is on track to hit the quarter-million mark.

There are two things I wonder: One, will designers of office desks start lifting any cues from gaming desks, i.e. is there anything in this design that non-gamers might find useful?

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And two: Will this object one day look as dated as this earlier iteration of the gaming desk?