It all started with our CEO Dennis’ birthday. We decided something had to be done to mark such an occasion. Several ideas were floated around. We remapped his computer to go to Yahoo! instead of Google, created a custom greeting message for his login at Raptr and brought in a helium tank to fill his office:

Ever since then, birthdays at Raptr have often been celebrated with harmless “pranks”. John, our backend engineer who seems to think everything is easy to do, came upon his Staples branded desk:

Escalation is of course a given when it comes to pranks. Patrick, whose birthday coincided with St. Patrick’s Day, first met with a fortress of diet coke surrounding his desk. Expecting that to be the end of things, he later found his keyboard remapped and, as the cake arrived, fell under friendly fire:

Sometimes, it still makes sense to use animated gifs.

A lot of companies out there claim to be a “social network for gamers” but what does that mean exactly? For us at Raptr, it means making your offgame experience a lot more fun and social. What is offgame? It’s when you’re not actually playing the games you love.

Experiences that happen when you’re not connected to the ‘net are called “offline”, and let’s face it, a lot of activities aren’t as fun when you’re offline: you don’t have email, instant messaging, Wikipedia and of course, online gaming. Online, you can talk to your friends, access information and generally communicate and feel a part of a larger whole.

Equally, offgame refers to your experience when you’re not playing a game: discussing a game on forums, perusing news sites for new screenshots and trailers and maybe drooling over the next big achievement in your game du jour. Ongame, whether it’s with your friends in your living room, in an online poker table, raiding a dungeon with your guild, or playing Call of Duty 4 against worthy opponents, the experience is engaging, immersive and often social.

This social experience shouldn’t be limited to the confines of your games. What we aim to accomplish with Raptr is a way for players to continue that experience in the context of common interests. Through Raptr,  people can discuss games they already play and have in common with other players. Even more exciting for us is the prospect of players discovering new games and content through their friends and others on the network.

Raptr is like that friend that understands your musical tastes and recommends to you the next big unsigned bands. Except instead of music, we’re doing it for all games.