Anders Blume (born December 7, 1985) is a Danish ''
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' commentator and co-founder of RoomOnFire. He has been present as a caster at all of the
Valve
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...
sponsored CS:GO Majors, with the exception of
EMS One Katowice 2014
Electronic Sports League Major Series One Katowice 2014, also known as EMS One Katowice 2014, was the second '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship. The tournament was held from March 13–16, 2014 at the Spodek Arena in Kato ...
. He has worked for a wide variety of tournament organisers including
Electronic Sports League
The ESL Gaming GmbH, doing business as ESL (formerly known as Electronic Sports League), is a German esports organizer and production company that produces video game competitions worldwide. ESL was the world's largest esports company in 2015, ...
(ESL),
Dreamhack
DreamHack is an ESL Gaming brand specializing in esports tournaments and other gaming conventions. It is recognized by the Guinness Book of Records and Twin Galaxies as being the world's largest LAN party and computer festival with the world's fa ...
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. 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
Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
icon of the year.
Esports Commentary
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.
Blume had his first live-streamed cast in January 2013 on a
Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...
channel called pugcasts.
His popularity grew quickly and he was soon invited to join NiPTV, a branch of the
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Ninjas in Pyjamas (NIP) is a professional esports organisation based in Sweden that is best known for its ''Counter-Strike'' teams. In 2012, the team reformed with a '' Counter Strike: Global Offensive'' lineup upon the release of the game. Asi ...
organisation.
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
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. Among the invited were several of the winners of the previous cups.
The duo of Anders and Semmler signed an exclusivity deal with
Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...
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.
Semmler revealed on his personal
Ask.fm
ASKfm (Ask.fm until 14 January 2016) is a question and answer network launched in June 2010 as a competitor to Formspring. After registration, the user fills out his profile and can ask questions (anonymously or openly), reply on their profile, ...
page that the North American section of the organization was being run by Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett, a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
commentator who rose to prominence in early 2015 when PGL brought him out to Bucharest to commentate their Kickoff season.
As a method of raising funds and providing a method for the community to support the organization, together with artists known as Hanzo and Coyote, they uploaded a variety of in-game weapon skins to the
Steam Workshop
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront by Valve. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games, and expanded to distributing and offering third ...
. 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.
Notable Events Attended
*
Dreamhack Summer 2013
*
Dreamhack Winter 2013
The 2013 DreamHack SteelSeries ''Counter Strike: Global Offensive'' Championship, also known as DreamHack Winter 2013, was the first '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship. The tournament was organized by DreamHack and sponsor ...
*
ESL One Katowice 2014
Electronic Sports League Major Series One Katowice 2014, also known as EMS One Katowice 2014, was the second '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship. The tournament was held from March 13–16, 2014 at the Spodek Arena in Kato ...
*
ESL One Cologne 2014
Electronic Sports League One Cologne 2014, also known as ESL One Cologne 2014, was the third '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship. The tournament was held during Gamescom 2014 from August 14–17, 2014 at the Cologne Exhibitio ...
*
Dreamhack Winter 2014
DreamHack Winter 2014 was the fourth ''Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships, Major Championship, held from November 27–29, 2014 at Elmia in Jönköping. It was organized by DreamHack and sponso ...
*
ESL One Katowice 2015
ESL One Katowice 2015, also known as Katowice 2015, was the fifth '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship, held from March 12 to March 15, 2015 at the Spodek Arena in Katowice, Poland. It was the first ''CS:GO'' Major of 2015. ...
*Dreamhack Open Tour 2015
*
ESL One Cologne 2015
ESL One Cologne 2015 was the sixth '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship that was held from August 14–18, 2015 at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne. It was organized by Electronic Sports League. The Cologne event was the first ESL ...
*
DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015
DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 was the seventh '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship that was held from October 28–November 1, 2015 at the Sala Polivalentă in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. It was organized by DreamHack with help f ...
*
MLG Columbus 2016
MLG ''Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship: Columbus, also referred to as MLG Columbus 2016 was the eighth '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' (''CS:GO'') Major Championship held by Major League Gaming (MLG) throughout March 2 ...
*
ESL One Cologne 2016
ESL One Cologne 2016, also known as ESL Cologne Major 2016 or Cologne 2016, was an Electronic Sports League Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament. It was the ninth '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship and was held at ...
*
ELeague Major 2017
*
PGL Major: Kraków 2017
*
ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018
*
FACEIT Major: London 2018
*
ESL One Cologne 2019
*
StarLadder Major: Berlin 2019
*
Intel Extreme Masters
The Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) is a series of international esports tournaments held in countries around the world. These Electronic Sports League (ESL) sanctioned events, sponsored by Intel, currently host events in '' Counter-Strike: Global ...
(IEM) Katowice 2020
*
BLAST Premier Global Final 2020
*
PGL Major Stockholm 2021
The PGL Major Stockholm 2021, also known as PGL Major 2021 or Stockholm 2021, was the sixteenth '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' (''CS:GO'') Major Championship. It was held in Stockholm, Sweden at the Avicii Arena from October 26 to Novembe ...
*BLAST Premier Fall Final 2021
*IEM Cologne 2022
Reputation
Blume has been referred to as the voice of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
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
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
, 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
File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...
, Blume won the
Golden Joystick award for
esports
Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
icon of the year. In 2018, Blume was nominated for Best Esports Host by
The Game Awards
The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony honoring achievements in the video game industry. Established in 2014, the shows are produced and hosted by game journalist Geoff Keighley, who worked on its predecessor, the Spike Video Game Awards, ...
, losing out to
Sjokz.
Criticism
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
Paul "Redeye" Chaloner (born 1971) is a British former esports broadcaster.
He has broadcast in dozens of countries including China, United States, Singapore, Australia, Denmark and others on media forms including TV channels, live internet vi ...
".
Personal life
Blume is married and has a son and a daughter. He attended the
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...
to study physics before transferring to biology and then finally English; he eventually dropped out. During this time he also worked part-time on the development of
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
s for a local company, but did not further this due to the amount of time required by casting. Alongside his indecision in regards to his education, he would also constantly switch between a variety of hobbies and other projects.
Early life
Blume spent his childhood in the small suburb of
Farum
Farum is a town on the northeast of the island of Zealand in eastern Denmark, 20 km northwest of Copenhagen. The town has a population of 20,312 (1 January 2022). . His interest in gaming developed at a young age, attending late-night
Internet cafe
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
s with his friends to play ''
Counter-Strike
''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preven ...
'' as a 13-year old. He has since described one train journey home from
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
after one such session in the summer of 1999 to be an especially treasured childhood memory. In his own words, "I think
hen
Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman.
Hen or Hens may also refer to:
Places Norway
*Hen, Buskerud, a village in Ringer ...
I realized that we really had something with this game."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blume, Anders
Sports commentators
Esports commentators
Living people
1985 births
Place of birth missing (living people)
University of Copenhagen alumni
People from Furesø Municipality
Counter-Strike
Nordsjællands Grundskole og Gymnasium