Andreas Thorstensson
Encyclopedia
Andreas Thorstensson is a Swedish
businessman, web developer
and former professional gamer. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential innovators for electronic sports
, having set the standards for the features and quality for player management and news syndicate professionalism. Having worked from 2001 to 2009 as one of two Managing Directors for the professional electronic sports organization SK Gaming
, he created a highly-regarded social platform for gaming enthusiasts to congregate and to introduce a stronger awareness to a wider audience. Of Thorstensson's achievements, he is best known for his strong contributions to media outputting with the Counter-Strike
coding, for which he was a successful demo player. Specifically for Frag or Die, the single-most downloaded Counter-Strike
video to date. Beyond his professional gaming, he is well known for his exclusive website development and leading the first electronic sports team to provide contractual agreements.
, Sweden
. According to Thorstensson, in 1989, at the age of ten, his intrigue with programming began with his father's purchase of the 386SX-20. In 1992, he began programming with C
and had begun getting involved with video games. Early on, Thorstensson worked to establish a foothold in the technical work industry. At the age of 18, he began as a senior programmer
at the recently-founded internet company Spray Network
in August 1997, until December 1999. In the meantime, he began working as a senior programmer for Razorfish in January 1999, with which his involvement ended in December of that year, as well. By this time, he had begun his GeekBoys project, which would eventually lead him to international notoriety. Shortly thereafter, he had a year-long stint as the technical chief for the internet industrialist service he created called SPRAYdio from January to December 2000. From January to December 2001, Thorstensson worked as a technical CD for yet another internet industrialist company, Abel & Baker.
Schroet Kommando, (which was increasingly referred to as "SK"), began a revolutionizing system in electron inc sports, in which users could gain an elite status by partaking in subscription service, referred to as the "SK Insider". On February 1, 2003, Thorstensson introduced the first case of player contractual agreement with the acquisition of Ninjas in Pyjamas
to join SK after they had won an early Cyberathlete Professional League
Counter-Strike
tournament. NiP accepted his offer due to SK's sponsorship deals with companies such as Intel, which allowed them to travel to major competitions worldwide. The resulting team was the highly popular SK.Sweden team of 2003 through 2004, which became the most dominant team the professional Counter-Strike scene has seen to date. This seemed to come to an end on January 2, 2005, when the team opted out of renewing their contracts in hopes of securing a larger share of the prize money
and sponsorships with Ninjas in Pyjamas. However, later that year, on June 26, several of the team members returned to SK.
During his eight years as Managing Director for SK Gaming, Thorstensson coordinated with his German counterpart, Alexander T. Müller-Rodic, (commonly known as "TheSlaSH"), along with SK's founder Ralf Reichert, (commonly known as "Griff). The three of them worked to create a business platform around SK Gaming, from which he spent the great part of the entirety of that time operating with Müller-Rodic. Ever since his well-known inclusion into SK Gaming, Thorstensson created several innovative and extremely popular online applications that helped accelerate the growth rate of SK Gaming's already-expansive fan base. This includes the innovative cross-realm ranking system for World of Warcraft
that, while in its prime, was the single most-popular third-party cross-realm ranking system in the world. In 2008, Swedish footballer Fredrik Lundgren
became a co-owner of the GeekBoys business, with 1% of the company shares, won from a football bet with Thorstensson.
from SK Gaming to further pursue his web development
profession, maintaining Geekboys.org as his personal business website. Following his departure from SK Gaming, Thorstensson continued with maintaining GeekBoys as his web-based business, developing several websites that received considerable notoriety, the first being Collected.info, a social networking platform to connect news feeds from other various websites under one account. The website is cooperatively developed by Thorstensson and the website's owners, David Sundan, Ted Persson Thorstensson's primary order of business, however, is Njuice.com, which uses advanced parsers to scan other networking websites for the consistenly-popular stories and create an expanded network in itself. According to Alexa, Njuice is Thorstensson's most-popular website, bringing in more than one million hits monthly, which is a greater number than SK Gaming's.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
businessman, web developer
Web developer
A web developer is a software developer or software engineer who specializes in, or is specifically engaged in, the development of World Wide Web applications, or distributed network applications that are run over HTTP from a web server to a web browser....
and former professional gamer. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential innovators for electronic sports
Electronic sports
Electronic sports comprises the competitive play of video games. Other terms include competitive gaming, professional gaming and cybersports...
, having set the standards for the features and quality for player management and news syndicate professionalism. Having worked from 2001 to 2009 as one of two Managing Directors for the professional electronic sports organization SK Gaming
SK Gaming
SK Gaming is a professional German electronic sports organization founded in 1997 by a small group of Quake players living in Oberhausen. SK Gaming retains teams across different genres and are particularly known for their success in Counter-Strike tournaments...
, he created a highly-regarded social platform for gaming enthusiasts to congregate and to introduce a stronger awareness to a wider audience. Of Thorstensson's achievements, he is best known for his strong contributions to media outputting with the Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
coding, for which he was a successful demo player. Specifically for Frag or Die, the single-most downloaded Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
video to date. Beyond his professional gaming, he is well known for his exclusive website development and leading the first electronic sports team to provide contractual agreements.
1979–1998: Early life and career
Andreas Thorstensson was born on January 29, 1979, in StockholmStockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. According to Thorstensson, in 1989, at the age of ten, his intrigue with programming began with his father's purchase of the 386SX-20. In 1992, he began programming with C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
and had begun getting involved with video games. Early on, Thorstensson worked to establish a foothold in the technical work industry. At the age of 18, he began as a senior programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
at the recently-founded internet company Spray Network
Spray Network
Spray Network AB is Swedish Internet company that runs the web portal spray.se. Spray was founded in 1995, was bought by Lycos Europe, but was sold to Allers in 2006. spray.se has about 750 000 visitors per week....
in August 1997, until December 1999. In the meantime, he began working as a senior programmer for Razorfish in January 1999, with which his involvement ended in December of that year, as well. By this time, he had begun his GeekBoys project, which would eventually lead him to international notoriety. Shortly thereafter, he had a year-long stint as the technical chief for the internet industrialist service he created called SPRAYdio from January to December 2000. From January to December 2001, Thorstensson worked as a technical CD for yet another internet industrialist company, Abel & Baker.
1999–2009: GeekBoys and SK Gaming
Thorstensson's first widespread attention began with his creation of the news aggregator GeekBoys.org in 1999. Together with his co-workers, Thorstensson turned his attention to the fledgling medium of electronic sports, to which he began to fully dedicate GeekBoys' resources as a gaming clan, as well as making the site perform wholly as a news syndicate. With the popularity of GeekBoys increasing, Thorstensson, as a player identified as "bds", achieved several record-breaking feats. According to statistics, he became the single dominant global-recognized Counter-Strike demo player. As one of his most-recognized achievements as a player, Thorstensson created Frag or Die, which remains as the most-popular frag display to date. Additionally, to improve the accessibility of demos, a program call GeekPlay was created, in order to allow immediate initialization of demo play. On September 23, 2001, the German electronic sports organization Schroet Kommando announced the acquisition of his Scandinavian-based team, as a second Counter-Strike squad. With the individuals of Geekboys transitioning to Schroet Kommando, the original GeekBoys website was sold to Swedes David Garpenstahl and Mattias Hjelmstedt. Over the following months, the two communities would slowly merge as the squad operated under the moniker of "SK.Geekboys". During 2001, Thorstensson was also involved with the creation of XSReality.com, which altered its name and changed hands to Englishman Sujoy Roy, eventually becoming ESReality.com. Today, ESReality remains immensely popular as an electronic sports platform.Schroet Kommando, (which was increasingly referred to as "SK"), began a revolutionizing system in electron inc sports, in which users could gain an elite status by partaking in subscription service, referred to as the "SK Insider". On February 1, 2003, Thorstensson introduced the first case of player contractual agreement with the acquisition of Ninjas in Pyjamas
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Ninjas in Pyjamas was a professional Counter-Strike clan based in Sweden. They were considered to be one of the top teams in the world by many, including GotFrag.-2000 - 2002:...
to join SK after they had won an early Cyberathlete Professional League
Cyberathlete Professional League
The Cyberathlete Professional League , founded on June 27, 1997 by gaming entrepreneur Angel Munoz, is a professional sports tournament organization specializing in computer and console video game competitions....
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
tournament. NiP accepted his offer due to SK's sponsorship deals with companies such as Intel, which allowed them to travel to major competitions worldwide. The resulting team was the highly popular SK.Sweden team of 2003 through 2004, which became the most dominant team the professional Counter-Strike scene has seen to date. This seemed to come to an end on January 2, 2005, when the team opted out of renewing their contracts in hopes of securing a larger share of the prize money
Prize money
Prize money has a distinct meaning in warfare, especially naval warfare, where it was a monetary reward paid out to the crew of a ship for capturing an enemy vessel...
and sponsorships with Ninjas in Pyjamas. However, later that year, on June 26, several of the team members returned to SK.
During his eight years as Managing Director for SK Gaming, Thorstensson coordinated with his German counterpart, Alexander T. Müller-Rodic, (commonly known as "TheSlaSH"), along with SK's founder Ralf Reichert, (commonly known as "Griff). The three of them worked to create a business platform around SK Gaming, from which he spent the great part of the entirety of that time operating with Müller-Rodic. Ever since his well-known inclusion into SK Gaming, Thorstensson created several innovative and extremely popular online applications that helped accelerate the growth rate of SK Gaming's already-expansive fan base. This includes the innovative cross-realm ranking system for World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
that, while in its prime, was the single most-popular third-party cross-realm ranking system in the world. In 2008, Swedish footballer Fredrik Lundgren
Fredrik Lundgren
Fredrik Lundgren is a Swedish footballer . He is currently playing for GAIS where he also are the team captain. He came to the club in 1999 from Torslanda IK.-External references:*...
became a co-owner of the GeekBoys business, with 1% of the company shares, won from a football bet with Thorstensson.
2010-present: Recent web development
On December 9, 2009, Thorstensson announced his retirementRetirement
Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours.Many people choose to retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits, although some are forced to retire when physical conditions don't allow the person to...
from SK Gaming to further pursue his web development
Web development
Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet or an intranet . This can include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development...
profession, maintaining Geekboys.org as his personal business website. Following his departure from SK Gaming, Thorstensson continued with maintaining GeekBoys as his web-based business, developing several websites that received considerable notoriety, the first being Collected.info, a social networking platform to connect news feeds from other various websites under one account. The website is cooperatively developed by Thorstensson and the website's owners, David Sundan, Ted Persson Thorstensson's primary order of business, however, is Njuice.com, which uses advanced parsers to scan other networking websites for the consistenly-popular stories and create an expanded network in itself. According to Alexa, Njuice is Thorstensson's most-popular website, bringing in more than one million hits monthly, which is a greater number than SK Gaming's.
External links
- Official Geekboys Website
- Andreas Thorstensson on FacebookFacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...