Slashdot Mirror
Can Counter-Strike Players Be Summed Up By Nation?
Thanks to GotFrag for its article discussing whether players from different countries are good at different aspects of online FPS Counter-Strike. The writer tries to claim: "Some countries, most of which are the leading ones in Counter-Strike, have certain specialities. This often means that the players in this country will have a 'special touch' in this area." Among the supposed conclusions are that Americans excel at "shooting [and] logistics", whereas Germans are best at "thinking [and] teamwork", and the French come off best when using "reflexes". How seriously can we take such broad conclusions?
I think this is just a superstition. CS players think that Germans are better at teamwork and Americans are better with 1337 and sniping so they will naturally assume attribute those traits to players of various nationalities even if they don't demonstrate anymore skill than anyone else. "We got pwned by those Germans, man they stick together" or "Those Americans all talk with numbers and are so interested in our mothers"
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Somehow I don't think that the location of a human being on the Earth inherently determines their specialty in Counter-Strike. Infact it's a ridiculous concept that suggests humans of a different nationality are fundmanetally different than that of another nationality.
The author needs to think about the generalizations he's making and realize that they're just that, generalizations.
Jesus, am I the only one on earth who never played counter-strike and doesnt even want to? As far as multiplayer FPS games go, CS isnt so crash hot.
I don't want to oppress your freedom of speech, but perhaps you should actually play the game before you start offering your opinions on it.
It is likely the case that certain countries have a "special touch" in a video game, however the cause is likely not attributable to the country itself. Some of the commonly assumed attributes of countries have very little correlation to what would normally be assumed about the country.
I suspect that it is the way certain people play in a country that spreads the "special touch." I am an avid gamer, and have found myself playing in a certain style because all my peers play in a similar fashion, and they seem to be effective players. Thus, the "special touch" is caused by how effective the player's peer's style's of gaming are.
We can't. It's as simple as that.
Goo goo g'joob.
I have lived in three of those countries for long periods of time and those rankings in no way resemble the realities which you discern only when fully immersed in the cultures.
Most anthropologists I have met, are left in the dust by multinational, multicultured, multilingual individuals who don't even call themselves anthropologists.
Maybe the problem is, that you have a predetermined cultural notion of how the countries should rank. And you are ranking countries based on subjective categories concieved fully immersed in a particular cultural environment. Almost like begging the question.
But what the hell do I know. I'm posting to slashdot and don't have the time or energy to RTFA.
Liberty.
Americans do play quite a bit of FPS and strategy games, but you must realize that they are drawing conclusions from a pool of Counter-strike players and not from the general populace. Additionally, the majority of Americans don't play computer games because of the many headaches involved with system requirements, patching, and overall price of computer systems, and so most prefer to purchase an easier to understand video game console to play their games. It's hard to argue with the ease of just plugging the disc into the slot and hitting power, but I guess since most Americans have difficulty operating a VCR even that must be tough for some people.
As for sports games, that is a very complicated issue that involves history, the replacement of religion for personal hope, ability to ease into large group associations with peers despite backgrounds, and many other considerations.
I'm a reasonably good CS player I've played in some clans and gone to a couple tournaments where we placed.
Online you can tell where someone is from depending on the way they play, specific areas I find easy to tell are Russia, France and Quebec. I'll check the name afterward and realise I was right. I can't describe why it feels diffrent to play against someone from one of these areas however I feel I could prove it given certain tests.
I think the reasons for this are that diffrent countries discovered gaming at diffrent times, there is a huge diffrence in feel between people who did and didn't play quake 1.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each school of play at diffrent levels, a French strategie is not as useful on a public server but works well in clan matches(demos).
The most obvious elements of this occur when there is a dramatic change of strategies around the net some countries are left behind, for example "classic" camping came back but the German's didn't understand it for several months after everyone else did.
I would say it's very noticable, I'd also say that certain play styles have advantages over specific other play styles, it only takes about 4-5 rounds for opponents to have a decent chance of outguessing one another and players who lose learn faster. So no country will ever drop out of gaming, they may have to adjust though.
I think this study has some signifigance, and I'll illustrate to you all why:
I attended a university with a lot of foreign students in the mid-90's. I play soccer. I played soccer at this university on the intramural teams. My team was comprised primarily of Americans. Because of the large population of foreign nationals at our school, there were teams made up almost entirely of the following nationalities: south african, mideastern/middle african, korean, japanese/chinese, mexican, south american, etc. I have played soccer since I was 5, and I can tell you for certain that each of these teams had a distinct playing style. The south africans were all about speed, but weren't as concerned about ball control - pass and run, the mideasterners had AWESOME ball control and passed ok, but didn't have a lot of speed (or didn't concentrate on that aspect - some of them were fast when they wanted to be), my team was of course a little more individualistic and generic in our play style, mexicans were very physical (not hacks, but in your face physical), and the differences continued.
Despite how much you think we're all exactly the same, our cultures and societies we grow up in do influence our lives a great deal, and do tend to show up in sports. While CS isn't the most grueling sport to play, it is none-the-less a team "sport" activity, and I think the differences in nationality do affect a team's playing style, strengths, and weaknesses. Just watch the World Cup sometime - you'll see what I'm talking about pretty quickly.