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

Re:No

[zippthorne]

Except that Sailing and Curling are both current olympic sports, Chess is apparently under occasional consideration, and according to wikipedia, even ballooning was once an olympic sport....

Re:do what you want.

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

I'd love to see him post that shit on ArcheryTalk and watch him get laughed out of the building.

BTW: Compound bows and peeps sights are NOT used in the Olympics; his "33 feet" is just out his arse, Olympics are shot at 70 meters. After that, he just starts talking bullshit.

Re:do what you want.

[ihtoit]

http://www.olympic.org/photos/...

^fucking peep sights.

Re:do what you want.

[wonkey_monkey]

but now we have the olympic event where they get to use counterweights

Yes. I'm not sure why that's such a big deal...

spring cam mechanisms

No; there are no compound bow events at the Olympics. It's all recurve.

peep sights(!) and drop scales

Peep sights aren't allowed. I don't know what a drop scale is.

and the basic event which runs just 33 feet

No, all four events are at 70 metres. That's 220 feet.

where it is entirely possible to gain a gold medal.

Of course it's entirely possible to get a gold medal. The whole point is that there's only one, and someone gets to win it.

I *PRACTICE* AT NINETY FEET. WITH AN ENGLISH LONGBOW

Okay,

(and the trainer at the club across the river wonders how I don't tear the shit out of my shoulder muscles every week, it's because I've been shooting bow since I was FOUR).

we get it,

I could piss the basic event with my bow on a *bad* day.

you're awesome.