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Gaming In Sweden Bigger Than Football and Hockey
An anonymous reader writes "SIFO (a major Swedish survey company) has conducted a gaming survey right before the launch of Dreamhack Winter. One of the results is that gaming is bigger than football and hockey combined."
I just don't understand, which one, EA Sports or Pro Evolution Soccer?
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If you mod me as off topic you just didn't get it
Cant get to the article from work, but is there anyone out there that has not seen this coming?? Anyone can pick up a controller and play a game, where it actually takes some time and effort to learn to skate.
"A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers." Hayek
Nice to see we have some friendly competition for the coveted "Most Hours Spent Sitting on Our Arse" award. *looks around* Hmm. Why are all these people looking at me like I just ran over their dog? And at least four of them have pitchforks.
Well, I'm going for a walk!
*backs away slowly*
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Still, not to surprising, since it's a lot easier to sit down in front of the pc or the console of you're choice and just play a game.
The only way to stay sane in an insane world, is to be mad yourself...
It's easy to understand why. Have you ever tried kicking a football on skates?
-=Bang Bang=-
Is the day far when nerds and geeks will rule the high schools, bullying and terrorizing the jocks and athletes?
Who wants to be outside in cold wet weather physically exerting themselves when you can be toasty and lazy sitting on the couch?
Live forever, or die trying.
I am starting to think these surveys are worthless. For example, couldn't you also infer:
Gamers more likely to answer surverys than sports aficionados.
On some of these (yes, I get telephone surveys about once a month that I HANG UP ON) I have to think the results would be:
x% of people stupid enough to answer a survey think y.
I don't care how popular Football is over there, but if they're talking about football, now THAT is impressive.
About 25% of my online society (Hunters-unlimited.com) is sweedish and uses those funny little dots in their words. Plus one or the games we play (entropiauniverse.com) is also sweedish, They are a pleasure to play with, speaking multiple languages (for the most part). With all that extra night time in the winter they keep our soc warm.
An urban legend my good man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Maybe in 10 years the game of hockey will return to normal, and we won't have to worry about the prancing-through-the-daffodil-swedes wrecking our game with their pseudo-soccer-take-the-fall style of game.
I kid, I kid
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Why do you suppose Linus was coding all winter instead of out playing golf, tennis, or basketball.
It wasn't yet too cold to type. This could be the end of open source. Unless all the CS people in the frozen north get bored with gaming.
Thank god...at first I thought those values in those columns were percent. double-digits suicide rates would be sick...
When reading this article via RSS, I couldn't tell if you meant Computer Gaming (or even pen and paper gaming), or Gambling ("The Gaming Industry" usually refers to gambling), or based upon the writing skills of some contributors, maybe even hunting (game == animals).
I had to actually open the article on /. to see that it has a "pcgames" tag to know that it's about computer games. I shouldn't have to do that.
Try to be nice to the RSS subscribers. Be a little more specific in your article summaries.
with all those uber-hot Swedish women around?
What about triple-digits?
Odd how China is the only country with a higher female suicide rate.
.
But fundamentally, organized league play is a physically demanding - potentially very dangerous sport - at every level. Typically kids begin training no later than nine or ten and it's a big investment in time and money.
You can be a Wii Bowler and call yourself physically active. But that isn't going to be good enough to keep you competitive on the rink with a talented seventh grader.
Haven't they been following this same trend for a while? Heck, Star Craft is essentially a sport over in Korea.
Does this mean when Starcraft 2 comes out I will start seeing borkborkborks instead of just kekekes?
I just don't see them playing football. Maybe norway, because they got lots of bigs guys that could easily play the line, but swedes? Maybe flag football.
Museums, it turns out, have much higher attendance in aggregate than professional sports. They have a much greater net economic impact than professional sports as well. A single headliner museum in a city can bring in a quarter of a billion dollars annually; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (an absolutely amazing place) was shown to bring in 369 million annually to the Boston area in a recent study. This is actually comparable to the annual revenue of the Red Sox; the net impact of the Red Sox on regional economy might be somewhat more, but there are a lot more comparable cultural institutions in Boston than there are comparable sports teams. You can walk across the street from the MFA to the Gardner, a smaller but equally culturally significant art museum. Boston is a famous sports town, but it is stuffed to the gills with cultural institutions that have heavy attendance every day (except possibly Mondays) year round.
I think one of the reasons for the outsize impact of cultural institutions is that they have a mission to have an impact. They're supposed to maximize bodies in the doors, eyeballs on the exhibits. Sports franchises aren't run that way. They're run to maximize profit.
Gaming's higher impact is likewise related to the fact you can do it every day. However it isn't going to have the same economic impact as having strong cultural institutions.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe isn't a country now?
which is totally what she said
But the gaming jock is never going to sleep with the prom queen.
More people play video games than engage in organized physical activity? I'm shocked, SHOCKED! I always thought it was a minority of people that engaged in organized sports...
what is football and hockey after all ?
you just sit in front of a tv, and passively watch OTHER people playing a game.
with computer games, at least YOU get to play the game.
Read radical news here
Sweden is also the host of the oldest running LPMUD, NannyMUD (http://www.nannymud.com/). Sweden was doing multiplayer gaming before most of us had the internets!
What surprises me is with the whole Emo pop culture trend of this decade the US isn't at the top of the list.
Odd how China is the only country with a higher female suicide rate.
Perhaps they really don't see "little, yellow, different" as being worth living for?
(/tongue in cheek reference to chinese male genitalia)
Sig Missing
Agreed.
This shouldn't even be news. I wouldn't doubt if this was true for every country. If they did a survey in the US, I'd bet money they'd find more people play sports games than play sports.
Where's the statistic for how many people play games vs watch sports as their primary recreation?
There are more professional athletes in the US than there are people in Sweden.
Gaming is also cheap compared to attending a soccer event. The stadium entrance fee ranges from 50 to 100 Euros and you get 90 min of entertainment. A PS3 costs about 400 Euros (depending on the version) and a game sales at about 25 Euros (prices of course vary), which means that a PS3 and two new games is roughly like going 6 times to the soccer stadium, i.e. "buying" 9 hours of entertainment. With two PS3 games you can definitely spend a LOT more time than that, plus the fact that you will only buy the console once.
Well, with a population of ca. 157,000 (in 2005) and the fact that the suicides are listed by "suicides per 100,000 people per year", I think the fact that there is 0.0 male and 1.8 female suicides in 1987(!) - which basically means there was probably only one suicide in that year and it happened to be a woman - we can safely say: the data is insufficient to make a valid statement about the distribution.
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
Yeah,
Because doing anything for fun that isn't pushing the human body to new heights isn't worth doing.
If your not doing sit-ups while posting on Slashdot, then you should be arrested.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Football - as known by most of the world. This is a game where the ball is controlled by the feet. That is why we call it football.
I don't know what to call that stop-start activity you have in the USA. Football is not a word I would choose for it...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
.. because too many people can no longer even set foot on a tennis court without being out of breath we have substituted physical prowess in competition for mental reflex prowess. Pushing the human body to new heights is a sport, sitting on your ass in a chair isn't a sport. Counter Strike isn't a sport. Team Fortress 2 isn't a sport. It's a substitute activity for people either too fat or too lazy to go outside.
ANYONE HEALTHY PERSON CAUGHT PLAYING VIRTUAL TENNIS IN THE SUMMER SHOULD BE ARRESTED! ANYONE HEALTHY PERSON CAUGHT PLAYING VIRTUAL BOWLING ANY TIME OF THE YEAR SHOULD BE ARRESTED!
Go outside people.
I'll buy that argument as soon as ESPN stops calling NASCAR a sport.
As any stupid trend, people who follows it aren't "that" committed to the whole extent of it. Which means they say they don't wanna live, but they will never kill themselves. Even though I wouldn't mind some gene-pool cleansing, for the sake of humankind lol (j/k)
Those are the countries with a lot of failed attempts.
And you are inside why?
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
Anything to avoid opening the door and stumbling out into that 40 below zero with the 12 foot snow drifts and 60 mph winds! Indoors activities sound better and better.
Sweden's cold...
No. They would never pull trough with that. It would not be Emo to actually do something.
Bitchin' about it on the other hand... ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I'll buy that argument as soon as ESPN stops calling NASCAR a sport.
What defines a sport?
Must it be performed by athletes, or are there non-athletic sports?
Are there athletic competitions that are not a sport?
Must there be a competition involved, or can you have non-competitive sports?
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
Depends on the context. People have hunted for sport for years. I think in that context it just means for the fun and challenge, not necessarily against another human competitors. While I can't under stand the entertainment value in watching NASCAR I can see why it's a sport. The conditions a driver performs under are pretty grueling. And the reaction speeds and skill necessary to drive competively at those speeds are very restrictive. We can joke about how difficult it is to drive in a circle all day but doing it better than a bunch of other teams in those conditions is definitely challenging.
Vi sitter här i Venten och spelar lite DotA... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OzWIFX8M-Y
Goodness!
Swedish men also wear ridiculous armour when they play hockey- just like those "wimpey" Canadians and Americans.
I have no doubt as to why they prefer shootey-shootey bang-bang childrens' games in front of the telly, to a real game of football or "hockey" (I believe in North America they call it Ice Honckey).
I suggest there has been too much plastic residue / estrogens leaching into their drinking water over the last generation or so. The current westerner would not have a chance if he attempted to play hockey- REAL hockey - on the playing fields in my land!
I.E. sans "padding" as you effete westerners call it.
Let him languorously lounge in front of his gaming monitor", the poor estrogen-laden layabout.
One would think they had enough female-fat padding already!
But no! That is why they must now take these steroid additions, the poor chaps!
My goddness, you are a potty-mouth, aren't you, little lad! /. ?
Does your mummy know you takk like this on
Perhaps you should return to pulling your pudding, young poltroon.
Or countries that people travel to to commit suicide.
That would make for terrifying tourism PR campaigns.
As the article says, the survey is about how many people participate in the sports and gaming. If you put it that way, probably more Americans play games than play basketball, more Japanese play games than play baseball. Not at all surprising.
But if someone says he's "in to football", chances are good that he's in to watching professional football, not playing it. Apparently only 3% of Swedes play hockey, but undoubtedly many many more watch it. I think even a lot of football fans would, if placed in front of a TV set, prefer to interact and be challenged by a game than passively watch a game. And either activity would be greatly preferred to actually going out and getting down in the dirt.
And nowhere does the article mention the amount of money spent on gaming vs. sports, and that's the conventional measure of how "big" something is. It's quite possible that gaming does take in more money, but probably not to the proportions reported here.
The most powerful strategy I've found for getting the right sort of attention from women is when in a mixed gender group: Be the guy that makes the other guys feel good about themselves.
That means being a positive force at the table.
The women almost always notice and you are insta-alpha without having to be a jock of any sort.
It was discovered that in the USA, gaming is bigger than curling and soccer combined!
(similar survey - why target a country that could already care less about an American or Canadian sport and compare video gaming to that?)
For the origins of rugby - and football for that matter - see here:
http://rugbyfootballhistory.com/originsofrugby.htm
If you think baseball is a perfect strategic game, you haven't seen "Finnish baseball" a.k.a. pesäpallo.
:)
The biggest differences:
1) If the ball falls outside the playing field, it's always a foul. In American version you can in theory just keep hitting the ball far enough back and keep racking homeruns.
However, the Finnish version is not played on closed stadiums so if the outfielders don't catch the ball, it can roll pretty far away.
2) The pitcher is standing right next to the hitter and always pitches upwards. The ball must clear a minimum height and must hit the plate when coming down (unless the hitter hits the ball before it lands, of course). This makes it less of a skill contest between the pitcher and the hitter and places more emphasis on the different kinds of hits.
3) The bases are arranged differently. Instead of the right-back-left arrangement, the Finnish version uses left-right-farther left arrangement. This means that the distance to 1st base is the shortest, 1-2 and 2-3 are longer and the distance from 3rd to home is the longest. And it's faster to throw the ball to any of the bases.
Baseball may well be highly strategic but it's pretty simple compared to the true sport: pesäpallo
An urban legend my good man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Huh. China's the only major country where women commit suicide more often than men, according to that.
It also says 39% play games and 74% of games exercise compared to 61% of the whole population.
Now, that means only 32% of non-gamers exercise.
You'd think that would be big news too.
temporarily sigless
Early major international games were "timeless" - they would go on until a result was achieved. However this format was abandoned due to the uncertainty of when the match would finish and outside pressures.
The last ever timeless cricket Test (the most prestigious form of the game) was the 5th Test between England and South Africa at Durban in 1939, which was abandoned as a draw after 9 days of play spread over 11 days because otherwise the England team would have missed the boat for home.
So, the current 5 day Test, that's a short version... :-)
5 day test matches last up to five days of play, though can be shorter if one side wins faster. On each day there are usually three two-hour sessions with a forty minute break for lunch and a twenty minute break for tea. Weather conditions might affect how long players are in the field for (you don't play in the rain or poor light).
What a lovely game. What other sports games have an official break for afternoon tea written into the Laws of the Game?
"When I saw the future, the geeks were right."
-The Faint - The geeks were right
I am the lawn!
It shouldn't surprise you because it is not strictly a US trend. It's really a small percentage of people in the US. The trend or trends resembling it are much stronger in many nations outside the US. Even Seattle can't compare to a place like Tokyo in this respect. But other than that, this is more of a case of stereotype vs reality. Most of the people in Japan jumping in front of trains and sniffing household detergent are not what you would consider emo kids even though you will see a lot more of them there than in the US.
this is in a country were a song about an irc bot tops the charts(good song too), no surprise
I gave up that war, you can't argue with a mullet regardless of the discussion. Hockey, NASCAR, pro-wrestling, or which episode of the DoH was the best...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I was talking about sex to begin with...bitter much?;)
Contrary to popular belief, most women want to be friends with the people with whom they have sex.
There's the girls who date the asshole, and they're just hopeless...like the smart guys who date the good looking moron thinking she'll grow a brain.
Nerdy guys are just pathetic though. You can tell when they're looking for pussy a mile away and they'll go on about working for Bioware for 20 minutes before they realize you're just not that interested.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.