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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?
NO
Don't need the IOC corrupting my hobby, plus how would you even chose which game was in the Olympics?
If only to watch the IOCs' heads explode when the suggestion is put forth.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Video games have at least one advantage over many of the Olympic sports: They can have clearly defined objectives and scoring. Many of the Olympic sports don't really qualify in my book because they rely on judges to tell us who was better. Even if they were fully objective in every respect, it still smacks of a beauty contest rather than an athletic competition. If we play a match of FIFA 2015 there will be absolutely no question as to who the winner is.
I still think it is silly to talk about video games as an olympic sport, but it is also silly that we have sports like ballroom dance and synchronized swimming in the Olympics. My rule of thumb is "if you have to ask someone else to tell you who the winner is; it isn't a sport, it is a recreational activity."
Olympics is for sports. Not games. Sport is "activity involving physical exertion and skill" google. And no, pressing keys or buttons doesn't count.
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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....
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I think some ultimate Dance Dance Revolution would make an interesting olymic event. Singles and in groups.
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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.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Bennett Haselton is working on one for you right now.
The Olympics lost all meaning when it was decided to admit events for people missing fucking LIMBS into a sporting gala previously for those who were ACTUALLY BETTER THAN AVERAGE! Better, stronger, faster. What the fuck is "dressage", anyway??
Take my favourite competitive sport: archery. OK, we have the longbow, which is pretty fucking difficult to STRING, never mind DRAW and AIM, but now we have the olympic event where they get to use counterweights, spring cam mechanisms to bring the draw weight down yet maintain nock energy, composite bows and superthin strings, peep sights(!) and drop scales, and the basic event which runs just 33 feet, where it is entirely possible to gain a gold medal. I *PRACTICE* AT NINETY FEET. WITH AN ENGLISH LONGBOW (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). I could piss the basic event with my bow on a *bad* day.
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Sailing actually requires a LOT of physical exertion. Most sailors have abs of steel.
I think relaxing ought to be an olympic sport. We could judge it by attaching biometric sensors to the competitors.
If video games go into the Olympics, there's a lot of other things that have to make it in there first like darts and snooker. While video games are a good form of competition between people, I don't think that they are a good fit for the Olympics.
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It's the Olympic Games. A game shouldn't be accepted or rejected based on if it's a "sport", it should be based on if it's socially or culturally relevant to a significant fraction of the participating nations.
Get rid of the sports that cannot measure the success of the competitors using the Olympic motto: higher, faster, stronger. That means no figure skating, no synchronized swimming, and, especially, no more rhythmic gymnastics. Essentially, nothing that requires assigning a number to a performance via a panel of judges. (I'm a little torn about any sport that chooses winners based on the points that they score on a particular day but when I think about the excessive coverage given to beach volleyball in the last few Summer Games I lean hard to the "drop them, too" side.)
Just think how much less expensive it would be to hold an Olympics would be if all those judged "sports" were taken out. The potential sites for the games would mushroom without a need for all the additional venues for the judged events. Cities that hold the Games can rarely afford to and the citizens wind up footing the bill for facilities that will rarely see use after the closing ceremonies. Plus, if it would get Bob Costas' interviews with prepubescent gymnasts off the air, we all win.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
What a fecking dumb idea, who wants to watch sweaty geeks with over "developed" wrists play computer games ?!?! Half of them wouldn't be able to make it up the steps to get their medal!
I'm not going to watch the retarded shit anyway. I do think that video gaming nowadays should be lumped into regular sport, because it's the same kind of people who play the button mashing games anyway.
A game that required actual intelligence can hardly be found, never mind made into an Olympic sport.
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both mentally and physically,
QUAKE
Shooting (pistol/rifle target shooting) is the Olympic sport I think that most supports the inclusion of e-sports. Most "sports" involve physical strength, dexterity, and endurance (and the mental faculties to coordinate them). Shooting is nearly entirely dexterity-based. Just like video games. After shooting would be archery, which adds a physical strength requirement to holding the drawn bow. Interestingly, wheelchair-bound persons have competed in the regular Olympics in shooting and archery.
Any argument against e-sports works equally well against shooting and archery, except for the arbitrary requirement that the consequences of the "athelete's" actions have to be limited to the physical world. I suppose you could argue for the exclusion of shooting and archery from the Olympics, but competitive archery is one of the oldest sports, at least 2800 years old.
Because both of those sports still require physical coordination brought to bear against real, physical objects. And there is a hell of a lot more to real shooting than just pulling a trigger.
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So are most pro gamers, so you're not saying much with that statement.
"Oblate spheroid" was not the shape that was being described.
Women's Softball was removed because the US kept winning (and lost the last year it was included, I think). Women's hockey is at risk of being removed because only the US and Canada ever win. So would video games stay in the Olympics when every medal is claimed by Koreans? Also, what would they even play? Games don't really last four years, and whichever game is selected will have a developer and (definitely) publisher that want to get the sequel in the next Olympics. Nobody would take it seriously if there's a different set of games every year. How would you track the advancement of the competition/skill/level of human achievement if they never do the same thing twice? Most events give you an example of how performances are improving over the years.
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