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On September 25 2010 19:52 chimthegrim wrote:
The sports culture idea, I do think has some merit. We do sort of look down on people who are anti-social because of video games. It is something that I admit I kind of do a little bit myself because I strongly believe you should have a balance in your life of some physical activity and other activities (like gaming).
Gaming isn't anti social at all unless you chose to stay home to game when your friends are going out or something like that.
And about physical activity, I think that we have you guys beat in every fitness category you can imagine even though we have more liberal views on gaming. If you look at the top gamers from Sweden most of them are quite fit as well, getting fit takes almost no time at all from your life and you get so much back from it.
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Since Sweden has a 6 month winter of total darkness and cold coming up we will probably see a strong development of the Swedish SC2 scene 
I would say that after Korea, Sweden probably already has the strongest players atleast in relation to the total population of the country. Players like MorroW, Sjow, meRz, lalush, MaDFRoG, Jinro, ThorZain,HayprO and nAniwA are currently "top tier".
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[B]The sports culture idea, I do think has some merit. We do sort of look down on people who are anti-social because of video games. It is something that I admit I kind of do a little bit myself because I strongly believe you should have a balance in your life of some physical activity and other activities (like gaming).
Go work do 8 hours of psyhical work then come home and play np!
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On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote:
I've been told by my Swedish and German friends before that some people in said countries only work every other year, live off of welfare programs on the off-years, and spend that time playing WoW and other games.
I have never heard of anyone doing this. I mean theoratically it would be possible, but this is just completely nuts. In Germany you form so called pension funds where you pay money every month and for it you get your pension after age 67 to live off. There is the official pension fund from the state and there are private ones you can contract with banks. Every sane person make such a private pension fund to ensure getting more than around 300 bucks a month (+ rent or something).
If you work one year and do nothing the next your pension is going to decrease by a lot, not only half. So actually by doing this you would lose a lot and probably have a shitty "life evening"
I think the difference in "pro" players depends on some other factor. For example the availability of internet, which is pretty awesome in Germany (you can get internet practically everywhere, and 16mb is the standard). Then I would think the state of esports and acceptance of gaming in general plays a big role aswell. And last but not least the GDP plays a big role aswell, because it influences all the other mentioned things. Which sort of computer you're able to afford, where and when you can access the internet and what amount of time you have available for gaming (depending on how much you have to work + study to gain a living or if your parents have the necessary money to support you and therefore have a lot of free time). Which makes it very hard for countries like brazil and i belive spain aswell to produce high skilled gamers.
All this stuff gets a lot more people to play games, and increase the chance of the one talented dude to become good enough.
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Well Sweden is also very high ranked (ie best when I checked last) on WoW, cod4 and CS 1.6.
We're just nerds..
A theory would be that we have a pretty cold winter, so we spend our time indoor playing computer games? Could be true for Canadians as well.
Strangely enough Norwegians suck at everything but skiing, and Finland's only good at competitive sauna...
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Players_(Europe) has some information about top players, but it seems tragically outdated..
edit: sorry, all of this has already been said.. was just too lazy to look through the entire thread.
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guys you totally forget about Ukraine? DIMAGA, White-Ra, Strelok and Kas are pretty strong and it is a relativly small country. According to this Statistics from Zotac Cup it is like Sweden > Ukraine > Germany (btw. swedish terrans are scary :p)
edit: i only took Europe into consideration.
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![[image loading]](http://www.astro-tom.com/images/latitudes.gif)
Between 60° and 30°
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On August 26 2010 01:43 Scope wrote:
As a Swede, I have a few theories as to why we have the most top players per capita (except for Korea I suppose). I think the same factors have a hand in Sweden's dominant position in the music industry.
Weather is crap 8 months out of the year. People stay indoors.
For the 3-4 months the weather is passable, there are summer vacations and school holds up.
This what I immediately thought of when I read the original post. I believes Swedes are also known for heavy drinking.
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IMO TLO counts as like, 3 top players.
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about Sweden:
we used to be one of the strongest, if not the strongest BW nation outside of Korea in the early days (98-03/04) when players like SaFT,TreK,MaDFroG,KeNKa,Jesse,WiLLEt and Whiz were in their primes
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On September 25 2010 21:11 Grond wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2010 01:43 Scope wrote:
As a Swede, I have a few theories as to why we have the most top players per capita (except for Korea I suppose). I think the same factors have a hand in Sweden's dominant position in the music industry.
Weather is crap 8 months out of the year. People stay indoors.
For the 3-4 months the weather is passable, there are summer vacations and school holds up.
This what I immediately thought of when I read the original post. I believes Swedes are also known for heavy drinking.
Historically, yes. we had some problem with drinking in the beginning of the 1900s I believe..
Finland and Russia however has been, and are, far worse off when it comes to drinking issues (the sterotypical drunk in sweden speaks with a finnish accent LoL). I even think that English people drink more then we do, but I'm just guessing.
Don't know what that has to do with gaming but whatever.. Would be cool to know where you're from to get an idea how much of an idea you actually have about Europe overall. (Americans tend to think that Sweden is a frozen wasteland with polarbears roaming about killing people at will, and that the actual name is Switzerland).
However I can only imagine that the more people are "forced" to stay indoors, the more they'll be attracted to computer games. It might not be a coincidence that thepiratebay is also swedish. We're indoorsy ^^
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On August 26 2010 02:40 Mykill wrote:
Yay Canada!!
Comparing population to top players we have the best ratio!
Doubt that very much. Sweden has a population of 9 million or so, while you're at like 35.
Morrow, Jinro and Haypro are just three I know on top of my head who are good swedish players.. come up with 12 top tier canadian players please. We have the advantage of being few 
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EU and NA would have a much bigger RTS scene if FPS games weren't stealing the spotlight. Damn that American entertainment that has got everyone hooked on guns.
RTS games > FPS games in terms of how good they are as spectator sports.
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On September 25 2010 22:18 McFoo wrote:
EU and NA would have a much bigger RTS scene if FPS games weren't stealing the spotlight. Damn that American entertainment that has got everyone hooked on guns.
RTS games > FPS games in terms of how good they are as spectator sports.
Indeed!
Also the skill cap on RTS is like enormous in comparison to FPS, where good reflexes in a braindead body probably could make anyone the best player in the world. Slight exaggeration, but you get the picture. RTS needs.. strategy.
The one problem with RTS imho, from own experience, and when it comes to friends who I try to get playing sc2, is that the learning curve is pretty horrible.. If you don't look up build orders and such, you'll probably lose 99/100 games, while FPS and, even more so, RPGs are much more tolerant to noobs.
It's actually quite intimidating to play RTS, especially with all the cheesing going on. Playing a couple of games, losing instantly and being placed in bronze league actually made my friend quit the game and going back to wow, stating that sc2 is boring 
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On August 26 2010 19:41 -Iron- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2010 04:27 Flicky wrote:
Comparing the UK to the Germans, they are historically very competitive people (I don't mean this in a negative way). From what I know of parts of the German thought process, is their strong beliefs when it comes to their Duty. In the UK children are repeatedly told to "Do their best". This doesn't really help a competitive spirit if people are content with "their best". If your best is 8th, it's not going to win you competitions. In Germany, the idea of duty is a strong one, where it is your duty to win. (Duty may not be the write word, but I can't think of a more accurate word). Germans thrive and succeed using this mentality, especially in big sports and they're proud of their teams and countries. This isn't exactly the case in the UK, as I stated above.
If you want the top countries, here they are:
South Korea, Sweden, Germany, USA, Canada and the Ukraine.
Every other country is below these in terms of star power, names and whatnot. I'm actually german I don't think this is the case. Would be nice if it was so but most people I know don't have such an attitude. And being proud of their country or feeling duty for it is a very, very delicate topic in our society, because of our history. But I appreciate that these feelings (in a positive way) play a increasing role in the last decade, especially since 2006. But I don't think that their role is more important than in other european countries, like the UK. I guess the reason why we have perhaps better sc2 players than you has three simple reasons: 1) coincidence 2) higher population 3) We have even more fat, nerdy, sunlight-and-sport-avoiding children than you. :D But nice to read that other people have such positive beliefs about germany.
only stupid germans and jews think like that, noone else.
sad story germans stand in theyre own way of beeing awesome. cant hear that shit anymore
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US is centered around physical sports as socially acceptable activities. I LOVE gaming, but I just have to accept that it's not going to net me buku money/girls as a career here as opposed to playing football (and getting paid ridiculous cash to be a 4th string doing nothing lol)
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On August 26 2010 04:27 Flicky wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2010 01:06 iD.NicKy wrote:On August 26 2010 01:02 retro-noob wrote:On August 26 2010 01:01 iD.NicKy wrote:
sweden because of their internet connection back then.
germany because germans are always good at any sport.
korea for the obvious reason
Ukrainian have some top top players but not a lot of good players.
Canada no idea why, maybe because they were french at first 8) What's it like in France, Spain, and the UK? France, Spain, Uk has a lot of good players but only few top players let's say demuslim/dapollo for UK, Lucifron for spain, sarens/moman for france Comparing the UK to the Germans, they are historically very competitive people (I don't mean this in a negative way). From what I know of parts of the German thought process, is their strong beliefs when it comes to their Duty. In the UK children are repeatedly told to "Do their best". This doesn't really help a competitive spirit if people are content with "their best". If your best is 8th, it's not going to win you competitions. In Germany, the idea of duty is a strong one, where it is your duty to win. (Duty may not be the write word, but I can't think of a more accurate word). Germans thrive and succeed using this mentality, especially in big sports and they're proud of their teams and countries. This isn't exactly the case in the UK, as I stated above.
To elaborate, I remember as a kid hearing a lot of "You enjoyed yourself and that's the important thing" (not just myself) and I would be just standing there like. "LOL WHAT? That's retarded."
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I'm proud of being a Swedish gamer ^^
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Netherlands are gonna surprise many people as soon as the real nation wars are gonna start, Servyoa Ret NTT and nazghul if he keeps playing are all sickly good, wait and see :D
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EPT
