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?

Comments

Superstition

[August_zero]

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"

Re:Superstition

[FreeForm Response]

And blacks are gifted in "worship and celebration," white people "know how to tap into money," Native Americans are "gifted spiritually" (and know "how to sneak up on people"), Asians are "gifted in creation, creativity and inventions," and Hispanics are "gifted in family structure."

Remarks by Reggie White before the Wisconsin State Assembly, 3/25/98

I'm not one to get overly uppity about racial or cultural pigeonholing. I believe that stereotypes are probably there for a reason. But there's a difference, a logical leap that bridges the gap between "many people who are good at X hail from country Z" and "all people in country Z are good at X," which is not to be taken lightly.

Make all the jokes you want (I certainly do), but think hard about why you believe what you believe about other people before prejudging them.

And the Koreans...

[Stone Rhino]

are probably best at playing too much and dying.

Not Likely

[AstrumPreliator]

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.

Re:Not Likely

[BoomerSooner]

So you're saying all cultures develop the same over time and place importance on the same skills, right?

Apparently you're not a world traveler.

Re:Not Likely

[AstrumPreliator]

Cultures do develope differently, I won't argue with that. But we are talking about a very specific game. Cultures don't evolve differently where gamers of different cultures magically gain the ability to snipe better in Counter-Strike, or work as a team better. This is just my opinion, but I don't think culture has anything to do with how you play video games. You learn how to play video games from scratch, not from culture.

Re:Not Likely

[August_zero]

Except that most of the gender studies that have been carried out in the past were not built on the soundest foundation and often reported "findings" perfectly inline with what the researchers already believed in. Read some of these studies you are referring to, look at their methodology and their actual results. My experience is that "you can generally say" is synonymous with the expression "they say" which has all the verifiability of a granfaloon and only half of its value.

So good aiming skills are taught to all American youngsters? I had no idea that the NRA had such a robust membership these days.

Re:Get a fucking job already.

[Stepping Razor]

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.

totally true

[pizza_milkshake]

the study also found:

• germans do well at the levels which require building a combustion engine from spare parts to power your team's vehicle
• americans excel at the level that combines eating fast food, talking on your radio and driving over endangered species with a Lincoln Navigator
• the french are good at surrendering

Hofstede

[Vincman]

Similar studies into cultural differences have been undertaken by, for example, Geert Hofstede et al. He identifies 5 dimensions by which cultures may differ. For instance some countries, like the US, score high on the individualistic scale, while countries like Germany or China score higher on the collectivist scale. Power distance indicates the need, or lack of, for structure in an organisational context. Cultures with high Uncertainty Avoidance will be take less risk and vice versa, etc, etc. Anyway... his summary explains it way better than I ever could. A country-by-country-chart can be found here.

In conclusion, according to this study, yes, where you are from may affect your fragging-routines, i.e. "storm the front" or "camp and defend". But it will certainly not be the only factor affecting performance!

My friend is Indian...

[Anonymous Coward]

And he's great at helping my clanmates with tech support problems.....

/me runs

Attributions of the so-called "special touch"

[jeremy_dot]

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.

Of course!

[Cosmik]

This is all very obvious. It just comes down to years of social engineering.

Americans excel at "shooting [and] logistics"

Years of gang warfare, drive-by murders and shooting to get the 'bling-bling' has provided Americans with unbeatable markmanship skills.

whereas Germans are best at "thinking [and] teamwork"

After the 2 World Wars, and having their Army, Navy, and Air Force taken away from them, the Germans have had to fall back on brains instead of guns. They regularly get together and team up for some beer and to try to take over the world again, only to pass out drunk.

the French come off best when using "reflexes".

These reflexes have been perfected through years of running away quickly and surrendering.

(All above comments made in jest, for those with a broken humour detector)

Re:Get a fucking job already.

[adler187]

"Get out of the house, make some RL friends and stop wasting your time in front of a silly computer. You will be far happier and much healthier."

This comming from someone trolling on /.?

Maybe you should just take your own advice.

Play Styles?

[Deliveranc3]

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.

My experience

[cavemanf16]

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.