Is competitive gaming a legitimate sport?

sport

1. 1.an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

I don't know about everyone else, but I never exert myself physically when playing video games...

This is a beautiful topic. I hope I can have anyone interested to politely provide their point of view on whether or not video games are a sport or not. I am currently working on a paper right now about this topic based off an article I read about Robert Morris University offering “Sports” scholarships to competitive players of “League of Legends”. I could understand if players were geared up and playing as if they were in the game verses clicking buttons on a console. I am referring to playing the game like a Nintendo Wii or Xbox Kinetics where they physically have to play the game. I could them understand it as a sport, but not from a console or computer at this point.

I am really hoping that the eSports term falls off and eventually dies a sad death.

Competitive gaming is just that.

COMPETITIVE GAMING!

I read an article where a great opinion made a hell of a lot of sense against this argument.

When you compare Sports like football, baseball, basketball.

The rules of these games rarely change, and when they do even your grandpa can get a grip on them and they are classified as such. Tennis...most know the rules and that falls into one category.

Gaming on the other hand. You have like 10 different competitive leagues that play different genres of games.

The game play in CTF in TF2 vs CTF in CoD are completely different. Just because you played TDM in DOOM LAN play back in the day doesn't mean you will pickup all the ins and outs of some new game with the same concept.

On top of that each genre is continually evolving, with no set of standards that stick for more than a decade. (Maybe CS 1.6) Those are long time veterans and their leagues stick with pretty much the same rules in their brackets).

My only hope is that eSports gets real and people stop trying to glorify what I have accepted a long time ago as sitting on my ass and wasting shit tons of time.

Yes there is a competitive world in gaming, some people are naturally gifted and should be idolized (people have a right to waste their time on whatever they want)

They however, should not be offered the right to call gaming a sport. If only for this reason.

If I one day have children. (Hoping the **** not) I do not want to have little Jimmy saying, at 8 well dad sorry I would rather train to be an eSports athlete and one day be 300lbs and in my basement at 35 then just simply go play some hockey outside and be active.

These fucking people who want to legitimize gaming as a sport are the same people who don't raise their children or who were raised not to be active. I am not talking about going out and drinking with your friends on the weekends prior to the drunken Ventrilo chats while playing payday 2 at 1am, I mean not spending 20 hours a week/day sitting in a chair starring at a brightly colored screen.

But I guess social media is the cure of all physical contact.

On a completely opposite note: Someone on page one stated something about a sport must require no luck whatsoever.

I am pretty sure most FPS games use fudge factor type calculations between your client and the server to predict bullet travel, so while granted everyone have an equal opportunity to fail hard. Its still an element of luck so sir, I call bullshit on your theory.

Cheers,

-WOOLEY

I suppose going to the bathroom competitively could be a sport, but ya know, not really. Neither is playing a video game. For the most part you have to move your ass more then left cheek to right cheek in a chair to call something a sport.

But as for the topic a hand; competitive gaming is not a sport.

You see that arena full of people? I don't think I would be able to play at my highest level in front of a crowd like that. If I were used to it, then it may be another story.

"Anything that has a high level dedicated structure, business model, prize money, and an elite competitive level is a sport,"

No it's not, because if it was then the World Series Of Poker would be a sport. eSports is less mainstream than WSoP and just as painful to watch. In fact I think the comparison is very apt - both are extremely boring to watch, both have competitors that range from borderline personality disorder to full blown sociopath, and both are ridiculously over-monetized.

You could not pay me to watch eSports. It is niche and will remain niche for the simple reason that the competitors are just completely off-putting and unrelatable. I mean just look at the fighting game genre and you would find several major players that fit the textbook definition of douchebag and asshole. It would be like trying to pick who to root for when the choices are between Denis Rodman and Michael Vick. Whoever you pick, they are still terrible.

Sports at some level require some kind of extended physical exertion. Competitive gaming is just that, gaming. Its akin to playing chess, poker, or other games where some mental thought and skill is required.where the distinction is set is really to tough to say. However, i would not call curling or other activities like shooting , and to some extent golf/nascar sports either, although the last two require significantly more physical exertion then playing a computer game.

As far as people saying things are sports because they are in the Olympics lets be honest here, quite a few things in the Olympics were put there due to political or other pressure over the last 10-20 years. Things like curling, trap shooting, table tennis, among others are not really sports even though people are awarded medals.

If competitive gaming had an element of actual physical exertion, then it could be considered somewhat of a sport, but it would be at best something like the biathlon at best, with the actual sport part of it being cross country skiing. So until all these guys get up and start running a marathon while gaming, sorry its just not a sport, contrary to what people want it to be.

As the millions of kids who sit in front of the computer or latest PS4 or Xbone, can attest, playing video games does not really require any kind of actual level of health or include fitness in about 90% of the cases. The fact that people tried to label it as an Esport is nothing more then marketing.

Calling competitive gaming an esport, is like calling a stock broker or floor trader an athelete, because they move around or twitch there hands while working.

As "debated" on a show by a bunch of older people who probably don't play games outside of simple stuff like angry birds, bejeweled, and wii sports with their kids.

I myself have a hard time considering anything that doesn't require much physical exertion a sport. I think of them as a competition, but not really a sport.

I've debated this for awhile. Is it a sport, it all depends on where your definition of sport is. I think the problem with this, is there are different genre and aspects to all games. There aren't concrete rules or structure that never change. As games change all the time. However if I were hard pressed I'd say sure they can be considered a sport.

If curling is a sport, anything can be. Most of those panelists were too old to be a part of the conversation, bad casting by HBO imo.

Secondly, the better question is will E-sports every be as mainstream as, say, American Football? To that I would say it depends on the game. Right now games like DotA, LoL, CoD, ect. have snowballing features that real sports don't have.

Snowballing must be removed for E-Sports growth beyond a niche sport.

An interesting argument!

Well I’d argue that eSports are indeed sports.

For those thinking “TL;DR” here’s an abstract (sources provided at end):

eSports are indeed sports on the bases that

1) comparison to other sports such as Chess and Olympic trap- both of which are considered sports by the IOC- show a reasonable number of similarities, and

2) eSports actually abide by the definition of a “sport” (definition provided by Oxford dictionary and SportAccord Council)

Let’s start.

First let’s talk about chess and Olympic trap. Both are recognized by the IOC (The International Olympic Committee) as sports. Chess is a sport as a result of the IOC recognizing the World Chess Federation (FIDE). As a member of the IOC, the FIDE has to abide by its rules, including the requirement of drug/doping tests. On the other hand, the Olympic trap is by itself an Olympic sport, as part of the Shooting events.

Now let’s break these sports down to the factors that make them sports:

1-Both need a great deal of mental skills and abilities. You’d need to learn numerous strategies and have a great deal of experience to compete in chess championships. Having an amazing brain that recognizes patterns helps too. This applies to trap too, since you need a great deal of concentration and precision to hit your targets. And for both you’d need to be able to focus and stay calm in order to win.

2-Both, to some extent, need physical endurance and ability. For chess you’d need to be able to sit, for an extended amount of time, while keeping your cool. For trap you need the physical ability to hold your gun straight; keeping your eyes on the target; not wavering or flinching.

Other factors include the competitive nature and the existence of championships/prizes. If you look at each point you’d see that eSport does indeed share them. There’s no denying the need in eSport for mental skills, experience, and strategy in order to achieve winning. There is also a need for physical endurance since a player has to sit for a number of hours while staying focus. There’s also great strain on the hands since the player must assign a number of commands in a quick manner (Professional e-athletes in South Korea usually have average Action per Minute scores around 300!). I guess there’s no need to talk about the competitive nature and championships.

Moving on, eSports actually abide by the definition of a sport. Here’s the definition provided by SportAccord Council, and I’ll check the points one by one:

For all new membership applications, SportAccord uses the following definition of a sport:

-The sport proposed should include an element of competition. ? Check!

-The sport should not rely on any element of “luck” specifically integrated into the sport. ? Check!

-The sport should not be judged to pose an undue risk to the health and safety of its athletes or participants. ? Check!

-The sport proposed should in no way be harmful to any living creature. ? Double-check!

-The sport should not rely on equipment that is provided by a single supplier. ? Check!

And so I conclude my argument. I definitely agree that eSports are definitely sports, and I hope that one day it would be considered officially as such. Let me hear what you think; Counter arguments are always welcomed!

I hope you all enjoyed this!

I just realized that although games seem like a legit sport to me (avid Korean starcraft league fan), after I tried calling it a sport in my native language, it sure sounded weird. My initial reaction was like "hell, no! It doesn't fit the idea of sports I have in my mind!" so I guess it's a matter of semantics.

E-sports are that, e-sports. New term, unique and different from all else. No sense debating over it. Should e-sport gamers have the same legal status and rights (visas) as sport athletes? Sure! No harm done. Are they the same? Who cares? Let it be. They're both awesome.

People pay money to watch this?

Uhh... it's not a sport... it's an e-sport. That's the reason the term was coined for.

Does masturbating 3-4x a day count as sport???

If yes, I'm a cyber athlete as well....

and I've got the muscle to prove it BITCHES!!!! <-----

so called eSports are not sports imo just like the game of chess is not a sport. unfortunately Chess is officially considered a sport so eSports should as well. the definition seems to be as long as something is competitive in any way, shape or form it is a sport.....

"Chess is a << LINK REMOVED >> of the << LINK REMOVED >>" says Wikipedia.

And if chess is a recognized sport, I can't really see how computer games could be excluded...

Why all this pining to get recognition as a professional sport? That culture is bankrupt, why poison the gaming community with all it entails?

For all the world I love games but I would rather have my physical job than sit on my arse playing games as a "sport".