Why is there a distinction between sports and racing games?

This is my theory

Racing games(and actual racing games,no Parking games or taxi games) are about speed and time where as sports games are about scoring except for extreme sports games

There are more theories also that I've read

Such as the target audience

Sports games are either for sports enthusiasts or for people who are athletes excluding race car drivers,motocross riders and and bmx racers

Racing games are either

For vehicle enthusiasts or motorsports athletes

The way of winning-in a racing game. You race around streets or tracks i from around the world and you don't need defense to win the race. Speed and skill are the keys in racing games where as in sports games scoring into a net and defense are the keys in sports except in boxing, wrestling and extreme sports games

Level/stage design-sports games take places in fields while racing games take place in tracks

Bump

Uhm....... I don't know..... some racing games do let you use some defense.... namely karting games with Defensive power ups..... and some sports games don't...... like the Olympic games

@Lulu_Lulu: that might be the case but you can't block the person from driving and as for the Olympic games maybe they might not be defensive but again is all about scoring

@Lulu_Lulu: do you have a theory?

@lucianocasanova:

Nope...... its an enigma to me.

Well, sports games like football, soccer, basketball and baseball take place on fields and courts. It's usually human versus human, where as racing has cars involved. Racing technically is a sport, but it's a sport where the locomotion is derived from a machine, not from the athletes' own bodies.

@JustPlainLucas: what extreme sports games?

while racing is technically a sport it's very different from other sports... makes sense that it would be it's own genera as the play style is completely different from any sport game.

My theory is as following:

Sports games imitates a known sport, the rules are rigid, as you can not alter the rulesets of the games (ie baseball). The rules are set by a real life sport, and you can only as creative as to not break said rules.

Driving games does not have to follow any set rules, while some does, I can also point to a good deal that does not. Rules can change, are less rigid, and have more creative freedom. You can have driving games that follow established motor sports, and you can make something new for the ground up, to fit the game you make. You can not do that with sports.

Atleast that is my take on the difference between the two.

Edit:

So a sports game has rules and a goal or win state.

A driving game might only have a win state, but no rules.

@Maddie_Larkin: what about extreme sports games?

depending on what you Refer to really. If they only have a goal but not rules, then I would classify them closer to driving games in how they are built. snowboarding games example, share the same framework as driving games, not sports games as such (poor example, likely not what you asked for. You could in theory have such a game, with bombs going off everywhere, or the mountain collapsing behind you, the goal is the same, the lack of rules in the middle allows for what ever the dev can come up with.

Because most racing games don't come out every year with just a roster update and a small tweak or two.

@speedfreak48t5p: I see

Because they play completely different. The only similarity is that they're based off non-fictional challenges.

Sports games actually function like a team based action or strategy game. But are probably just classified in a way that's easily identified to its target market to avoid confusion.

Racing games have different gameplay functions that are more unforgiving. It focuses on precision, being able to learn the track and provides a distinctive fast paced feel/control to them. There was a funny description about a recently released PC Racing Sim called Assetto Corsa, describing it like it's Dark Souls, with unforgiving gameplay, each corner being a challenging encounter the notion of.commitment to actions that could either be incredibly rewarding or absolutely punishing

And like others. Do you classify extreme sports more of a driving game?

I found another theory

"Traditional sports like team sports, athletics and combat sports are all about human physical exertion to achieve a certain outcome. Motorized sports in contrast, are all about properly using and effectively managing a piece of machinery that is powered by a motor to achieve a certain outcome. That's why I think there's the distinction between sports games and racing games in the gaming marketplace."