We Finally Know What Country Has The Best Gamers

Have you ever wondered who the best gamers in the world are, or at least where they call home? It might be harder to figure out than you think. After all, gamers come from all sorts of different places. It should be no surprise, then, that gamers in different parts of the world prefer all different styles of games and gameplay.

As stated by mobile game developer and publisher Kwalee, the company behind games like Draw It and Jetpack Jump, "gaming is loved all over the world, with millions of players taking to their game of choice every single day. And right now, there's arguably more people playing games than there ever has been." 

To that end, Kwalee has conducted research into finding out exactly where the best gamers in the world hail from. The results were then published in a blog post on Kwalee's official website, and they might not be at all what you expected.

In a result that seemed to surprise even the researchers at Kwalee, it was determined that Finland is, in fact, the country with the most skilled gamers. According to Kwalee, "Finland has been responsible for huge hits such as Clash of Clans and Angry Birds, and its rich gaming culture with a vast population of avid gamers sees them pop up time and again in our research!"

In order to break things down further, Kwalee also looked into which countries dominated in particular genres. After all, different gamers are drawn to different types of gameplay, so Kwalee wanted to see how that would vary from place to place.

The result were interesting, to say the least. Scotland was better at racing games, the United States dominated in first-person shooters, and Japan took the crown for being the best at fighting games.

Notably absent from the list of countries with the most skilled gamers was South Korea. Kwalee admits that this is an odd omission, particularly given South Korea's massive competitive gaming scene. According to Kwalee, "when calculating their first place achievements against the size of their population, the country fell down to 39th position in our overall table," despite the country's prominence in the world of esports. 

Looking at the map on Kwalee's blog divides things even further into specific titles and franchises. It was discovered that England is the best at the Silent Hill survival horror franchise. Meanwhile, in one of the most oddly-specific sentences you're likely to read today, gamers from Scotland are apparently pretty fantastic at playing Crash Bandicoot games.

The United States apparently excels at Metal Gear Solid, which makes sense when you consider how many achievements are hidden in that franchise. Heck, even the MGS HD Collection contains a solid 50 trophies. It probably makes up for the bulk of some gamer's trophy lists (even if at least a few of those achievements are actually pretty embarrassing).  

Meanwhile, Finland (you know, the best gamers in the world), are pretty well-versed in a number of different genres and franchises. Gamers from Finland are apparently masters at games like Halo, Half-Life, Tomb Raider, and Gran Turismo.

In the blog post, Kwalee explained how these figures were discovered. "Taking data from over 42,000 achievements across a dizzying 16,000+ games, we've found where in the world quite literally wins the game, with their residents logging the most achievements per capita, than anywhere else," reads the post. 

According to Kwalee, the data used in the study was culled from Speedrun.com. Kwalee totaled up the number of first place scores and separated them by country, which led to the rankings seen in the study. This method was repeated when narrowing down exactly which countries excelled at which genres. 

While these results are interesting to look at, Kwalee notes that these numbers are based purely on Speedrun.com's data for April 2020. In other words, this means that the numbers could fluctuate in the future, particularly depending on if games in specific genres make up more of a particular month's releases. In theory, if one month saw a particular uptick in fighting game releases, we could see Japan rise up in the overall rankings. 

For Kwalee's part, the company states that it will keep an eye on these numbers in the future. Kwalee will also look into adding more games and genres to the world map, which could reveal more interesting proficiencies from the world's gamers.

All in all, these are pretty impressive figures. While the research is far from complete, it's a fascinating look at current trends in the gaming world at large. It should also prove to be rather interesting to keep an eye on how these numbers may change in the future. Luckily, Kwalee is on the case.