because are rich and only play cs...

its the weather obviously

Because they practice more than the others do

best internet connections

Because average IQ is higher there

and to answer your question for us swedes.. we a well developed cs scene with a good ladder system (www.playnation.se), probably the best there is

cause they stay all day at home playing PC games, and the climate is so cold and a lot of snow in nordic countrys, so the only sport they actually practise is hockey or some other sport that i dont remember the name, and obviously they play a lot cs :)

I think it is due to the ease they got to practice online and the fact that they all can communicate with each other very well, that doesn't happen with the rest of europe that speak very different languages like Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, German, Catalan, Russian/Ucranian, Polish, Turkish, etc.

In America only NA teams can practice with decent pings, South America is a mess when it comes to internet connections, every single country has IP conflicts with their neighbors, that's why you don't see leagues with Chilean, Brazilian, Argentinian and Peruvian teams participating even tho they can undestand each other pretty well (spanish and portuguese are very similiar) and CS is still huge around here.

I'm pretty sure Asian teams have the same inet problem SA has but they also have very different languages, so its even harder for them.

Post edited 2012-05-06 23:37:54

Guess good inet made it possible for them to develop e-sports in general better then other countries.

They don't have Summer, so nothing else to do there. :D

Post edited 2012-05-06 23:42:16

"cause they stay all day at home playing PC games" that is pure bullshit and it's disgusting to know people outside Nordic countries think that... but yea the ping/connection is one big factor, you don't need to play with over 20-25 ping if you have decent connection.

I think they born with this talent :) and doesen't metter clime,practice,rich etc.

because of technoviking

Rich countries..teens, parents could afford to buy computers in greater number because of the wealth. This goes back to the Amiga and Commodore days as well. Lots of kids had their owns PC to play games on and in 1999 a lot started to play CS.

The schools have computers and got them in an early age (90s when they were expensive and a luxury good). They were often used to play CS on.

Great internet connections since forever, and again, people could afford to play with 14 baud modems back in the days, even though the price was a euro/minute or something like that.

Great English skills, if you didn't know English it was pretty hard to visit counter-strike.net, download the HL.exe updates and the csxxbeta.exe file and setup the server.

The scene in Scandinavia is old as hell. Many players still play because the old kids in school played it, their brothers did or they watched the cool kids play in a net-cafe.

I personally believe the access to computers in a larger scale and in an early age meant a higher expertize around them. Including setting up LANs, fixing computers, joining IRC and being able to join clan wars. If you were Italian and your English was horrible, then you might never learn about IRC, Clanbase when it was big and all that.

A few things off my head....

good internet connection

Because we have long fucking winters and there's nothing else to do.

Nah but seriously it has to do with cs being such a huge thing here. Without exaggerating i would say 99% of all Swedish guys age 16-25 have at least tried the game at some point. There are always people to play against on playnation. Inferno Online hosts lan tournaments every friday and saturday. I have friends who have never watched a comptetitive cs game and still know who HeatoN is.
With so many players it's only natural that there are many good teams, compared to in a country where there are only 2-3 other teams to prac against.

I think it's a mix of cold weather + good financial conditions + good internet

apparently the system there allows them to concentrate on gaming... i guess.

why are they better? they just are. deal with it.

because of long cold wintry evenings

South Koreans invaded us year 345 and spread their genes to us, which made us imba at e-sports.

Jokes aside, I think it has with us being among the first with good internet connections, which led to us getting the best players first, which led to a huge interest (everyone knows who HeatoN is here! :D) and a very good infrastructure on our scene.

More players > better odds for getting stars, and our nice scene with LAN's for the semiplayers and our high quality news sites etc surely helps growing the playerbase and motivation.

Therefore we got a bigger talentpool then most countries today.

Post edited 2012-05-07 02:13:37

Money.
Correct me if I'm wrong,but here is how I see things.
In Sweden , Denmark , Norway etc. life standard is pretty good so people can afford to "live" out of gaming.I'm sure pro players have some high schools finished and all,but I bet they do just fine from the money they earn playing the game.
Then there are sponsors,organisations that are willing to invest in gaming , in teams,in e-sports... we don't have that around here.
Tournaments.In Serbia, I would say we have 1 decent tournament per month.Now,I'm not so familiar with,lets say, mid-skill tournaments in Sweden but I guess there is a lot of chance for new players,young talents to show their worth.
I think all that combined makes them strong.

Again,I'm maybe wrong,correct me,this is just how it looks to me.

Post edited 2012-05-07 03:04:35

Because we got to much spear time..

Because they are simply paid to play, so they spend more time on practicing and don't have to work to pay their bills.

You forgot Ukraine, and some countries are not interesting on developing counter strike tournaments or events so lots of team from a lot of countries are not able to be known around the world.

dunno why
may be there no other occupation except cybersport?
Like sc2 in Korea

because someone has to be the best

Because they are better educated.

24/7 of playing CS :) and one of best servers with really good connection ? or maybe there is rlly cold so they don´t go out and sit at home and studying is really boring, so they play cs :D

cs is just a big thing in sweden, many very big lan partys and events. the "kids" go there, see them playing and just wanna be like their idols, get a computer at pretty young age with good internet connection and start to play all day after school until they are pro :P

some like hockey, some like football and some like cs. so everyone is different and focus on the "sports" he/she likes^^

#96

There is many factors in this situation. Many things you don't see normally in your life. I think that one of them maybe can be how your health is. I mean if your health isn't that good together with some bad life memeries it can maybe be one of the reasons together with how many hours a Nordic eSport-player puts into his game.

This maybe sound strange but in the same time I think that this is one of the key factors for this question.

But still. There are many reasons more and just to be sure... It's not the weather ^^

Im travelling atm, visiting russia, finland and sweden.
I guess they are the best cause if so fking cold and never go outside (for winter months)

We in Costa Rica, suck at CS (dont know if remember WCG PanAm 2010 where my team got rolled 16-0 twice) and that's because we got shit to do, I mean, temperature NEVER goes below 18 degrees celcius.

Thats just my humble opinion.

cuz they're the last ones to actually play the game.

bicos...stilsirius..

because they got everything good economy much sponsors thats why gamers can play alot

it's the weather. Here in Portugal, we just want to go out, to the beach, pool etc etc At Nordic Countries people just stay at home cause its raining. Good climate ftw

they earlier than all get very good internet!

1: very cold/snowy weather = most time at home = a lot of time to spent on computers

2: great internet since ever = very low ping since 1.5

3: they have a lot of money, in general = they can buy the best equipement available all the time

Wow, its simple.

More competition means higher skill, as plain and simple as that.

They have a much larger community than the rest of the world and the community is highly competitive and rich in talent and this repeats over and over.

I think its because we are the first to saw E-Sports coming, I mean look how many internet cafe we had at the start etc We are just more intelligent than other country ^^

Because they have money for really good pc configuration and ideal/excelent internet connection, thats why.

if they are the best because its cold outside...then they are the masters of fap fap fap

Good internet connection + cold outside = 5h computer per day :D

because someone will pay them for their playing

1. Good internet connection
2. Most of European Championship are held in Finland,Sweden,germany ETC
3. Rich countries

polar night -> nothing to do -> play cs

I think people are hitting the wrong points, and that's why maybe they aren't as good as the nordic.

Money, although important, has not very much to do with it. You look at countries like Ukraine and Russia, who the average comptuer player isn't a super spoiled rich kid and they still have crazy good teams in a lot of games, be it Starcraft, Warcraft, Counter-Strike, DotA... that's mainly because of environment. The environment where YOU play.

The scene in the nordic countries, as someone already said, is super old, the best quake/doom players in europe were mostly nordic, and just like in other sports, the better the players against who you play are, the better you become. It just grows tenfold, it's natural evolution if you may.

Tournaments, websites sharing information, creating a competitive scene is very important to make good players. I look at the portuguese CS scene for instance, what do I see? A couple of guys whose main objective is to be the best at their irc channel gathers. What kind of low objective is that? That's an objective, of course, but that won't make them want to become better. Once they're somewhat close to the top, they'll think they've got it, that they don't need to improve as much, and that really handicaps the skill ceiling of a country.

That general objective is very common amongst low/mid-tier players, who are supposed to be the new breed. They have, I feel, too much respect for the best players, and the best players, unfortunately, rarely mix up with the new ones. They form those kind of "elite" groups who only mix between themselves and don't care about anything else just because they are at the top of the country, even though compared to the rest of europe they are just low tier players.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing on that mentality or saying I'm any better than any of them, I just think short-term goals and competitive environment are really crucial in developing a talented scene.

That's where money comes in, if you have that scene already, having better connections and better computers will only help you, but you already got to have that infrastructure built for it to be really a booster.

Easy, best internet and a big winter.

Its NOT about the weather or the money. We were pioneers in CS, we won everything. When SK won tournaments in 2003 it was in the national news on TV. This created acceptance, interest and more talents.

Now Sweden has the most developed CS scene when it comes to ladders and online tournaments. Anyone can make a team and play against people in SK and other online teams on playnation.se. 50000 registered members and 75000 ladder matches played in 2011

Post edited 2012-05-07 16:19:46

what are you talking about? :DDDD

It's probably FUN to play on a decent internet connection, and it would prepare you better for LAN events.

SWE > WORLD thats all.

weakest anticheat system

The question is, why are Swedish teams nowadays the best :-)

BECAUSE THEY HAVE LOW LATENCY AND GOOD COMPUTERS

I'd say its because we can't get to school most days, you know, because of all the polar bears walking down the street.

maybe cuz its twice game adds and game shops in sweden and after having heaton spawn and so on people get mote intrested like me !
weather is big reason

Reading most of the comments just make me sad. Some of you guys just dont have a clue about nordic countries. I am not ritch? my parents are not ritch? I have like 2 friends who have "ritch" parents and even they have to do homeworks, dishes, clean up the house sometimes, wash the car, ordinary stuff if you are a kid and live with you parents? Our winter is like 3-4 months in the southern part of the country? And we have clothes on at winter??? I am working at the consturction sites and we work outside -20celsius. Its not like we are sitting inside at winter and play cs? It seem some of you are just stupid enought to come here and write something you dont know anything? I know some countries are poor, thats not what i am trying to say. But in every country where you have internet and computer to write here you have also schools to educate yourself, get yourself a career and have a good life and stop whining.

peace.

because cs 1.6 is national sport in Scandinavia ;P

Attitude.

nordic countries (norway/swe....) have a high social for people who dont working. So if u have 18year old guy from sweden and ukr, swede guy is still playing and have no worring and guy from ukraina is thinking how to get cash but he now that payment job in gaming is only dream, so he going to job and potti is still a celner in bar ;))

Maybe they got more freetime and many counter strike players.

I think, for first it was so randomly. At the very early times, somebody should have the Best, and - although I'm not the best from cs history - NIP and SK was one of the big reasons, why CS had a fast growing reputation in Sweden.

If your country has a successful team or two, no matter in what - and no matter it's an esport or not - it causes a big reputation, and many young people motivated by this. So it's a chain-reaction in this case, more events, more practises, bigger concurency, bigger motivation, bigger quality, and so on.

In e-sport, neighbours have better chance to play with these guys because of pings, and some of them, maybe the language barrier is not a problem.

But of course it's only a point a view, and may it's much more complex.

Just look at to the Brasilian football. They are one of the best for a long time, and why? Because of they have many talents? Maybe, but I think, it's even more, that a big crowd play football and it cause more practises, more concurency, and there is a very big difference, that you are the best from 10 or you are the best from 1000.

Post edited 2012-05-07 20:02:44

?????

I'll give you some clues... Nordic - Winter - Cold - Stay at home - no life - CS pros!

That's why countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and France suck at games. ;)

Stay cool!!

bikoz

because they played clanbase.com and other nordic ladders 24/7 for along years in a row while all other countries were playing pointless praccs at random irc-channels

cold -> nothing to do -> cs/hockey

connections ,money ,cold, time.

Post edited 2012-05-07 22:53:10

Good internet and bad weather imo

I dont understand why foreigners think that evey nordic person has alot of money? Its not like that. Here are poors and riches just like everywhere else in the world.

oh god why

its obviously that CS is more than just a Game in Scandinavia like ski's in Norway , i've trained 6 years Cross country and i know that in Norway they skiing from 3-4 years old :), about the CS there is more Famous and many people played (many teams) you have to keep it high to stay on top :)

Because they just got good competitive scene there

Because they ve got very few talented and intelligent players,and from those few everyone other learn. Just like a koreans.

neo > world;p

Biggest thing Online is their nets, means they essentially get lan reg online. Other than that they have a good Lan scene, and a much bigger pool of players than most countries. Which is always going to mean they will be at or near the top in terms of nations skill level.

Why American basketball players are the best ?

drugs

good internet and gaming gear for low prices and weather.

Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Russia and Ukraine (the best teams are from these countries in my opinion) have a cold climate, therefore more time is spent playing games like CS.

Also, they have good lan-houses and generally a great Internet connection.

because scandinavia is cold so they cant go out they are staying in home and playing cs

youre fucking retarded if you think we are good because of the climate