+ USA spend A LOT for years, even during the period when it made (economically) no sense - for wars. Now it has some theoretical grounding at least.

thrax, you were asking how obama improved the reputation of americans in the world. i just googled that question and stumbled over an article you can find here http://www.worldhum.com/features/ask-rolf-potts/with-obama-as-president-will-life-for-american-travelers-improve-20090115/

here is a part of it.

"Admittedly, Obama’s election victory has already done much to rejuvenate our international image. Whereas Bush was frequently bellicose and inarticulate, Obama has been measured and thoughtful. Whereas Bush projected a startlingly parochial view of the world, Obama exudes an instinct for global-minded statecraft. Bush’s ascendancy was emblematic of insider privilege that long predates the American nation; Obama’s ascendancy was emblematic of the American Dream itself—and the symbolic weight of his electoral triumph has not been lost on the rest of the world."

the dude who wrote this, however, looks quite retarded, but it was worth reading.

obama is so irrelevant to this post

"seems like kdice has gone foreign, and there is nothing wrong with that. im just noticing a shift and wondering why"

If nothing is wrong with it, WHY THE HELL POST SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
ass.

if you read the latter half, you would know why i posted it...
the wondering why...and if you see an ass, kiss it

a) I think kdice has been foreign all the time as there has never been a canadian majority within the players - well at least not a significant one after it had become popular. So we just notice a movement on where it went foreign.

b) I hardly play during American daytime, so I don't know about the numbers. Furthermore, nationalities in profiles can be faked. In addition, even if you had the computers IP-adresses, you can have an Irish guy sitting at a computer in NYC... Thus it is hard to have reliable numbers.

c) Left with the "why" question there is not an easy answer. Maybe Americans don't want to be noticed as such. They fear the pga-ing... Or it is an Obama-effect. While it was hardly possible to worsen the reputation no matter who would have been elected, after some time it might become obvious, that America has fallen for a demagogue like others have before. Hopefully I will be proofed wrong, but I see a chance I won't. So it might be useful not to be noticed as what you are... I would not see other reasons for a change. Population, net-access, literacy - these things don't change so fast.

Actually we had the same discussion, at least something like this, quite a year ago, and germany was the top visitor. I just checked a few of those sites again, and we have the same result... but is this real?

(alexa.com) Kdice.com users come from these countries:
25.6%Germany
20.0%United States
18.2%India
9.1%Austria
6.5%New Zealand More

(quarkbase.com)
Country % User % Pageviews
Germany 28.2% 7.0%
USA 18.0% 30.8%
India 19.0% 11.7%
Austria 8.9% 10.4%

Especially look at the pageviews from quarkbase.com. More austrian pageviews than german ones? Is that realistic? While germany is having more than 40x citizens than austria?

I would suggest reading this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/technology/22click.html?_r=1

And a bit back to topic: Fact is, that US americans always have been, and always will be, a big group of kdice players. I dont think there has been a big change, and you shouldnt even think about counting country flags people use.

Maybe just a few of your american friends stopped playing, and its just a personal feeling of having less of your "own" people?

Seriously, i think there has been no major change in the past 12 months, but maybe Ryan / skrum could post some real statistics, made by kdice.com itself, and not by some random stats site.

For a long time this game was dominated by the Germans and Americans, who tended to play opposite schedules so they didn't interact as much as other countires interacted with the main German/American hegemonies more then they interacted with each other.

US and Germany are two large countries with a large percent of the workforce in the service industry and both have strong motivation for higher education and you would find the typical kdice player to be someone that can play during work time or during the day because they are in school and have large blocks of unstructured time during the day.

That was the beginining, over time you have seen the "cabals" that tended to dominate the leader board fracture as play rules and dynamics have changed, I argue that the kdice population is more transient now then in the past and while traffic might be up, I think the number of people that feel like staying around for a long time is down. This has lead to newer players making more progress sooner. You used to have to earn respect over months now you can do it in a few games because people are constantly looking for some new rube to flag to them.

The social aspect of the game is dead, it is no more about conversing with your fellow player while 1-hitting them it is about working to flag for whatever position you think you lose the least in. It has been a subtle and slow change coming from both the play mechanics and from the success of certain styles in amassing points. The effort is no longer to read the board and make the best move, the effort is to convince someone to flag to you or respect your flag even if it isn't the move with the most potential but more likely the least risk.

okay bored tl;dr

@Kam
Are those statistics open to everybody and for all sites? This might be interesting...

@Hat
Most Europeans will argue the existence of a broad group of higher educated Americans. While they certainly exist, their percentage is hardly measurable ;-))

But, judging from certain gameplay that can be observed lately, I think the social underdogs, unemployed etc are taking over. And Germany has a better social network than America allowing those to gamble as well.

weird I've yet to meet any kdicers from India.

also nice post sam.