You didn’t spend $160 on your BlackWidow Chroma keyboard because you like routine, boring lighting designs, and now PC hardware manufacturer Razer is making it easier than ever for you to express yourself.
The company announced today that it is launching the Razer Chroma Workshop, which is a portal where gamers can quickly find lighting profiles and Chroma-capable applications for their devices. Chroma, of course, is what Razer calls its line of products that can light up with the full spectrum of RGB colors in dynamic and preprogrammed patterns. This means that, on the Chroma Workshop, you can download profiles to integrate games like the zombie-survival simulator H1Z1 with your Chroma-compatible keyboard, mouse, and other peripherals.
Chroma Workshop also includes apps that work specifically with the lighting, like the classic low-fi game Snake. If you’re wondering what in the hell that looks like, check it out — along with other apps like an audio visualizer — in the video below:
Razer will upload many of its own profiles, and it will enable developers to do the same for their games. But this is also about empowering the community to build and share profiles quickly and easily.
“It is incredibly easy to upload personal lighting profiles to Razer Chroma Workshop,” Razer senior manager of product marketing Christopher Mitchell said. “You simply go to the website and upload the exported profile.”
This is a fun way to make your PC battle station standout and feel more alive, but Mitchell points out that it can also make the games you’re playing feel even more intense.
“The integration with the games offers an immense amount of opportunities for game developers,” he said. “Not only can you make it more immersive, you can make tutorials easier to understand and provide valuable information through cooldowns or alerts, so it absolutely goes beyond that.”
Just imagine the button for a special power lighting up when that ability is ready to use again.
Finally, the Chroma Workshop isn’t just a community exchange site. It’s an active store where people can build things and actually sell them. This means that you can design a profile or a Chroma application and charge money for it through the Workshop. If you’re interested in developing for this platform, Razer has a portal open now for creators.