It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
haha, someone is apparently biased against Americans..way to show it so blatantly. 6 of the top 10 on ladder right now are from US. all with win % that are just as good.
regardless i dont think it has anything to do with your country of origin. thats ignorant as shit to believe.
Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote: Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
Interesting. That makes sense that differences in social programs and social norms would play a big role.
Anyone who can verify or add to this or who can add insight for other countries?
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
edit: gonna add to this.
I think it's also based around what you're growing up and seeing, and aspiring to be.
For example, all english boys want to grow up to be footballers, and for a small country, a lot of the football scene has english players.
I'm sure the same works for america, with american football and baseball.
And ofcourse korea, boys grow up and see professional gamers being stars and earning lots of money, it gives a much higher percentage chance of the truely talented becoming a starcraft player.
And i assume, that in germany and sweden, many many young boys are into gaming, that gives a higher percentage chance of a talented person becoming a gamer..
i've rambled on a bit, but you get my point hopefully
On August 26 2010 00:50 PhiliBiRD wrote: haha, someone is apparently biased against Americans..way to show it so blatantly. 6 of the top 10 on ladder right now are from US. all with win % that are just as good.
regardless i dont think it has anything to do with your country of origin. thats ignorant as shit to believe.
Actually what the OP said is true for the most part. Though he's incorrect to assume that population size is what matters. It doesn't matter how many people live in the country, but rather the number of gamers.
I think social stigma matters quite a bit too. America still thinks E-sports is a joke.
If you watched some of those IEM streams, it was a pretty big deal. They had a crowd. They even had very uncomfortable eye-candy girls there, who did a great job of making Morrow look like he'd never been on a date before!
well its true, i mean if my graphics card didnt crap out on me yesterday, i would have still been playing blah blah, anywho im glad it died, cus ill just do regular lifestyle again instead of playing 12 hours a day like i was. Yes you would see my name on top within months, but not anymore thankfully. Its like this: once i get into starcraft, theres no leaving it, only loss of internet has ever caused me to go inactive after reaching c- on scbw. Then i would come back as D+. Here i was playing on avg 30 games per day for about 3 days then sc2 killed my card. And i just decided this lifestyle too. O well back to normalcy again. XD
On August 26 2010 00:50 PhiliBiRD wrote: haha, someone is apparently biased against Americans..way to show it so blatantly. 6 of the top 10 on ladder right now are from US. all with win % that are just as good.
regardless i dont think it has anything to do with your country of origin. thats ignorant as shit to believe.
Actually what the OP said is true for the most part. Though he's incorrect to assume that population size is what matters. It doesn't matter how many people live in the country, but rather the number of gamers.
Yeah, it's number of gamers, not population. The US definitely has a large population of gamers, though.
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)
They even had very uncomfortable eye-candy girls there, who did a great job of making Morrow look like he'd never been on a date before!
Yes, that was all an illusion, and not at all the truth.
E-Sports is a joke in Canada too. I really have no idea why there are so many good Canadian players, but the ratio is definitely higher in Canada than in the US.
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)
On August 26 2010 00:56 Full wrote: Some countries are more into gaming i assume..
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
So so wrong and kind of offending to me that you say this. They aren't "smarter", their culture is to excel in everything they do and the same goes for a lot of Europe like Germany.
I think what he's talking about Saracen is that, aside from Idra, we haven't been talking about American players recently.
This might also be because the last big tournament that we've all been talking about was in Europe, so obviously we're talking more about European players right now.
I bet we'll see a lot of good American players in the HDH2.
People often exaggerate the welfare of europe, saying stuff like "well they dont even have to work, they just get money for nothing", which isnt really the case.
It's more about the culture. Scandinavia/Germany has always been ahead in technology and therefore there are more sc2 players, simple as that. If you take a country like Spain or France, they arent as much into computers and such, so they obviously dont play sc2 as much.
Canada/Korea are the same. The only country i really dont understand is Ukraine. Could just be coincidence though, since i've only really heard of white-ra and dimaga.
On August 26 2010 01:03 Ketara wrote: I think what he's talking about Saracen is that, aside from Idra, we haven't been talking about American players recently.
This might also be because the last big tournament that we've all been talking about was in Europe, so obviously we're talking more about European players right now.
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
The internet connections in Sweden are SO much better than in the US.
I remember the last time I was in Sweden visiting friends, we were downloading movies in HD in like 10 minutes. It made me jealous.
I wouldn't say Sweden and Germany are more ahead technologically though. Maybe they have a more technology-sensitive culture, but my friends in Sweden were still all using American made computers for their fancy internet connections.
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?
AFAIK The UK gaming scene has never really concentrated on RTS's with the British progaming groups concentrating on FPS tourneys like CS / COD1/2 / MOH etc. Also PC gaming in the UK seems to be at a similar percentage to the US one, however due to the far lower number of actual gamers theres less high skilled ones.
Note: These are opinions based on basically nothing but my own experiences.
On August 26 2010 00:50 PhiliBiRD wrote: haha, someone is apparently biased against Americans..way to show it so blatantly. 6 of the top 10 on ladder right now are from US. all with win % that are just as good.
Actually that doesn't account for the fact that the US ladder is easier then the Asian or European ones. The same held true on the wc3 ladders, the Azeroth and Lordaeron servers (US east, west) were of much lower caliber then the Asian (kalimdor) and Northrend (euro) ones.
It was such a discrepancy that top Asian players would make accounts on the american servers, level them up with good records and sell them off. Showtime.WeRRa essentially dropped off the proscene, gained a reputation on his account rival.showtime on US servers by having a insanely good record. Then he leveled accounts, sold lessons, sold arranged team games with people on the US servers. This type of stuff was so prevalent and so many people bought profiles.
I feel thats also partly why Blizzard decided on the one profile per account, and locked servers for now.
The "welfare state" discussion reminds me of whenever a new instance comes out in WoW and the Europeans get a world-first kill despite getting access to the boss a day later. The amount of people saying that every European is a jobless, government-leeching hobo afterwards always makes me grin.
It's more about the culture. Scandinavia/Germany has always been ahead in technology and therefore there are more sc2 players, simple as that. If you take a country like Spain or France, they arent as much into computers and such, so they obviously dont play sc2 as much.
This feels more accurate to me. Swedes especially seem to enjoy their internet and gaming, so it's becoming a large part of their culture. It's also why you don't see too many English (British) pros, it's not a big part of how we spend our free time, for the majority, so there's a smaller pool.
Trying to say what countries are better than others is a hard call, though. I'd honestly stick by region, where I think we're looking at a Asia > Europe > US scale. IdrA as ever is the exception, but for the most part the Europeans seem to be doing better in tournaments and have been since the beta. I'm willing to be proved wrong, however.
On August 26 2010 01:18 Kisra wrote: The "welfare state" discussion reminds me of whenever a new instance comes out in WoW and the Europeans get a world-first kill despite getting access to the boss a day later. The amount of people saying that every European is a jobless, government-leeching hobo afterwards always makes me grin.
It's more about the culture. Scandinavia/Germany has always been ahead in technology and therefore there are more sc2 players, simple as that. If you take a country like Spain or France, they arent as much into computers and such, so they obviously dont play sc2 as much.
This feels more accurate to me. Swedes especially seem to enjoy their internet and gaming, so it's becoming a large part of their culture. It's also why you don't see too many English (British) pros, it's not a big part of how we spend our free time, for the majority, so there's a smaller pool.
Trying to say what countries are better than others is a hard call, though. I'd honestly stick by region, where I think we're looking at a Asia > Europe > US scale. IdrA as ever is the exception, but for the most part the Europeans seem to be doing better in tournaments and have been since the beta. I'm willing to be proved wrong, however.
Okay, tell me which inter-regional tournaments the Europeans have done well in compared to the other regions. My memory may be bad, but the only inter-regional tournament that comes to mind is the KotB tournament where IdrA won, and none of the Europeans even made the semifinals.
I think its the competative mindset we have in sweden, It's the same in other "real" sports as well, sweden is very good in comparison to how many ppl live here. Yea and it was the same inte both bw and wc3. Some of you might remember the names of; saft, willet, trek, daaman, kenka etc...
The US has a lot of top players. The reason you don't put them at the top is because there are so many players at the top level of US right now, that its hard to distinguish who is better, who will be there in a years time, etc. Wait for it to weed out a bit and certain players will probably start pulling ahead and there will be more notable names of "US Players". Right now its just a giant cluster of players who occasionally win tournaments here and there. No one is solidified any sort of lead so it seems like no one is at the top, when in actuality a lot of players are at the top.
I'm not sure you can really argue which of the top players are better than which of the other top players are better, country by country. Personally, I just haven't seen enough games pitting Europeans against Asians or Americans or whatever.
It's really hard to get a sense of how the regions match up against each other because they're seperate, and I'm sure not many people buy 3 accounts so they can play in 3 regions.
You can talk about how many top players a country has relative to their population size however, which I think was the topic in discussion. Things like gaming sensitive culture, how easy it is to spend more time gaming, and etc all factor into that.
And it's true that not every European is a "jobless, government-leeching hobo", but it's also true that the social programs in Europe and even their attitude towards vacation time on jobs puts them a big step above the US in this regard. It's unheard of to take an entire year off of work with pay in the US, but in England that's actually not too uncommon.
As an example, I have a British friend who, 3 or 4 years ago, took a year off of work with pay, moved to New Zealand, and ended up playing professional rugby for one season while he was there. Is he a good rugby player? Yes. Does he want to do that his entire life? No. But if he was an American, he wouldn't have had the chance to do it for the one year, because no American job lets you take an entire year off of work.
On August 26 2010 01:27 Alou wrote: The US has a lot of top players. The reason you don't put them at the top is because there are so many players at the top level of US right now, that its hard to distinguish who is better, who will be there in a years time, etc. Wait for it to weed out a bit and certain players will probably start pulling ahead and there will be more notable names of "US Players". Right now its just a giant cluster of players who occasionally win tournaments here and there. No one is solidified any sort of lead so it seems like no one is at the top, when in actuality a lot of players are at the top.
On August 26 2010 00:48 retro-noob wrote: It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
Uh, why did you list Canada as 2nd? What Canadian has won anything besides HuK, Drewbie, and TT1? Slush and KiwiKaki haven't won a single thing since beta, and there are no other good Canadians really.
Also, Germany? TLO and Socke are the only good Germans that have won anything.
USA has IdrA, iNkA, Select, KawaiiRice, Machine, PainUser, and a bunch of other strong players.
I think outside of Asia - Ukraine and Sweden are definitely the top nations, followed by USA.
On August 26 2010 00:56 Full wrote: Some countries are more into gaming i assume..
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
So so wrong and kind of offending to me that you say this. They aren't "smarter", their culture is to excel in everything they do and the same goes for a lot of Europe like Germany.
Is there any proof of this? Don't try and inform unless you have actual evidence to back it up.
If something is offensive, it certainly does not make it false.
I believe that many asians are genetically smarter than other races, or atleast find it easier to learn. but i'm not trying to inform you, im merely giving my opinion.
On August 26 2010 01:07 Ketara wrote: The internet connections in Sweden are SO much better than in the US.
I remember the last time I was in Sweden visiting friends, we were downloading movies in HD in like 10 minutes. It made me jealous.
I wouldn't say Sweden and Germany are more ahead technologically though. Maybe they have a more technology-sensitive culture, but my friends in Sweden were still all using American made computers for their fancy internet connections.
Korea also has good Internet infrastructure; I wouldn't be surprised if Germany did too. Perhaps if American communications companies weren't as greedy we would have top of the line Internet as well.
Is there any proof of this? Don't try and inform unless you have actual evidence to back it up.
If something is offensive, it certainly does not make it false.
Likewise, is there any proof you have that Asians are genetically smarter? If something is offensive, it certainly does not make it true.
btw talkiong about welfare is retarded. Like everyone everywere all people want a work and do want to feel like they are worth anything to the society. Just becaous we and other countries in europe have better welfare programs WHEN we do find ourself without a job doesnt mean thoes people don't feel like getting a new job and do right for themself.
I think that here in the U.S. one of our issues in dominating any single game is our lack of attention span as a culture. I know many guys (and a few girls) that would call themselves "hardcore gamers". But, other than WoW, if you ask them what they've played over the last year, they'll probably list 6 or more games. The idea of focusing on one game and trying to become the best you can at that one is fairly rare.
It seems like most of the U.S. gamers I know are basically playing their current game for something to do until the Next Big Thing comes out.
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
How can you call dapollo good when he's literally played in 0 tournaments? Just because he lives in Korea and gets interviewed by Artosis doesn't make him good. Also MoMaN isn't good , just because he bashes on newb French players and has a bunch of random french-only events added to his GG.net acc to get to 1100 points doesn't make him good. Check out his match list and see how many other European players he beats (basically 0).
On August 26 2010 01:31 Zevah wrote: It's not about population.. it's about Culture.
Do you see any South American in the top? no! they play soccer!
What Zevah said about culture. I get disgruntled when people say I am smart because I am Asian, as if my race had anything to do with it. It's how dedicated people are to the game, and how much you invest into it. Any country will have people who are extraordinary at Starcraft II. Some people will stand out more then others though.
On August 26 2010 00:56 Full wrote: Some countries are more into gaming i assume..
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
So so wrong and kind of offending to me that you say this. They aren't "smarter", their culture is to excel in everything they do and the same goes for a lot of Europe like Germany.
Is there any proof of this? Don't try and inform unless you have actual evidence to back it up.
If something is offensive, it certainly does not make it false.
I believe that many asians are genetically smarter than other races, or atleast find it easier to learn. but i'm not trying to inform you, im merely giving my opinion.
It's been proven that they aren't genetically smarter. It's their culture that drives them to excel in what they do. I don't have links to put off the top of my head, but it's been in plenty of books on Psychology about how culture affects people.
On August 26 2010 01:24 SayTT wrote: I think its the competative mindset we have in sweden, It's the same in other "real" sports as well, sweden is very good in comparison to how many ppl live here. Yea and it was the same inte both bw and wc3. Some of you might remember the names of; saft, willet, trek, daaman, kenka etc...
I call bs on this as a fellow swede. We are the pinnacle of "not-competitive mindset". We even have something called "jantelagen" which is basically a name for the fact that unless you're average in sweden we don't like you (goes for both sub-par and excelling people). We do however have a lot of great gamers which has I would attribute more to our connectivity and gamer-culture.
On August 26 2010 00:56 Full wrote: Some countries are more into gaming i assume..
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
So so wrong and kind of offending to me that you say this. They aren't "smarter", their culture is to excel in everything they do and the same goes for a lot of Europe like Germany.
Is there any proof of this? Don't try and inform unless you have actual evidence to back it up.
If something is offensive, it certainly does not make it false.
I believe that many asians are genetically smarter than other races, or atleast find it easier to learn. but i'm not trying to inform you, im merely giving my opinion.
It's been proven that they aren't genetically smarter. It's their culture that drives them to excel in what they do. I don't have links to put off the top of my head, but it's been in plenty of books on Psychology about how culture affects people.
On August 26 2010 00:48 retro-noob wrote: It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
Uh, why did you list Canada as 2nd? What Canadian has won anything besides HuK, Drewbie, and TT1? Slush and KiwiKaki haven't won a single thing since beta, and there are no other good Canadians really.
Also, Germany? TLO and Socke are the only good Germans that have won anything.
USA has IdrA, iNkA, Select, KawaiiRice, Machine, PainUser, and a bunch of other strong players.
I think outside of Asia - Ukraine and Sweden are definitely the top nations, followed by USA.
Don't forget Nony! Or Tyler...or Teeler...whatever haha
On August 26 2010 01:24 SayTT wrote: I think its the competative mindset we have in sweden, It's the same in other "real" sports as well, sweden is very good in comparison to how many ppl live here. Yea and it was the same inte both bw and wc3. Some of you might remember the names of; saft, willet, trek, daaman, kenka etc...
I call bs on this as a fellow swede. We are the pinnacle of "not-competitive mindset". We even have something called "jantelagen" which is basically a name for the fact that unless you're average in sweden we don't like you (goes for both sub-par and excelling people). We do however have a lot of great gamers which has I would attribute more to our connectivity and gamer-culture.
Yeah that statement made me giggle too but since I'm not Swedish I didn't want to say anything.
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
How can you call dapollo good when he's literally played in 0 tournaments? Just because he lives in Korea and gets interviewed by Artosis doesn't make him good. Also MoMaN isn't good , just because he bashes on newb French players and has a bunch of random french-only events added to his GG.net acc to get to 1100 points doesn't make him good. Check out his match list and see how many other European players he beats (basically 0).
Agreed on Dapollo part. I think I've seen like 1 game of his. He needs to play and win something before I consider him decent enough to be thought of when I think of UK players.
Although MoMaN is awesome and I <3 him so I can't be rational and take the time to look at his tournaments.
On August 26 2010 00:56 Full wrote: Some countries are more into gaming i assume..
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
So so wrong and kind of offending to me that you say this. They aren't "smarter", their culture is to excel in everything they do and the same goes for a lot of Europe like Germany.
Is there any proof of this? Don't try and inform unless you have actual evidence to back it up.
If something is offensive, it certainly does not make it false.
I believe that many asians are genetically smarter than other races, or atleast find it easier to learn. but i'm not trying to inform you, im merely giving my opinion.
so basically you're doing the same thing he did except trying to defend yourself from criticism by calling it an opinion well done
This thread sadly goes in a "ma country is betta than your's".
btw in france people mainly see video games as the evil, when i told they are progamer who live with playing video games this retards say that's not fair to be paid for playing blabla. By the way i goes on germany sometimes and people seems like more "supporting" video games.
I think that korea > sweden > rest of the world is the right "world ladder of esport"
Swedish people are just clearly superior compared to all other countries
Or... it is because its freaking cold here at the winter which means there are plenty of time to game on without missing sun time that we miss either way. You can only be throwing snow balls on eachother outside for some hours, then it gets boring. That is my explanation.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
sounds extremely similar to where I live and there were very very good players from broodwar in quebec, also we've got some of the best poker players here ;o
On August 26 2010 01:31 Zevah wrote: It's not about population.. it's about Culture.
Do you see any South American in the top? no! they play soccer!
There are many factors that should play a part in this discussion.
South America, Africa, and southern Asia have lower rates of internet use per capita than eastern Asia, Europe, or North America, which is likely why we see the latter three regions over-represented in SC (and gaming) communities.
"Culture" may play a part in it, either in the form of preferring strategy games to other genres, studying the game more thoroughly, or even just having more time to practice and play. With that in mind, it seems to me that most US gamers go more for the MMORPG (WoW) or FPS (CoD4, MW2, Halo, etc.) than classic strategy games, whereas the Swedish, German, and Korean gamers, for example, prefer more cerebral strategy games.
Population does have something to do with it, you can't deny that. Even though the argument holds that the US has a significantly lower ratio of top players/population than, say, Sweden or Canada, you'll still see countries with larger populations (Germany, USA, Russia, etc.) represented at least moderately.
But yeah, it's definitely an interesting topic. Don't expect many sociologists to go exploring it any time soon though!
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
And the beer is sooo expensive in Sweden. ^^'
I think you definitely have to count in the US and Canada, they have a large amount of very good players, maybe not a "Superstar" (besides Idra), but nonetheless a good amount of Top-Players. But those countries are quite big, so that just comes naturally I guess. ^^'
Also, Russia could in the near future have lots of good players like BratOK, cuz they've always been a forced to be reckonned with in RTS-Games.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
sounds extremely similar to where I live and there were very very good players from broodwar in quebec, also we've got some of the best poker players here ;o
This topic is now about why the vast majority of canadian high-level players are from quebec.
In Canada, you can either be a winter olympian, or an indoor gamer. Similar to what people are saying about Sweden, you only ever go outside to shovel the snow that piles up so you can make it to the supermarket!
I thought about this a little last year or so, I was really in to the pro BW scene and was wondering why I didn't hear much about any top players from the UK. The way I see it for the UK is, it's a lot more console orientated. Most gamers either have an xbox or PS3, play MW2, halo wars and stuff like that. I don't know that many people who are in to PC gaming, yet pretty much every other person I know has a console. It's just the way the market has developed over here in the UK. I think it may be true also for the US to an extent.
Maybe for SC2 things will be different, a shiny new game with fancy new graphics can pull some people in. What top players do we have...DeMuslim, anyone else? I admit I haven't followed the pro SC2 scene too closely.
From what I've heard in many countries consoles are a lot less prevalent for whatever reason, so PC gaming is more popular, hence them churning out more pro starcraft/CS/quake etc players.
On August 26 2010 01:43 Scope wrote: I think the same factors have a hand in Sweden's dominant position in the music industry.
I didn't know about this. Can you elaborate or post a link?
Well I can elaborate a little bit. Sweden has a lot of very skilled producers and musicians who work with some of the most lucrative artists in the world. Practically every popstar you hate had Swedish hands working on the records. Max Martin is the most famous dude, working with Britney Spears and the like. Lady Gaga records some of her stuff in a studio three blocks away from my apartment.
And while we do have a few stars, (albeit mostly in the past, such as ABBA) most of the Swedish "talent" that are relevant on the world stage are behind-the-scenes people who work more or less alone in studios.
This seems similar to the E-sports fenomenon to me, although I don't want to be to firm in this comparison. It's just something I threw out there. Speaking from my own experience, my top interests have been music and gaming from the start. It sort of feels true, but I can't attest to it with any certainty.
On August 26 2010 01:31 Zevah wrote: It's not about population.. it's about Culture.
Do you see any South American in the top? no! they play soccer!
I don't believe that's the reason... South America is just isolated from the rest of the world at the moment. And without cross realm play in the horizon it will stay like this. South America had really good players in SC:BW, and A LOT of them.
On August 26 2010 00:48 retro-noob wrote: It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
Uh, why did you list Canada as 2nd? What Canadian has won anything besides HuK, Drewbie, and TT1? Slush and KiwiKaki haven't won a single thing since beta, and there are no other good Canadians really.
Also, Germany? TLO and Socke are the only good Germans that have won anything.
USA has IdrA, iNkA, Select, KawaiiRice, Machine, PainUser, and a bunch of other strong players.
I think outside of Asia - Ukraine and Sweden are definitely the top nations, followed by USA.
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
How can you call dapollo good when he's literally played in 0 tournaments? Just because he lives in Korea and gets interviewed by Artosis doesn't make him good. Also MoMaN isn't good , just because he bashes on newb French players and has a bunch of random french-only events added to his GG.net acc to get to 1100 points doesn't make him good. Check out his match list and see how many other European players he beats (basically 0).
So much bias. So Moman bashes french people and US players who apart from idra only win in-house tournaments deserve a mention?
Australia has the highest rate of piracy in the developed world, that shows an openness to technology! but i guess the pop is too small to get enough local competition and the weather is too nice (:
I still think the amount of high-level players are so small (we have what? less than 200 well-known) so this is all just statistic noise.
When/if starcraft and E-sport en general becomes much larger and we have 1000s of players competing for tournament places we could look at various countries demographic.
where is Polish people?, they were such a powerhouse in bw for many years...
also as usual, people forgets about china, just because their circuit is kinda closed and we know very little about them, but they have many good players
On August 26 2010 00:50 PhiliBiRD wrote: haha, someone is apparently biased against Americans..way to show it so blatantly. 6 of the top 10 on ladder right now are from US. all with win % that are just as good.
regardless i dont think it has anything to do with your country of origin. thats ignorant as shit to believe.
Just cause 6 of the players are on the US server does not mean they are american, SLush and HuK are both canadian.
On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote: Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
Interesting. That makes sense that differences in social programs and social norms would play a big role.
Anyone who can verify or add to this or who can add insight for other countries?
On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote: Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
Interesting. That makes sense that differences in social programs and social norms would play a big role.
Anyone who can verify or add to this or who can add insight for other countries?
Those are extremes, but I think its happening.
Yes, its definitely an extreme and not the standard. Germany has a very good health/social system and its easily possible to have a good life without working. Though its very unlikely and I have never heard of any progamer that "abused" the system to be able to play the whole day. Most of the progamers I know are at the university and play in their freetime and quit when they got they exams.
the problem is, what we consider "top players" and in reality who are the real "top players" barely any Koreans have been invited to "international" events, and the ones invited were done so on administrative bias, not overall skill level. Chinese, Australians (pretty damn good ratio / capita), and Brazilians are all secluded from our views as well.
Having less of a life to pound ladder all day does not make you a top player, it may give you the practice and confidence to be near or around their level, but it doesnt immediately make you invulnerable to "lesser skilled" players (people who have a life).
TLDR: Too many secluded areas, and too much tournament bias telling us who top players are, when in reality there is no way to gauge the top players yet.
On August 26 2010 02:21 CookieFactory wrote: Why is IdrA counted for the USA? If anything, he should be counted for Korea.
I was gonna say this as well as that IdrA is an exception, but I really feel that it is culture that drives it. We've had plenty of incredibly talented players all over the world who didn't work very hard (firstly, froz comes to mind for US in bw) and still did well, but it's the ones with talent and the good "work" approach toward games, like Koreans due to progaming scene, that do very well.
USA has an insane amount of gamers, but none of them have scratched the surface of true gaming. They think that they're hardcore because they play MW2 till 4AM on a Saturday all alone except with their "clanmates". The vast majority of Americans are console gamers.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
Nailed right on One thing I dont understand though is that Norway is just about the same but we've always been quite unheard of in the e-sport scenes. Cant think of anything that seperets us that hugely.
the countries that cater to progamers are obviously going to be grooming the best players. Idra may be American but he's practicing in Korea. However, Canadians for some reason have strong players (Grrrr, huk, elky) despite a relatively quiet pro-scene.
Both US and Canada are ridiculously into console games rather than PC. All my freinds were so terrible at multiplayer because they were so use to a controller that they had 15 apm and built multiple bunkers not at the choke.
Western Canada does have a ton of Asian heritage; Vancouver is like 60% asians so maybe that would help. It mostly seems like countries with GDP are better at SC since they can actually afford a good computer on top of a console.
On August 26 2010 02:02 Floydian wrote: I thought about this a little last year or so, I was really in to the pro BW scene and was wondering why I didn't hear much about any top players from the UK. The way I see it for the UK is, it's a lot more console orientated. Most gamers either have an xbox or PS3, play MW2, halo wars and stuff like that. I don't know that many people who are in to PC gaming, yet pretty much every other person I know has a console. It's just the way the market has developed over here in the UK. I think it may be true also for the US to an extent.
I always thought this was the biggest reason why Scandinavia, Germany, China and South Korea are so much better at PC gaming: Because they play PC instead of console. And USA, Japan and other countries mostly play console, so they are better at console games
Also you can't really compare Swedish and American top players like that. Sweden has a population of 9 million, USA has over 300 million. Sweden has at least equal the number of top gamers, so you can do the math yourself who is better at SC2
On August 26 2010 03:17 retro-noob wrote: So I'm wondering where Japan is in all of this.
You cant tell how often i've asked myself the same question. Asian country (Like south Korea, China....obviously) High economy Big population Excellent internet speed
Yet I've NEVER heard of a good japanese RTS player, ever.
but the competition to reach a top player in the US, is easier than say in korea.
I cant speak for the other countries, but in korea, gaming is very much a part of the culture especially since SC1.
And for SC1 even alot of the girls know the build orders and such, since SC1 is broadcasted so often and widely. The national skill level is higher than the US.
Like for WCG, for koreans its harder to win the qualifiers against their own players to get INTO the WCG, than it is to win the WCG.
THerefore to be a top player in Country X is not equal to being a top player in another. Since we are region locked for SC2.
On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote: Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
Interesting. That makes sense that differences in social programs and social norms would play a big role.
Anyone who can verify or add to this or who can add insight for other countries?
Sweden was very fast with a wide use of broadband and courses for use of computers at work in the 90s. Back when Broodwar came out it costed a lot to stay online but broadband came and it came quickly everywhere. The gouvernment had goals for a wide use of it allover Sweden, a steady improvement of it.
In my situation it came through the appartment association which upgraded all connections in the neighbourhood sometime between 2000-2002. This probably happened in most places in Sweden, with Swedens Social democratic history we fix up things collectively to improve peoples lives.
So with a widespread cheap broadband and a pretty common use of computers at home from an early stage, gaming came naturally for the new generation.
The way TLO quit college could be done without a problem in Sweden as well, the Swedish Social democratic reasoning in school systems are behind it. We've got a social safety for those who become unemployed or sick which some people abuse to get money to for example just stay home to play games.
I don't know exactly how the CS, bw teams developed back then but with good multiplayer games, internet connections, internet communities were easily formed and contact between players got up and running faster than in other countries.
The main reasons are culture and technical possibilities. We had the latter one and our generation grew into gaming pretty strongly. We are called the generation Y(why), we haven't got to fight for meals or money. If something bad happens the state will take care of us, we don't find the same meaning in working hard as other generations have done.
In my eyes that's an explanation to why it fits in with our generation. A lot of people don't have to struggle for much at all, since we're only human the joys of gaming fits in better than working.
/ an amateur Anthropologist pulling things out of his mind without any promises of it being true!
Canada has produced SEVERAL well known progammers especialy Quebec... but I just don't know why. The gaming scene here is relatively low profile and there is still a HUGE stigma related to gaming. I'm playing about 2-3 hours a day (someday I'm not even touching the CPU and for some reasons, it seems that I'm a huge nerd and my GF is bitching 99% of the time at me for cause i'm not watching the T.V. with her.
The US would be the best if we werent money grubbin fatasses
Same thing with soccer, we would have a fantastic amount of great players, but there isnt money in it compared to other things because all the rich dicks are superficial and judgemental. Its not that the US is genetically or natrally, its our culture that lures the best to do what they do best HERE, and make a damn good living out of it. If people dont like it enough, then oh well go back to where you came from or get a real job. If SC2 gets big here in my country, id rather it be because of a genuine passion for the game that young people push. Overcoming monetary limits and prejudice, not because I have no life and would rather laze around playing a game, but because I have no life devouting myself to improvement and refusing to have fun in exchange for less work. It reminds me of charlie parker. The US tends to appreciate passion. Everyone loves an underdog.
I think there are three main reasons why Sweden often does good in games.
1. Console gaming isn't as big here as in many other countries. PC games still sell better than Console games in Sweden.
2. The weather here is shit 50% of the time so people often spend their time indoors at least during the winter. I think we have more gamers in general and this coupled with #1 means we have a lot more PC gamers than average.
3. LAN-parties and online competition have always been a big deal here. We have had big LANs like Dreamhack for years and it's a big part of the gamer culture in Sweden. We also have had good cheap internet connections since around 2000. Competing online or at LAN tours has a long history in Sweden. I think the ratio of Competitive to Casual gamers in Sweden is above average for this reason. It's ingrained in our gamer culture.
yeah canada is pretty good for gaming, probably the same reason as sweden, even though where i live it really doesn't snow and it's good weather.
The US would be the best if we werent money grubbin fatasses
Same thing with soccer, we would have a fantastic amount of great players, but there isnt money in it compared to other things because all the rich dicks are superficial and judgemental. Its not that the US is genetically or natrally, its our culture that lures the best to do what they do best HERE, and make a damn good living out of it. If people dont like it enough, then oh well go back to where you came from or get a real job. If SC2 gets big here in my country, id rather it be because of a genuine passion for the game that young people push. Overcoming monetary limits and prejudice, not because I have no life and would rather laze around playing a game, but because I have no life devouting myself to improvement and refusing to have fun in exchange for less work. It reminds me of charlie parker. The US tends to appreciate passion. Everyone loves an underdog.
BRING IT ON WORLD!
agree with the guy who said that, usa would be soo good if video games weren't seen as a nerdy thing.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
Nailed right on One thing I dont understand though is that Norway is just about the same but we've always been quite unheard of in the e-sport scenes. Cant think of anything that seperets us that hugely.
The "hardcore" scene in Sweden which I'm pretty familiar with is pretty huge. Especially in games like CS and DotA/HoN, although SC2 is picking up in popularity a bit lately. Weekend lans at all the various cafés in Stockholm are always full as well pretty much. So that could be the reason, your "hardcore" scene is a lot smaller.
On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote: Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
From an German perspective that also seems crazy as hell :D. Hypothetically you could do this but I don't think this really makes sense, because you do not really get much money when you're unemployed (and get so called Hartz 4) and you are forced to search a job, write applications etc. until you find one. But nevertheless there should be some people outside there that are satisfied being unemployed if they just can play sc2 the entire day. But leaving college to play sc2 also seems crazy to me even if you can temporarily earn money by doing that.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
sounds extremely similar to where I live and there were very very good players from broodwar in quebec, also we've got some of the best poker players here ;o
+1, also don't forget in quebec, we have school Cegep, which consists of 2 years before university where your classes are most likely useless (imo, cegep is useless, i'd rather go straight to uni)
we have a lot of free time here (teens from 18-21 years old), winter forces you to stay home, we are in a rather wealthy country, so computers are a must have in a house anyways.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
sounds extremely similar to where I live and there were very very good players from broodwar in quebec, also we've got some of the best poker players here ;o
+1, also don't forget in quebec, we have school Cegep, which consists of 2 years before university where your classes are most likely useless (imo, cegep is useless, i'd rather go straight to uni)
we have a lot of free time here (teens from 18-21 years old), winter forces you to stay home, we are in a rather wealthy country, so computers are a must have in a house anyways.
all that = sc2
I just want to say that most people use Cegep to get laid for 3 years straight before university, such a great thing if you are a single guy, so many willing and able girls
On August 26 2010 04:03 Holcan wrote:I just want to say that most people use Cegep to get laid for 3 years straight before university, such a great thing if you are a single guy, so many willing and able girls
They should introduce this system also in Germany... At the moment I'm just pissed off and stressed from the life at university (but I anyway won't leave for playing sc2 :D).
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
If you want a correct answer for the UK: The scene obviously has its star in DeMusliM but there are plenty of very strong players here, the issue is that currently they are just below the very top. Quite a lot of Quarter-Finals chokers, that kind of thing. This is mostly to do with a fractured scene in the UK with very few Clans and what-not with active practice schedules. We have a number of very active players who get quite far in events. I could name-names, but I do not what to miss anyone out. We have recently beaten the Netherlands and France in Nation Wars, although these were more casual events.
The main issue with the UK when it comes to development of eSports is that there is a very big social stigma when it comes to video-games and even more so when it come to PC games. Anyone who spends a large amount of time at home playing video-games is not looked upon nicely. Not saying it's horrible, but it isn't a good thing.
On top of this, the developing mentality of British people doesn't lend well to excelling in certain fields. Years of faltering in international sports has led to almost constant disappointment when it comes to Britain's place in competitive events. Many people aren't competitive or keen to excel anymore due to this. There is a largely spread attitude that "we were once great, we don't mind not being great any more". I think this effects our scene quite a lot.
On top of this, there are very few events for our community. But, we do have many good players and I would say we're at least as good as any country in Europe besides Sweden, Germany and Ukraine.
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.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
sounds extremely similar to where I live and there were very very good players from broodwar in quebec, also we've got some of the best poker players here ;o
+1, also don't forget in quebec, we have school Cegep, which consists of 2 years before university where your classes are most likely useless (imo, cegep is useless, i'd rather go straight to uni)
we have a lot of free time here (teens from 18-21 years old), winter forces you to stay home, we are in a rather wealthy country, so computers are a must have in a house anyways.
all that = sc2
I just want to say that most people use Cegep to get laid for 3 years straight before university, such a great thing if you are a single guy, so many willing and able girls
Cegep is such a waste of time that you can actually have the time to fit both in a normal schedule.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
sounds extremely similar to where I live and there were very very good players from broodwar in quebec, also we've got some of the best poker players here ;o
+1, also don't forget in quebec, we have school Cegep, which consists of 2 years before university where your classes are most likely useless (imo, cegep is useless, i'd rather go straight to uni)
we have a lot of free time here (teens from 18-21 years old), winter forces you to stay home, we are in a rather wealthy country, so computers are a must have in a house anyways.
all that = sc2
I just want to say that most people use Cegep to get laid for 3 years straight before university, such a great thing if you are a single guy, so many willing and able girls
The french...
Canada had good players because we can't actually go outside between October and May in most parts of our country so we play video games.
On August 26 2010 00:50 PhiliBiRD wrote: haha, someone is apparently biased against Americans..way to show it so blatantly. 6 of the top 10 on ladder right now are from US. all with win % that are just as good.
regardless i dont think it has anything to do with your country of origin. thats ignorant as shit to believe.
Blizzard ladders never have and probably never will matter and/or be any solid way to determine skill. Right now massing games will get anyone who's decent in 1st place because the system will let you farm noobs all day to get points and get free points from the good ol' bonus pool.
Win % and ladder points only matters in the context of that particular ladder. Trying to draw conclusions between EU, US, and KOR ladders based on these is silly. A 60% ratio on US server with 1000 points is not the same as KOR server because the 1000 point has a different value.
ICCUp worked because it was the ONLY place people played ladder and all regions were included.
On August 26 2010 03:10 hystorm wrote: the countries that cater to progamers are obviously going to be grooming the best players. Idra may be American but he's practicing in Korea. However, Canadians for some reason have strong players (Grrrr, huk, elky) despite a relatively quiet pro-scene.
What? Elky is french come on.. I think if you do the ratio population/top player S.Korea is by far the best country followed by Sweden and maybe Ukraine and Germany.. US are far behind! There are ~300millions people and maybe 5-6 top player it may be the same as France lol 60millions 1good player
On August 26 2010 00:48 retro-noob wrote: It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
Uh, why did you list Canada as 2nd? What Canadian has won anything besides HuK, Drewbie, and TT1? Slush and KiwiKaki haven't won a single thing since beta, and there are no other good Canadians really.
Also, Germany? TLO and Socke are the only good Germans that have won anything.
USA has IdrA, iNkA, Select, KawaiiRice, Machine, PainUser, and a bunch of other strong players.
I think outside of Asia - Ukraine and Sweden are definitely the top nations, followed by USA.
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
How can you call dapollo good when he's literally played in 0 tournaments? Just because he lives in Korea and gets interviewed by Artosis doesn't make him good. Also MoMaN isn't good , just because he bashes on newb French players and has a bunch of random french-only events added to his GG.net acc to get to 1100 points doesn't make him good. Check out his match list and see how many other European players he beats (basically 0).
So much bias. So Moman bashes french people and US players who apart from idra only win in-house tournaments deserve a mention?
Are you serious? Look at the # of US players in the top 30 of GG.net rankings, and look at the number of French. HuK, TTOne, Sheth, Machine, etc, all have competed in major invitational tournaments against European players and performed well. MoMaN is the only French who really competed in any international events, and he pretty much sucked in them all.
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
sounds extremely similar to where I live and there were very very good players from broodwar in quebec, also we've got some of the best poker players here ;o
+1, also don't forget in quebec, we have school Cegep, which consists of 2 years before university where your classes are most likely useless (imo, cegep is useless, i'd rather go straight to uni)
we have a lot of free time here (teens from 18-21 years old), winter forces you to stay home, we are in a rather wealthy country, so computers are a must have in a house anyways.
all that = sc2
I just want to say that most people use Cegep to get laid for 3 years straight before university, such a great thing if you are a single guy, so many willing and able girls
The french...
Canada had good players because we can't actually go outside between October and May in most parts of our country so we play video games.
Well I spent lots of time in Yellowknife ( the Christmas Time) and I always enjoyed going outdoors and playing hockey, ice fishing or snowmobiling even tho it is sub -30 Celsius
My experience firsthand is that the NA server is really easy compared to Asia server and I think looking at the top asia winrate is further evidence. None of those dudes have above 2/3 wins and they play quite a bit more than americans on ladder.
Its really sad how we can't play on different servers
On August 26 2010 00:54 infinity21 wrote: Canadians are obviously genetically superior to other countries.
russians don't agree
On August 26 2010 04:01 s.a.y wrote: bulgaria and Chile had a bunch of good gamers in SC:BW, guess they don't have the PCs to run SC2 yet.
actually there is a big base of players in Chile right now, the game is sold out, and the community is even bigger than before, the problem is that the ppl playing sc2 atm are mostly noobs, but there is a group of the good old sc:bw players practicing really hard sc2.
the problem is the "Latin American Server" which is kinda noob tbh... mb if the Chilean players were practicing on EU or NA, it would be different
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.
On August 26 2010 02:07 T0fuuu wrote: Australia has the highest rate of piracy in the developed world, that shows an openness to technology! but i guess the pop is too small to get enough local competition and the weather is too nice (:
I may be biased but I definitely think Aus punches above it's weight, as in most sports. Low population, very poor internet, isolation, nice weather, sporting/outdoors culture (and the same American attitude to eSports not being a 'real' sport) but still produce some good players. They seem to be more 'natural talent' than the types of players that USA and Sweden produce, who seem to be hard workers/determined players.
Also I know that in other athletic sports Aus does so well because of very good youth and coaching programs and facilities. While there's nothing similar for eSports there's definitely more community stuff with players mostly knowing each other and playing each other a lot due to timezone constraints - as well as playing in Asian timezones and having strong Asian immigrant populations.
For me I say Korea, Sweden, Germany, USA are at the top tier of competitive countries because they have a lot of depth, despite many players not being really at the very top of the competition.
Second tier would be countries who produce like 2-3 really world-class players but not many others, or with very good 'top player'-to-population ratios. Examples would be The Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine, Poland, France, Australia, Canada (would be tier 1 with more players), and perhaps a SEA nation or two but we will have to see their best in international competitions first.
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
If you want a correct answer for the UK: The scene obviously has its star in DeMusliM but there are plenty of very strong players here, the issue is that currently they are just below the very top. Quite a lot of Quarter-Finals chokers, that kind of thing. This is mostly to do with a fractured scene in the UK with very few Clans and what-not with active practice schedules. We have a number of very active players who get quite far in events. I could name-names, but I do not what to miss anyone out. We have recently beaten the Netherlands and France in Nation Wars, although these were more casual events.
The main issue with the UK when it comes to development of eSports is that there is a very big social stigma when it comes to video-games and even more so when it come to PC games. Anyone who spends a large amount of time at home playing video-games is not looked upon nicely. Not saying it's horrible, but it isn't a good thing.
On top of this, the developing mentality of British people doesn't lend well to excelling in certain fields. Years of faltering in international sports has led to almost constant disappointment when it comes to Britain's place in competitive events. Many people aren't competitive or keen to excel anymore due to this. There is a largely spread attitude that "we were once great, we don't mind not being great any more". I think this effects our scene quite a lot.
On top of this, there are very few events for our community. But, we do have many good players and I would say we're at least as good as any country in Europe besides Sweden, Germany and Ukraine.
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 think you're reading too much into this. In Germany, PC gaming is still big because Germans love those slow and boring games like "The Settlers" and all sorts of simulators which are mainly PC exclusive. As a side effect, Germany has lots of RTS players but this won't translate into lots of gosus: WC3 was the most popular RTS for ages in germantown but german WC3-players had very little international success. While you can make lots of SC2-money here because of ESL-Events and LANs, I don't see Germany being a top country (with TLO being the Mondragon-esque exception).
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?
RTS isn't big in the UK. Most gamers are either casual or play FPS.
99% of the UK population have never heard of playing video games professionally.
can you actually compare players between different regions? have all these players played off against top players in other regions? it's hard to get a gauge on this right now
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
How can you call dapollo good when he's literally played in 0 tournaments? Just because he lives in Korea and gets interviewed by Artosis doesn't make him good. Also MoMaN isn't good , just because he bashes on newb French players and has a bunch of random french-only events added to his GG.net acc to get to 1100 points doesn't make him good. Check out his match list and see how many other European players he beats (basically 0).
I just love the kid (dapollo), don't hate me :D. But overall, i still think what i wrote about france, spain, UK.
Korea > Ukraine > Sweden >>>> Germany > Canada > USA
in some years it willl be
Korea > China >> Ukraine >> Sweden >>>> Germany = USA > Canada
edit korea for obvious reasons. ukraine has dimaga, strelok and whitera. obvious. sweden also has so many good gamers although they dont really have a huge fanbase i think. germanys only strong player is TLO, but germany has very many medium players. canada has huk thats it. but their playerbase is sooo slow i think. the usa doesnt have any REALLY good player except for maybe nony. idra and artosis should be counted as korean as they live in korea for years now. the usa will have strong players, they just need some kids to practise hard for some time. but come on you really need new blood, those old guys that came from sc:bw wont win any big tournament.
On August 26 2010 22:46 imperator-xy wrote: Korea > Ukraine > Sweden >>>> Germany > Canada > USA
in some years it willl be
Korea > China >> Ukraine >> Sweden >>>> Germany = USA > Canada
edit korea for obvious reasons. ukraine has dimaga, strelok and whitera. obvious. sweden also has so many good gamers although they dont really have a huge fanbase i think. germanys only strong player is TLO, but germany has very many medium players. canada has huk thats it. but their playerbase is sooo slow i think. the usa doesnt have any REALLY good player except for maybe nony. idra and artosis should be counted as korean as they live in korea for years now. the usa will have strong players, they just need some kids to practise hard for some time. but come on you really need new blood, those old guys that came from sc:bw wont win any big tournament.
Canada has just HuK? Have you looked at the MLG invitees list?
interesting topic, i once read an article about the rising of sc in korea, the origin of esports lies in economic downturn, few years ago there was a big recession in kor so people had hardly any money to spend for freetime activity, computers were already widley spread so kids/adults began to play excessively to escape economic reality. I think its a combination of the affinity to technology and the current economic/social situation in the particular nation
this would make a great topic for a doctoral thesis
On August 26 2010 22:46 imperator-xy wrote: Korea > Ukraine > Sweden >>>> Germany > Canada > USA
in some years it willl be
Korea > China >> Ukraine >> Sweden >>>> Germany = USA > Canada
edit korea for obvious reasons. ukraine has dimaga, strelok and whitera. obvious. sweden also has so many good gamers although they dont really have a huge fanbase i think. germanys only strong player is TLO, but germany has very many medium players. canada has huk thats it. but their playerbase is sooo slow i think. the usa doesnt have any REALLY good player except for maybe nony. idra and artosis should be counted as korean as they live in korea for years now. the usa will have strong players, they just need some kids to practise hard for some time. but come on you really need new blood, those old guys that came from sc:bw wont win any big tournament.
Canada has just HuK? Have you looked at the MLG invitees list?
You'd really have to normalize the amount of good players on the population of said country.
The reason USA and China win most gold medals at the olympics is because of their population, if 1 in every 100.000 people is a superb sportsman you'll have most in those kind of countries.
You'd have to do the same with Starcraft really. If for every 100 USA players there are 15 Canadian players and yet USA only has twice as many "top players" as Canada; then Canada is statistically seen a better country at the game.
On August 28 2010 01:47 Nyth wrote: You'd really have to normalize the amount of good players on the population of said country.
The reason USA and China win most gold medals at the olympics is because of their population, if 1 in every 100.000 people is a superb sportsman you'll have most in those kind of countries.
You'd have to do the same with Starcraft really. If for every 100 USA players there are 15 Canadian players and yet USA only has twice as many "top players" as Canada; then Canada is statistically seen a better country at the game.
As much as population matters the infrastructure china and US provide for their athletes is still the nr 1 reason for the countries success.
As a german I can say that almost every boy is into gaimng of some kind. But most people either play the "hyped" FPS games or super oldschool ones. The RTS scene here isn't that big, but i wouldn't say it's small either. I just think that germans are appearing kinda often because we have alot of gamers ^.^
Relatively to population size, yes, good summary. But I think it's more important how active and large is the starcraft community in each country. People should realize that Korea is far ahead not because of genetic reasons, but because they have a very large pool of people playing very seriously, and their culture motivates dedication and hard effort. As long as such strong type of community forms somewhere else, there will be Flashes and Jaedongs somewhere else too, if not even better.
On August 28 2010 01:47 Nyth wrote: You'd really have to normalize the amount of good players on the population of said country.
The reason USA and China win most gold medals at the olympics is because of their population, if 1 in every 100.000 people is a superb sportsman you'll have most in those kind of countries.
You'd have to do the same with Starcraft really. If for every 100 USA players there are 15 Canadian players and yet USA only has twice as many "top players" as Canada; then Canada is statistically seen a better country at the game.
Im sorry, but 100 > 15, no matter how you try to spin it.
The Majority of the United Stated of America has a horrible stigma towards gamers of any and all type. most people literally consider it childs play, and people who play them enough to be competitive are wasting time, leeching off society, etc. Maybe thats why, dispute population percentage, we don't have a matching pro percentage.
In germany you can live from social welfare and/or unemploymend compensation, therefore some people are exploiting it and are just beeing lazy/playing wow :|
Additionally we´re relatively rich, meaning we grow up with technology( in comparison to poorer contries, where not everyone has a computer).
Furthermore we´re the land of poets and thinkers, whis is similar to what figq said. (i don´t really think we´re smarter or something and i was indetermined if i should really post this, but it could be, who knows...)
all this points count for skandinavian countries as well i think.
On August 28 2010 03:27 GreatFall wrote: IdrA is American and the best foreigner out there and you don't put America on the list?
IdrA also trains for freaking 12 hours a day and lives in Korea.
I don't understand why Idra is the best player? Is he even better than Grrrr... at his prime? Or is it just because SC2 is not officially released in China and Korea where 99% of the best wc3 and sc1 players come from?
On August 28 2010 03:27 GreatFall wrote: IdrA is American and the best foreigner out there and you don't put America on the list?
IdrA also trains for freaking 12 hours a day and lives in Korea.
I don't understand why Idra is the best player? Is he even better than Grrrr... at his prime? Or is it just because SC2 is not officially released in China and Korea where 99% of the best wc3 and sc1 players come from?
Grrrr... was great but the post is for best SC2 players.
On August 28 2010 03:07 kotzwuerg wrote: In germany you can live from social welfare and/or unemploymend compensation, therefore some people are exploiting it and are just beeing lazy/playing wow :|
If by 'some' you mean like 1 in 1000, you're probably right. Everone who ever depended on social welfare knows it isn't lazytown funtime. No offense, whenever I hear poeple generalize this kind of statment I just feel the urge to point that out.
On August 28 2010 03:07 kotzwuerg wrote: Furthermore we´re the land of poets and thinkers, whis is similar to what figq said. (i don´t really think we´re smarter or something and i was indetermined if i should really post this, but it could be, who knows...)
Again, no offense, but the country of poets and thinkers died almost a century ago. It's more like competetive ambition has a high value in our society. As for reasons why, see the last 100 years. I'll just assume you weren't talking 'genetically smarter'.
On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote: Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
Interesting. That makes sense that differences in social programs and social norms would play a big role.
Anyone who can verify or add to this or who can add insight for other countries?
Nah, you guys are just shit in SC2
/jkjk
Yeah welfare is much better then in America. But that doesn't seem like a factor at all. America might have the most sold copies/players. But probably 9/10 are Halo players who have never touched an RTS.
Also, welfare might be better. But it's the minumum you will survive, not more then that lol.
On August 26 2010 00:48 retro-noob wrote: It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
Americans have never been that awesome in computer/videogames tbh. No idea why that is (even thou i have my own hints to why that is)
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.
We have the largest percentage of single households in the world, because of a number of cultural factors. Being alone isn't stigmatized in Sweden like it is in most places.
It is way way easier to be poor in Sweden, than in countries such as the US. Medical care is largely free. Public transportation is better, and in the cities there really is no reason to own a car. Even daycare is almost free, if you happen to reproduce.
Our internet connectivity has been very good for a long time.
Work days are shorter, tax breaks for people with low income are extensive, vacation time is far greater than in the US.
Some more tenuous theories: The parents of the generation of Swedes born in the eighties had the largest amount of divorces in Swedish history at least. One-parent households mean kids need to entertain themselves more, and guilty parents buy more expensive gifts such as computers.
Swedish culture is somewhat socially inhibited, compared to most of Europe. We are the koreans of Europe, I guess you could say. Nerdery comes naturally.
Sports and competitive play is and has always been a big deal here. Scrawny and fat kids want to compete as well.
That's my 2 cents.
Nailed right on One thing I dont understand though is that Norway is just about the same but we've always been quite unheard of in the e-sport scenes. Cant think of anything that seperets us that hugely.
alot of it comes down to climate I think, the most populated states in america are texas and california, which have a lot of sun, so staying in to play games becomes an active choice (rather than being in the sun), this culture probably spreads to the rest of america since california produces most of the entertainment media in america; also traditional hollywood archetype of the 'nerd' is something negative whereas in europe that image doesn't exist as much.
in sweden and canada it's also cold and being inside is the default position many months of the year, and if you are inside anyway why not spend your time enjoying some computer games online with your classmates? it becomes a social thing (and pretty quickly overtakes real life social interaction I might add lol)
have no explanation why you don't see as many norwegians or finns though, they have similar internet connections and climate.
On August 26 2010 00:48 retro-noob wrote: It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
Uh, why did you list Canada as 2nd? What Canadian has won anything besides HuK, Drewbie, and TT1? Slush and KiwiKaki haven't won a single thing since beta, and there are no other good Canadians really.
Also, Germany? TLO and Socke are the only good Germans that have won anything.
USA has IdrA, iNkA, Select, KawaiiRice, Machine, PainUser, and a bunch of other strong players.
I think outside of Asia - Ukraine and Sweden are definitely the top nations, followed by USA.
key part of that is relative to population. You listed 3-5 canadians, and 2 Germans, and 6 Americans. You should be able to list 30-50 Americans if you want the same ratio of players to population.
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Eh I don't think italy will be putting people for the "best sc2 player" just for some things you can notice if you're italian:
1)Most italian players have fewer free hours to dedicate to the game, because italy has bigger problems at the moment to think of. 2)Italian gamers tend to be all-around-bad.Our attitude usually is bad, we aren't liked in any internet community usually as far as I know.Maybe this won't be the case for sc2 but I dare you play in an italian community and get away without getting mad.(I'm looking at you WoW crushridge server.) 3)Our internet infrastructur is heavily lacking so we tend to have less gamers---> less chances to get good sc2 players, plus italian gamers tend to prefer other games. 4)We have a laughably institution that is trying to promote e-sports but failing really hard at doing that, so again, less people to come by and try. 5)Some of our "pro" teams are quite arrogant so they tend to drive people away, it's just a flamefest all around. 6)there are really no incentives on start doing this, even our laws are troublesome on this regard, and as said, bad internet lines, not enough practice times, bad attitude(now you know where I have taken my nickname) just all around I think italy isn't made for this.
I put myself in first line for all this problems, I'm probably one of the worse examples of this, also it's easy to check this if you have any italian knowledge and can check around forums, it's pretty bad.
I know this might seem silly or atleast strange to say, but I really don't like my fellow italian community as you can see.I've had so many bad experiences(and still having them) so I don't trust this works for us.
Other than this I think most of euro countries will be putting more players since now the e-sports are growing a bit better, not like in korea or US/canada but still, as you can see we have a good number of north european pro gamers that are really putting out some good things.I hope we'll see more and more players because more competition is always better!Just don't count on us I'd say.
as long as the country doesn't provide an enviroment to train these people and send them to tournaments, you can forget about any sort of "Top countries at SC2" list, it's unfair for the players and takes away their credit
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Eh I don't think italy will be putting people for the "best sc2 player" just for some things you can notice if you're italian:
1)Most italian players have fewer free hours to dedicate to the game, because italy has bigger problems at the moment to think of. 2)Italian gamers tend to be all-around-bad.Our attitude usually is bad, we aren't liked in any internet community usually as far as I know.Maybe this won't be the case for sc2 but I dare you play in an italian community and get away without getting mad.(I'm looking at you WoW crushridge server.) 3)Our internet infrastructur is heavily lacking so we tend to have less gamers---> less chances to get good sc2 players, plus italian gamers tend to prefer other games. 4)We have a laughably institution that is trying to promote e-sports but failing really hard at doing that, so again, less people to come by and try. 5)Some of our "pro" teams are quite arrogant so they tend to drive people away, it's just a flamefest all around. 6)there are really no incentives on start doing this, even our laws are troublesome on this regard, and as said, bad internet lines, not enough practice times, bad attitude(now you know where I have taken my nickname) just all around I think italy isn't made for this.
I put myself in first line for all this problems, I'm probably one of the worse examples of this, also it's easy to check this if you have any italian knowledge and can check around forums, it's pretty bad.
I know this might seem silly or atleast strange to say, but I really don't like my fellow italian community as you can see.I've had so many bad experiences(and still having them) so I don't trust this works for us.
Other than this I think most of euro countries will be putting more players since now the e-sports are growing a bit better, not like in korea or US/canada but still, as you can see we have a good number of north european pro gamers that are really putting out some good things.I hope we'll see more and more players because more competition is always better!Just don't count on us I'd say.
Partially agree with this, i ended up playing only 1vs1 ladder games because the community isn't that good to begin with.
I don't think italians have less time, it's more of a cultural problem that considers soccer serious business and computer games just a game for kids (when critically the opposite is true), and basically playing computer games a waste of time.
I don't think we have "Pro Teams", never heard of any, just some pro gamers.
Our internet is lagging behind, but in maior cities it seems to be fine.
Agreed on the italian forums, i stopped posting about sc2 on any italian forum a while ago, i'm not banned from any of those forums, it just makes no sense posting. I only read them like once a month and find nothing has changed.The discussion level was really low to begin with, so not a huge loss.
I really like how Sweden is doing in online videogames overall, which also reflects in sc2. I would expect more from the US, there should be more US pro gamers IMO, given the population, internet infrastructure and wealth of the country. I'm sure there will be an increase of US pro gamers in the near future.
On August 26 2010 03:07 LittleeD wrote: Nailed right on One thing I dont understand though is that Norway is just about the same but we've always been quite unheard of in the e-sport scenes. Cant think of anything that seperets us that hugely.
Well, when talking about Norway's esport scene, eoLithic, elemeNt, XeqtR come to mind (getting kind of oldschool though). Generally speaking, Nordic countries have been ridiculously dominant (especially true for the FPS scene) over the years compared to other european countries, and I believe Starcraft 2 will be no exception if the game keeps growing like this. Strong players from Norway will eventually emerge.
well UK has only one player that is among the "top" being Demuslim, followed by "decent players" like Ourk and afew others.. must be some way of finding a percentage of players from each country somewhere i guess.
The UK has a welfare state and pretty good internet much like sweden or germany, but it also has a culture which says: 'if you play videogames on a computer as opposed to a console, let alone playing an RTS game, you're a loser and must be killed.' It's just regarded as very anti-social, which, maybe it is.
On September 25 2010 18:51 Panoptic wrote: The UK has a welfare state and pretty good internet much like sweden or germany, but it also has a culture which says: 'if you play videogames on a computer as opposed to a console, let alone playing an RTS game, you're a loser and must be killed.' It's just regarded as very anti-social, which, maybe it is.
What? You mean RTS games could cause anti-social behavior? Nooooo... this can't be true... haha
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
Do you have any idea how racist that is?
It has nothing to do with anything like that. In some places gaming has just gotten big for diffrent reasons. Sweden for example because its rainy and cold as fuck most of the year. There are very good articles written about why and how it got big in korea. Usa and germany etc are just so big they are gonna have anything because of that alone.
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
How can you call dapollo good when he's literally played in 0 tournaments? Just because he lives in Korea and gets interviewed by Artosis doesn't make him good. Also MoMaN isn't good , just because he bashes on newb French players and has a bunch of random french-only events added to his GG.net acc to get to 1100 points doesn't make him good. Check out his match list and see how many other European players he beats (basically 0).
I just love the kid (dapollo), don't hate me :D.
So you didn't have to bitchslap him for making fun of your accent yet? ;p
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
Do you have any idea how racist that is?
It has nothing to do with anything like that. In some places gaming has just gotten big for diffrent reasons. Sweden for example because its rainy and cold as fuck most of the year. There are very good articles written about why and how it got big in korea. Usa and germany etc are just so big they are gonna have anything because of that alone.
They tend to have book smarts, yet not a whole lot of common sense--hence their lack of influence on the world stage. Southeast Asian's influence stretches as far as Southeast Asia. Western society stretches from Australia to Europe, yet Asians are smarter than other people? LOL Rethink that please. He clearly doesn't know very many Asian people.
Back when I was in highschool in 2003 roughly half of the guys in the class played starcraft, people played starcraft at lans at my college and now many I know play starcraft 2. When I did military duty we used to play computer games at the evenings etc. In Sweden it is fully socially acceptable to play video games today even for normal people. I haven't met a guy ever in Sweden who I know didn't play videogames. Even most of the girls play video games...
10 years ago we had these doomsayers talking how video games destroyed the youth, but they are all but gone by now and people have realized that it is a much better pasttime than watching random TV shows.
On August 26 2010 00:48 retro-noob wrote: It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
Americans have never been that awesome in computer/videogames tbh. No idea why that is (even thou i have my own hints to why that is)
I'd say that it is mostly because their culture is really conservative so they shun things that breaks their normal sports culture making gaming really stigmatized. Sweden on the other hand is a country which loves to break old trends and do new things instead, our culture isn't strong at all but it adapts to everything.
and to be honest, asians are most probably just smarter than other races. Seems that way to me anyway.
Do you have any idea how racist that is?
It has nothing to do with anything like that. In some places gaming has just gotten big for diffrent reasons. Sweden for example because its rainy and cold as fuck most of the year. There are very good articles written about why and how it got big in korea. Usa and germany etc are just so big they are gonna have anything because of that alone.
They tend to have book smarts, yet not a whole lot of common sense--hence their lack of influence on the world stage. Southeast Asian's influence stretches as far as Southeast Asia. Western society stretches from Australia to Europe, yet Asians are smarter than other people? LOL Rethink that please. He clearly doesn't know very many Asian people.
On September 25 2010 19:21 Klockan3 wrote: Back when I was in highschool in 2003 roughly half of the guys in the class played starcraft, people played starcraft at lans at my college and now many I know play starcraft 2. When I did military duty we used to play computer games at the evenings etc. In Sweden it is fully socially acceptable to play video games today even for normal people. I haven't met a guy ever in Sweden who I know didn't play videogames. Even most of the girls play video games...
10 years ago we had these doomsayers talking how video games destroyed the youth, but they are all but gone by now and people have realized that it is a much better pasttime than watching random TV shows.
On August 26 2010 00:48 retro-noob wrote: It seems like Korea, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany are out in front right now if you look at countries that have produced multiple elite players, especially relative to their population.
The US has a lot of good players, but I feel like other than, Idra, they aren't considered top players. Also, the US is the most populous country on the scene BY FAR, so I'd expect even more from there.
I may be wrong on any or all of this, btw; I'm just basing it off some quick research and my memory.
Are these countries culturally more into games or RTS or StarCraft than others? Am I just imagining that those countries have a higher number of the top players right now?
I'd expect the US, France, Russia, the UK, Italy, Japan, Australia, China (though I don't know what rules there are in China around these games), Brazil, Spain, etc. to be putting equal numbers of people into the conversation for "best SC2 player."
Sweden is especially surprising just based on the population difference between them and these other countries. Why Sweden and not Austria, Switzerland, or Israel?
If I'm not wrong, what is it about those countries that have them producing so many good players per capita right now?
EDIT: Obviously, Korea is a special case, and I understand that one.
Americans have never been that awesome in computer/videogames tbh. No idea why that is (even thou i have my own hints to why that is)
I'd say that it is mostly because their culture is really conservative so they shun things that breaks their normal sports culture making gaming really stigmatized. Sweden on the other hand is a country which loves to break old trends and do new things instead, our culture isn't strong at all but it adapts to everything.
I find what you're saying to be partially true, but also I find the discussion to be a little off. There are a lot of Americans that are amazing at video games. Trust me, they are freaking awesome. They just play Call of Duty Modern Warfare or other games rather than Starcraft or something along those lines.
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).
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.
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".
[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!
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.
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.
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)
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.
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
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 ^^
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
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.
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
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
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)
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."
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
On September 25 2010 23:09 RotterdaM wrote: 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
Knowing Nazgul and Ret from before, I do not doubt that they'll reach incredible heights when it comes to SC2. Netherlands had some real quality players back in SC:BW days, NTT, Ret, Nazgul, Twisted, Strafe for example.
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 ^^
I'm in the US. I'm sure Finland is even worse, Sweden has a good bit of territory south of the southernmost part of Finland. I had a Russo-Finnish war board game back in the day that discussed the weather quite a bit and it sounded pretty brutal.
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
Yeah RTS is intimidating and you really need a community like TL that provides info for new players. Watching replays is important too. I don't necessarily agree that RTS has a much bigger skill cap than FPS, i'mnot really sure. FPS does require some strategy and obviously great mechanics. Same goes for fighters like Street Fighter. Fighters are good spectator sports too. Quake Live is better to watch than Counter Strike IMO:
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 ^^
I'm in the US. I'm sure Finland is even worse, Sweden has a good bit of territory south of the southernmost part of Finland. I had a Russo-Finnish war board game back in the day that discussed the weather quite a bit and it sounded pretty brutal.
Well the weather here is about the same as in New York. I've never seen a blizzard or anything like that O.o A couple of hobos probably die every year from the cold, but that's about it. I wouldn't say it's brutal. It might be a bad time to get drunk and fall asleep on the ground though. When you say we have territory south of the southernmost part of Finland, I assume you mean parallelly. We havn't had territory south of Finland since.. uh.. the 18th century or something like that. But back then we also had Finland, Norway, Denmark and a good part of Russia and Germany as well lol. Was quite a while since I had history classes though, so I'm not 100% sure when it was ^^ The russo-finnish war probably is ww2 though (we call it the Finnish winter war, granpa was in there ^^), as Finland's only been a nation for like a 100 years or so.
When it comes to how the gamers survive, I'm pretty sure Morrow is 17 and still in school, so I assume he's living with his parents, and has a pretty sweet school that doesn't mind him going away for tournaments ^^
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.
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.
Please, don't speak about things you are clueless about. There's a lot of semi-elite players with way better aim than the players in the top-teams in CS yet they get totally crushed by the top-teams. Why? Because they have no strategy, no experience etc.
Since USA is a alot more populous than all the other countries it could easily sill be comparatively weak with regard to gaming i.e. gaming not being as popular.
Assuming the OP is right in the assessment of the different countries I think part of the reason is economy and climate as others are mentioning. In spain all year (slight exaggeration) you have the option of going to the beach and watching senoritas in their thongs, whereas in sweden/canada that might only be an option for one month a year. Colder weather just favors indoor activities. The other thing would be the afford-ability of pc's and internet connections not just today but also 10 years ago.
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 ^^
I'm in the US. I'm sure Finland is even worse, Sweden has a good bit of territory south of the southernmost part of Finland. I had a Russo-Finnish war board game back in the day that discussed the weather quite a bit and it sounded pretty brutal.
Well the weather here is about the same as in New York. I've never seen a blizzard or anything like that O.o
Are you sure about that? Obviously the local geography will have a big influence like the golf stream in the atlantic passing by NY but still, NY is on the same latitude as part of Spain. I believe summers get pretty hot but I could be mistaken.
US definitely has a lot more players but I agree even in SC1 Canada dominated US by the fact that our players were better. (TT1 JF etc) Idra would be the only amazing US player out there atm. Canada has HuK Kiwikaki Drewbie and a lot more.
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
Yeah RTS is intimidating and you really need a community like TL that provides info for new players. Watching replays is important too. I don't necessarily agree that RTS has a much bigger skill cap than FPS, i'mnot really sure. FPS does require some strategy and obviously great mechanics. Same goes for fighters like Street Fighter. Fighters are good spectator sports too. Quake Live is better to watch than Counter Strike IMO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DreDIhnK-co
That is so incredibly bad, half of the game isn't even skill it's just spawn camping and getting lucky with weapons/armour. The only skill is pretty much equal to quick scoping in call of duty games which most good players can do.
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
Yeah RTS is intimidating and you really need a community like TL that provides info for new players. Watching replays is important too. I don't necessarily agree that RTS has a much bigger skill cap than FPS, i'mnot really sure. FPS does require some strategy and obviously great mechanics. Same goes for fighters like Street Fighter. Fighters are good spectator sports too. Quake Live is better to watch than Counter Strike IMO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DreDIhnK-co
That is so incredibly bad, half of the game isn't even skill it's just spawn camping and getting lucky with weapons/armour. The only skill is pretty much equal to quick scoping in call of duty games which most good players can do.
Yeah, i'm not an FPS player I just thought the match was entertaining. Anyway, this is really skilled stuff:
The Lim Yo-Hwan of Street Fighter, every sport has it's legends ^^.
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 ^^
I'm in the US. I'm sure Finland is even worse, Sweden has a good bit of territory south of the southernmost part of Finland. I had a Russo-Finnish war board game back in the day that discussed the weather quite a bit and it sounded pretty brutal.
Well the weather here is about the same as in New York. I've never seen a blizzard or anything like that O.o A couple of hobos probably die every year from the cold, but that's about it. I wouldn't say it's brutal. It might be a bad time to get drunk and fall asleep on the ground though. When you say we have territory south of the southernmost part of Finland, I assume you mean parallelly. We havn't had territory south of Finland since.. uh.. the 18th century or something like that. But back then we also had Finland, Norway, Denmark and a good part of Russia and Germany as well lol. Was quite a while since I had history classes though, so I'm not 100% sure when it was ^^ The russo-finnish war probably is ww2 though (we call it the Finnish winter war, granpa was in there ^^), as Finland's only been a nation for like a 100 years or so.
When it comes to how the gamers survive, I'm pretty sure Morrow is 17 and still in school, so I assume he's living with his parents, and has a pretty sweet school that doesn't mind him going away for tournaments ^^
The winter in the southern part of Sweden might not be that brutal but here in the north its not unusual for the temperature to drop to -40 once or twice during the winter, and having 1-2 weeks of constant -30 to -35 is almost a given
IM sorry but saying the UK lacks competitiveness because of "do your best attitude" is farcicle. You either havnt visited the country or have met a very strange bunch of people. From my experience of growing up in the UK and playing numerous sports that sort of idea is non existent. Rugby, football, rowing, and every other sport I have played above the age of 8 is hugely competitive.
Now computer games arnt considered competitive as they are rarely considered anything other thana way to pass your time in between other activities. Saying that sport in the British society revolves around non competitiveness is laughable, the identification of gaming as something non competitive however is not.
Come to think of it. The US has alot of people playing SC2? Well thats not so true. I think American are nuts. They dont play RTS, they love FPS. I mean I can play FPS no problem but play EVERY FPS is insane, and Americans seems to do just that. An extremly(9.5/10)good RTS, RPG, game can sell like 2-3 millions in the US. But any FPS can achieve that in the US. Those good FPS like COD sell 10-20 millions copies? If American RTS players somehow can convert 1/3 of the FPS population, you may find some raw gem there,
After having read the whole thread I really want to move to Sweden! Not only do you have the best esports community in Europe but also you have the cutest girls in the world. <3
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 ^^
I'm in the US. I'm sure Finland is even worse, Sweden has a good bit of territory south of the southernmost part of Finland. I had a Russo-Finnish war board game back in the day that discussed the weather quite a bit and it sounded pretty brutal.
Well the weather here is about the same as in New York. I've never seen a blizzard or anything like that O.o A couple of hobos probably die every year from the cold, but that's about it. I wouldn't say it's brutal. It might be a bad time to get drunk and fall asleep on the ground though. When you say we have territory south of the southernmost part of Finland, I assume you mean parallelly. We havn't had territory south of Finland since.. uh.. the 18th century or something like that. But back then we also had Finland, Norway, Denmark and a good part of Russia and Germany as well lol. Was quite a while since I had history classes though, so I'm not 100% sure when it was ^^ The russo-finnish war probably is ww2 though (we call it the Finnish winter war, granpa was in there ^^), as Finland's only been a nation for like a 100 years or so.
When it comes to how the gamers survive, I'm pretty sure Morrow is 17 and still in school, so I assume he's living with his parents, and has a pretty sweet school that doesn't mind him going away for tournaments ^^
The winter in the southern part of Sweden might not be that brutal but here in the north its not unusual for the temperature to drop to -40 once or twice during the winter, and having 1-2 weeks of constant -30 to -35 is almost a given
Yeah, but let's be honest.. how much people actually live in northern Sweden? 2000 people and 80 million elks? The vast majority lives in the southern part, and the biggest concentration is the captial (middle part). -20 once or twice during the winter, and -15 is almost a given. And yeah, we count in celcius degrees in Europe, incase this sounds weird in fahrenheit.
New York is a bit hotter than Sweden overall, yeah, but they have harsher winters.. (yet again, I don't take into account the few in the north.. that'd be like saying denmark is super cold, 'cause greenland is danish.. -.-) with like occational blizzards and stuff.. I have no clue where morrow and the other pro gamers live though, so maybe they're one of the poor souls living in the north without being able to open their front doors for all the snow that's gathered on the other side, and they all are forced to play games to feed their families LOL.
To sum this thread up: if you have a technically advanced country that's almost forced to do indoor activities during a great part of the year, you're bound to get some good gamers. P.S. sorry for all the flame toward northern swedes, finnish and norwegian people.. I'm not a racist, I hate everyone.
On September 26 2010 12:09 bonedriven wrote: That Japan doesn't like E-Sports at all is always a mystery to me.
Hope someone could enlighten me.
From what I know about the Japanese gaming scene(which may not be much), Japanese gamers are not really into online games. If you look at Japanese games sales most of the top games are usually for portable systems, mostly single player games, licensed games, or fighting games. From what I've heard of about Japanese games that have online multiplayer, a lot of people boot uninvited players out of their games. I think the fact that arcades are still popular in Japan might have something to do with the fact that the Japanese not playing or making online games. I remember an article on Famitsu magazine which had a survey about Japanese gamers opinions about FPS games. Most replies were either that they were to scared to play against those at higher skill levels or that they thought those types of games were pointless.
I have only played a small amount of Japanese only games and my role at CyAC (a Japanese esports site) is mostly dealing with the international community. Hopefully somebody who has more experience with Japanese gaming culture and communities can give you a better answer.
As a gamer in Sweden myself, outside of the SC community I can say growing up as a nerd with CS 1.5/1.6 and to notice that we were the top Counter-strike gamers in the world in like 03-04 with no real competition was wonderful. It's now in the later years the rest of the world has almost gone past the Swedes...
We also had the WoW guild Nihilum that was mainly Swedes, but then the same thing happened.
Hopefully we wont lose our SC2 players But I feel like every guy I know is a gamer, even the jocks/cool kids who's suppose to look down on the gamers. And I think the success of these past events may have helped the social acceptance of gaming in Sweden
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
Yeah RTS is intimidating and you really need a community like TL that provides info for new players. Watching replays is important too. I don't necessarily agree that RTS has a much bigger skill cap than FPS, i'mnot really sure. FPS does require some strategy and obviously great mechanics. Same goes for fighters like Street Fighter. Fighters are good spectator sports too. Quake Live is better to watch than Counter Strike IMO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DreDIhnK-co
That video!!!!WOW i was like. omg zero u suck brah. i watched it the other day actually i was looking for old WCG videos and stuff. found that watched it, now i wonna play
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
Yeah RTS is intimidating and you really need a community like TL that provides info for new players. Watching replays is important too. I don't necessarily agree that RTS has a much bigger skill cap than FPS, i'mnot really sure. FPS does require some strategy and obviously great mechanics. Same goes for fighters like Street Fighter. Fighters are good spectator sports too. Quake Live is better to watch than Counter Strike IMO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DreDIhnK-co
That is so incredibly bad, half of the game isn't even skill it's just spawn camping and getting lucky with weapons/armour. The only skill is pretty much equal to quick scoping in call of duty games which most good players can do.
that's why people who have never played a fps game at a high level shouldn't post anything about high level fps games. you definitely have no clue about timing (lol @ getting lucky with weapons/armor), map control, movement in combination with sick aiming. there are more mind games in it as you would think. plz stop talking about this, it hurts.
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
Yeah RTS is intimidating and you really need a community like TL that provides info for new players. Watching replays is important too. I don't necessarily agree that RTS has a much bigger skill cap than FPS, i'mnot really sure. FPS does require some strategy and obviously great mechanics. Same goes for fighters like Street Fighter. Fighters are good spectator sports too. Quake Live is better to watch than Counter Strike IMO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DreDIhnK-co
That is so incredibly bad, half of the game isn't even skill it's just spawn camping and getting lucky with weapons/armour. The only skill is pretty much equal to quick scoping in call of duty games which most good players can do.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Spawn camping isn't possible in QL as the players always spawn far from each other, it allows the players to be clever and force the other player to spawn in certain locations. Hektik, the map played in the video, is a rare exception in that the players can spawn somewhat close to each other allowing for opportunities to tie frags in to each other.
Timing items is a huge part of Quake and it's not at all random, the items respawn after a certain amount of seconds and the top players know exactly when they're supposed to be there to get the items. The item system allows for a lot of trickery as the players can delay the items by not picking them up immediately and thus confusing their opponent in to trying to challenge for the item earlier than they're supposed to when the next item spawn takes place.
Quakes are without a doubt some of the most deep FPS games and there's a lot more to it than just what you can see on the screen if you have no experience playing yourself.
edit: Oh, this isn't even the Quake topic, lets leave discussion about that game there.
On September 26 2010 12:09 bonedriven wrote: That Japan doesn't like E-Sports at all is always a mystery to me.
Hope someone could enlighten me.
Street Fighter and other fighting games "esports" is rather big in Japan, afaik. computer gaming isn't very popular there compared to consoles so the games they play differ a bit. It would definitely be nice to see them compete in SC2.
On September 25 2010 23:09 RotterdaM wrote: 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
I doubt that we see china in competetive gaming anytime soon. The country is still poor and living is very expensive there for chinese (But it's quite different... food is cheap, rent is really expensive). And if they finally start playing in a competetive way they prolly cant mess with other countries, because of their goverment.
In germany gaming becomes slowly social accepted. From what i know from my friends, their friends, familie and so on gaming is growing and with that the count of people who investing a lot of time. Even wifes/girlfriends are now accepting gaming as a hobby (... slowly i must say - and they even playing themselfes or testing it out) and the younger generations are growing up with games. This change came with WoW as more "common" people started to play and switched to other games. Nothing strange anymore with 50 year old people playing MMORPGs or even FPS. When it comes to people who dedicate their lifes to competetive computer gaming, yes, germany is a good place to be. As said you get monthly a certain amount of money for living if you don't have any work with some restrictions (you HAVE to apply somewhere and try hardly to get a job), but still you have a lot of time for gaming. From my point of view, it's still stupid as hell... And currently there is a shift by our politics: Away from "the bad bad bad computer games" to "yeah, computer games". Politics start realizing that computer games become part of our culture and accepting it (even so... again slowly... but there a prices for best german computer games and they are getting bigger) and they start to look at the benefits and the problemes (computer addiction is, as far as i know, a probleme health insurance is taking care of). So or so with GamesCon (Cologne) we have one of the biggest gaming event in the world (plus the games convention in leipzig) plus the growing acceptance and appearance (TV-Advertisement for example) of computer games my guess would be that more and more good german gamers are about to come - time will tell...
Well i hope you now have a good insight of this topic when it comes down to germany with this post and some of the more detailled one before.
For now my guess would be USA > Europe > Korea For the future: Korea > Europe = USA
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
Yeah RTS is intimidating and you really need a community like TL that provides info for new players. Watching replays is important too. I don't necessarily agree that RTS has a much bigger skill cap than FPS, i'mnot really sure. FPS does require some strategy and obviously great mechanics. Same goes for fighters like Street Fighter. Fighters are good spectator sports too. Quake Live is better to watch than Counter Strike IMO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DreDIhnK-co
That is so incredibly bad, half of the game isn't even skill it's just spawn camping and getting lucky with weapons/armour. The only skill is pretty much equal to quick scoping in call of duty games which most good players can do.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Spawn camping isn't possible in QL as the players always spawn far from each other, it allows the players to be clever and force the other player to spawn in certain locations. Hektik, the map played in the video, is a rare exception in that the players can spawn somewhat close to each other allowing for opportunities to tie frags in to each other.
Timing items is a huge part of Quake and it's not at all random, the items respawn after a certain amount of seconds and the top players know exactly when they're supposed to be there to get the items. The item system allows for a lot of trickery as the players can delay the items by not picking them up immediately and thus confusing their opponent in to trying to challenge for the item earlier than they're supposed to when the next item spawn takes place.
Quakes are without a doubt some of the most deep FPS games and there's a lot more to it than just what you can see on the screen if you have no experience playing yourself.
edit: Oh, this isn't even the Quake topic, lets leave discussion about that game there.
On September 26 2010 12:09 bonedriven wrote: That Japan doesn't like E-Sports at all is always a mystery to me.
Hope someone could enlighten me.
Street Fighter and other fighting games "esports" is rather big in Japan, afaik. computer gaming isn't very popular there compared to consoles so the games they play differ a bit. It would definitely be nice to see them compete in SC2.
Indeed, they have a yearly Tougeki tournament (aka SBO for Super Battle Opera) where they play games like, for instance this year was Street Fighter 4, Tekken 6 Bloodline Rebellion, The King of Fighter 2002 Unlimited Match, Virtua Fighter 5R, Blazblue Continuum Shift, Arcana Heart 3, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, Sengoku Basara X, Super Street Fighter II X, The King of Fighters XIII and Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code. Never heard of these games? Arcade games that are popular in Japan. Guess what guys, FPS and RTS games aren't popular in Japan!
They have around 4 months of preliminary tournaments where players and teams try to earn their spot to the finals. SBO always has representatives from the US, EU, Korea and Hong Kong but those teams and players pretty much always get eliminated on the first round of the finals that are usually 32 best teams or players. Probably Tekken is the only game where Koreans have a chance as far as I know. But in the more technical games like Guilty Gear and Blazblue, foreigners don't stand a chance.
There isn't a pro-scene in Japan but SBO is a pretty big tournament and definitely the top of the world. It also gets released on multiple DVDs with all the matches from round of 32 -> finals or whatever was played in the final tournament.
Some arcades have weekly tournaments with small prizes like a-cho in Osaka. Other small tournaments are also running all the time but yeah I don't think I need to go to any more detail about that. It's not a pro-scene as in the players don't make a living. They do it mostly for fun.
Street Fighter and other fighting games "esports" is rather big in Japan, afaik. computer gaming isn't very popular there compared to consoles so the games they play differ a bit. It would definitely be nice to see them compete in SC2.
If it can be played in an arcade, then the japanese are the best at it.
Street Fighter and other fighting games "esports" is rather big in Japan, afaik. computer gaming isn't very popular there compared to consoles so the games they play differ a bit. It would definitely be nice to see them compete in SC2.
If it can be played in an arcade, then the japanese are the best at it.
Not true at all. Korea has a huge arcade gaming scene. Infact Koreans have been the best at the Tekken series for about 10 years now. Although Japan seem to be the best at Street Fighter.
To note: - The Winner of the MLG (HuK) didn't survive the group stage. - GSL Ro64 Player (Artosis) didn't survive the group stage. - A lot of European Players at the tournament.
Now, everything shifts to: Korea (with IdrA) > Europe > US = Canada
To note: - A lot of US American Players at the tournament. - Socke is the only European Player at the tournament.
Therefore: Korea (with IdrA) > Europe > Canada > US
And anyone who doubts: Socke is only placed 10th in the German ESL Pro Series at the moment.
If you wanna get more specific: Korea (with IdrA) > Sweden >= Germany > Canada >= Ukraine > US.
If you wanna count Demuslim, Naniwa as Germans (since they live here to play at the EPS): Korea (with IdrA) > Germany >= Sweden > Canada >= Ukraine > US.
He is right in the fact that the US should have by far the most top players based sheerly on population... And in general they probably have the most competitive players. But it terms of absolute cream of the crop, I dont think there is a single american player up there aside from Idra. (but hes IN korea so thats a little different.)
That said, its not like Canada, Sweden, Germany have anything really cream of the crop either.
Canada has Huk as the top foreign protoss, but even that is arguable. Sweden has who? Morrow, Haypro, Jinro? all fantastic players, but all very beatable on any given day, I wouldnt rank any of them of them as the best Foreign Terran. Germany has TLO, who is great to watch, but again I wouldnt rank him the top foreign terran. In fact, the only 2 people I would label as a top ranked foreigner would be Idra as Zerg and Huk as protoss. I dont think I could really choose a top ranked terran from anywhere that wins more consistantly than other terrans.
On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote: Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
It's the same in Germany... not doing anything a year looks horrible in the résumé.
many people dont know this about sweden, but the only thing swedish bikinigirls get off on is gamers... naturally we feel compelled to be the best for this very reason.
There's only 1 way to settle this. Every country sends out 5 representatives and do a team elimination tournament. Or... everybody wears a flag and the next big tournament can do the whole anthem thing w/ medal presentations, olympics style.
Dunno why Canadians have always been good at SC while Americans, compared to how many people live there, are not... Even in BW, Grrrr..., Smuft, Yosh, Testie etc... were usually better than any American around at the time. Only one I can think of that compares to guys like that is FroZ and I suppose IdrA after the old school stopped playing. Americans have typically been better at FPS games.
Even now, HuK is probably the best player in North America (though I guess the upcoming IEM will decide that).
On September 29 2010 10:17 Zerius[TPR] wrote: Dunno why Canadians have always been good at SC while Americans, compared to how many people live there, are not... Even in BW, Grrrr..., Smuft, Yosh, Testie etc... were usually better than any American around at the time. Only one I can think of that compares to guys like that is FroZ and I suppose IdrA after the old school stopped playing. Americans have typically been better at FPS games.
Even now, HuK is probably the best player in North America (though I guess the upcoming IEM will decide that).
On August 26 2010 00:52 Ketara wrote: Part of it is that it's easier in some of those countries to spend all your time gaming.
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.
TLO quit college in order to play Starcraft. From an Americans perspective, that seems crazy as hell to do, especially before you get some sort of pro contract. In order to make a living off of starcraft you'd have to be winning a major tournament every month here, and even that might only barely pay the bills.
But in Germany I think it's possible to actually do that.
Don't want to turn this into a political discussion btw, just sayin'
It's the same in Germany... not doing anything a year looks horrible in the résumé.
Who said that he actually quit? You can take a year off and continue afterwards. (Yes, German "College" makes it possible) So he might simply "pause" college. That way, it simply takes a year longer to complete his school instead of having a year "not doing anything". Just to clarify
On September 29 2010 10:17 Zerius[TPR] wrote: Dunno why Canadians have always been good at SC while Americans, compared to how many people live there, are not... Even in BW, Grrrr..., Smuft, Yosh, Testie etc... were usually better than any American around at the time. Only one I can think of that compares to guys like that is FroZ and I suppose IdrA after the old school stopped playing. Americans have typically been better at FPS games.
Even now, HuK is probably the best player in North America (though I guess the upcoming IEM will decide that).
On September 29 2010 09:49 arnold(soTa) wrote: many people dont know this about sweden, but the only thing swedish bikinigirls get off on is gamers... naturally we feel compelled to be the best for this very reason.
OP didnt do any research. SeleCT and HuK basically fight for #1 on a consistent basis. And then there are a crazy amount of other great players often in the top 20s from the US.
On August 26 2010 00:53 Gaxton wrote: Not the first game Sweden is in top of. Just look at who dominated most of the CS1.5/1.6 scene.
Yes but that one was due to how far ahead they were in terms of internet, swedish players could practice way way better than most of the players from other countries, so they ended way ahead of the majority of the rest. The weather there also played a big role, when it's that cold you don't go out as often as when you're living in morocco for example
Actually, We Chinese could only feel about that but it is hard to explain the rules on these games to you guys. But I can list some limitations. For example, every games should be carefully checked that whethers it is suitable in China or not. Usually it takes about 3 monthes or even longer.
To note: - The Winner of the MLG (HuK) didn't survive the group stage. - GSL Ro64 Player (Artosis) didn't survive the group stage. - A lot of European Players at the tournament.
Why do people bash Huk for not making it out of group stage in IEM it's the dudes FIRST LAN event the guy was nervous as shit.
EPT
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