Should Video Games Be In the Olympics?

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC is running a story about e-sports and competitive video game. It's based on comments from Rob Pardo, formerly of Blizzard Entertainment, who says there's a good argument for having e-sports in the Olympics. He says video games are well positioned to be a spectator sport — an opinion supported by Amazon's purchase of Twitch.tv for almost a billion dollars. The main obstacle, says Pardo, is getting people to accept video games as a legitimate sport. "If you want to define sport as something that takes a lot of physical exertion, then it's hard to argue that videogames should be a sport, but at the same time, when I'm looking at things that are already in the Olympics, I start questioning the definition." The article notes, "Take chess, for instance. Supporters of the game have long called for its inclusion the Games, but the IOC has been reluctant, considering it a 'mind sport' and therefore not welcome in the Games." So, should the Games expand to include "mind sports" and video games?

Comments

I'm Gonna Say "Yes"

[Greyfox]

If only to watch the IOCs' heads explode when the suggestion is put forth.

Limit it to actual war fare games

[plopez]

The origianl games revolved around martial sports; javelin, wrestling, archery, etc. Then came shooting, pentathlon, biathlon etc. So limit it to the games actually used in warfare such as drone strikes, gunship strafing, and the perennial favorite thermo-nuclear war. Though the last one would actually be pretty boring. The players would have to do nothing to compete.

Re:Betteridge here.

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Bennett Haselton is working on one for you right now.

Re:do what you want.

[Krishnoid]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Robin of Locksley, Internet edition.