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Anders Blume

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Anders Blume
Anders Blume in 2018
Born (1985-12-07) December 7, 1985 (age 39)
Denmark
NationalityDanish
OccupationCounter-Strike: Global Offensive commentator
Years active2013–present

Anders Blume (born December 7, 1985) is a Danish Counter-Strike: Global Offensive commentator and co-founder of RoomOnFire.[1][2] He has been present as a caster at all of the Valve sponsored CS:GO Majors, with the exception of EMS One Katowice 2014. He has worked for a wide variety of tournament organisers including Electronic Sports League (ESL), Dreamhack and Gfinity. He is more often than not paired with Auguste 'Semmler' Massonnat, also a co-founder of RoomOnFire and Jason "Moses" O'Toole, for his casts.[3] He is famous for his energetic casts, including the use of what has become his catchphrase, "Are you kidding me?". In 2015, he won the Golden Joystick award for esports icon of the year.

Esports commentary

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Blume (left) at IEM San Jose 2015

Blume's entry into commentary stemmed from his dissatisfaction with the commentators at the time he played the game. He was unsatisfied with how they described the game, in particular their failure to acknowledge the use of flashes, smoke, and grenades as a tactical element.[4]

Blume had his first live-streamed cast in January 2013 on a Twitch channel called pugcasts.[5] His popularity grew quickly and he was soon invited to join NiPTV, a branch of the Ninjas in Pyjamas organisation.[6] He began to cast at LAN events soon after. His first event was a local Danish event called the Blast 2013. Soon after this, Anders had his first major break at a large event with his selection as a commentator for DreamHack Summer 2013. At the time, the event had the second highest prize-pool in the game's history. Another commentator at the event, Auguste Massonnat, would go on to become a regular fixture of any NiPTV broadcast.

To date, Anders has been part of the commentary team for the grand finals at 10 out of the 17 Valve sponsored majors.

RoomOnFire

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In July 2014, Anders officially left NiPTV to build his own brand, RoomOnFire, alongside Semmler. Initially, the only other member of the organization was Halvor "vENdetta" Gulestøl. In the beginning they ran their own weekly online cups in partnership with Caseking.de called the CaseKing of the Hill. These cups ran weekly featuring a variety of different top teams. The series of cups culminated with an eight team online invitational tournament called the CaseKing of Kings.[7] Among the invited were several of the winners of the previous cups.

The duo of Anders and Semmler signed an exclusivity deal with Twitch in April 2015 as part of a larger acquisition of talent including former NiP player Robin "Fifflaren" Johansson and the current Professional player, Spencer "Hiko" Martin.[8]

Semmler revealed on his personal Ask.fm page that the North American section of the organization was being run by Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett, a Canadian commentator who rose to prominence in early 2015 when PGL brought him out to Bucharest to commentate their Kickoff season.[9]

As a method of raising funds and providing a method for the community to support the organization,[10] together with artists known as Hanzo and Coyote, they uploaded a variety of in-game weapon skins to the Steam Workshop. Since then, two of these items have been added to the game.

In 2015 they stopped organizing their own online cups. This was caused by the large number of other online leagues and offline events that happened throughout the year. Top teams lacked the time to participate due to commitments to other larger, leagues.

In 2019, after former Fifflaren and other former people associated with NiP spoke out about disagreements with the organisation, Blume publicly supported people with knowledge to speak up.[6]

Notable Events Attended

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Reputation

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Blume has been referred to as the voice of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive[5] due to his overwhelming presence as a commentator for the game. Blume has become a figure of interest partially due to his energetic style of casting, in addition to his deliverance of the phrase "Are you kidding me!". So much so that compilations of him saying it have enjoyed mainstream success on YouTube, with as many as over a million views.

Anders picked up the nickname of "The General" after the ESL One Katowice 2015 major due to the large collection of CS:GO related pins he had attached to the blazer he was wearing at the event. People immediately drew similarity between the pins and medals such that a general might have.

In 2015, Blume won the Golden Joystick award for esports icon of the year.[23] In 2018, Blume was nominated for Best Esports Host by The Game Awards, losing out to Sjokz.[24]

Criticism

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At the beginning of his career, Blume was the target of criticism from people "for not living up to the high standards set by Counter-Strike stalwarts Joe Miller and Paul Chaloner".[25]

Personal life

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Blume is married and has a son and a daughter.[26] He attended the University of Copenhagen to study physics before transferring to biology and then finally English; he eventually dropped out.[27] During this time he also worked part-time on the development of databases for a local company, but did not further this due to the amount of time required by casting.[28] Alongside his indecision in regards to his education, he would also constantly switch between a variety of hobbies and other projects.[29]

Early life

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Blume spent his childhood in the small suburb of Farum. His interest in gaming developed at a young age, attending late-night Internet cafes with his friends to play Counter-Strike as a 13-year old. He has since described one train journey home from Copenhagen after one such session in the summer of 1999 to be an especially treasured childhood memory. In his own words, "I think [then] I realized that we really had something with this game."[5]

References

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  1. ^ Milovanovic, Petar. "Anders, Semmler make RoomOnFire". HLTV.org. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  2. ^ Nordmark, Sam. "NiPTV becomes RoomOnFire, interview with Anders 'Anders' Blume about the move". onGamers. Archived from the original on 2 May 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  3. ^ "Sources: CS:GO's Semmler to join Blizzard as caster". ESPN.com. 2017-12-08. Retrieved 2021-02-04.
  4. ^ Ehrnberg, Björn (26 November 2014). "Anders Blume: "Next year we will see the game elevate to a whole new level"". Aftonbladet. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  5. ^ a b c O'Neill, Patrick Howell (11 December 2015). "Meet Anders Blume, the voice of Counter-Strike". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 5 August 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  6. ^ a b Malinowski, Kamil (25 July 2019). "CS:GO: Anders to open up about his time on NiP, following player mistreatment allegations". Dexerto. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  7. ^ Kovanen, Tomi (8 October 2014). "Caseking King of Kings announced". HLTV.org. Retrieved 27 November 2015.
  8. ^ Mira, Luis. "Twitch signs CS:GO talent". HLTV.org. Retrieved 27 November 2015.
  9. ^ Mira, Luís (9 April 2015). "CCS casters, match-ups revealed". HLTV.org. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  10. ^ O'Conner, Alice (30 January 2015). "Over $57 Million Paid Out To Steam Workshop Creators". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  11. ^ Mira, Luís (10 June 2013). "DH Summer casters announced". HLTV.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  12. ^ Mira, Luís (7 August 2014). "ESL One Cologne casters revealed". HLTV.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  13. ^ Mira, Luís (18 November 2014). "DH Winter casters revealed". HLTV.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  14. ^ Švejda, Milan (28 June 2016). "ESL announce Cologne talent". HLTV.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  15. ^ Mira, Luís (12 January 2017). "ELEAGUE Major talent revealed". HLTV.org. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  16. ^ Mira, Luís (23 June 2017). "PGL Major Main Qualifier talent unveiled". HLTV.org. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  17. ^ Clark, Ben (18 January 2018). "n0thing joins ELEAGUE Major talent lineup". HLTV.org. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  18. ^ VoltiX (13 February 2020). "IEM Katowice talent revealed". HLTV.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  19. ^ Švejda, Milan (14 January 2021). "BLAST Premier Global Final talent announced". HLTV.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  20. ^ Dempsey, Arron (4 October 2021). "Sadokist and ddk among talent revealed for PGL Major Stockholm". HLTV.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  21. ^ Rizzo, Marco (3 November 2021). "BLAST Premier Fall Final talent announced". HLTV.org. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  22. ^ Švejda, Milan (30 June 2022). "IEM Cologne talent lineup announced". HLTV.org. Retrieved 9 July 2022.
  23. ^ "Golden Joysticks 2015: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt wins five gaming awards". BBC News. 30 October 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  24. ^ Byers, Preston (6 December 2018). "All the esports winners at The Game Awards 2018". Dot Esports. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  25. ^ Lewis, Richard (May 4, 2015). "There's no such thing as too much talent". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved October 3, 2018.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  26. ^ "Anders Blume er Danmarks anonyme Counter-Strike-stjerne" (in Danish). DR. 23 September 2018. Archived from the original on 9 August 2019. Retrieved 9 August 2019. I blandt dem 32-årige Anders Blume, der udadtil har en stille og rolig tilværelse med sin familie. Her er ingen rockstjernenykker, det er villa, vovse og sønnike Walther på tre år.
  27. ^ "YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  28. ^ Kojadinovic, Vladimir. "Anders Blume: "General Anders will no doubt return"". GosuGamers. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  29. ^ Blume, Anders. "Blog: Choices". HLTV.org. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
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