Survey: NA's talent is ready to do what it takes

The North American Counter-Strike scene has been the laughingstock of many Europeans for quite some time, with phrases such as "NA nade" and "NA strategy" being flung around the Counter-Strike community. Whilst they are simply, in many cases, jokes for the fun of it, every joke has some grain of truth to it. The North American Counter-Strike scene has been suffering for a while, with Team Liquid failing to be the beacon of light they previously were.

But how come CS:GO is so heavily dominated by the European rosters and players? Is it the infrastructure? Or perhaps it is simply the players that are not willing to make the required sacrifices to compete at the highest of levels? The latter question is answered in a survey by Esports media site Dust2.us. Fifty unpaid talents from North America were asked what it would take for them to transition into a life with CS:GO as their full-time occupation.

The study found, among plenty of other things, that the unpaid talents from North America would compromise their current lifestyle quite a bit for the chance to go professional within CS:GO. 94% of the respondents answered that they would move to a different state if it was required by the organization they were signed to. In addition to this, 98% said that they would move to a smaller town to alleviate organizational costs for the given team.

But what about themselves? What kind of salary does it take to gain the attention of unpaid talent in North America. If the survey is anything to go by, most of the CS:GO talent would be willing to make the move with a salary lower than the average in the US. 88% of the respondents found that they would be accepting of a salary of $40.000 or less to play CS:GO as a full-time occupation.

So the North American problems within the CS:GO scene isn't because of unwilling North American talent, but something else. Perhaps a lack of organizational interest or belief in the CS:GO scene. Whatever the reasons may be, the North American CS:GO scene needs a glimpse of hope, and it needs it now.

To read more about the interesting survey performed by Dust2.us, you can find the article and read a more in-depth analysis of its results here