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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.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Bennett Haselton is working on one for you right now.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Robin of Locksley, Internet edition.
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.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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
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.
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.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
You jest, but Quake would be a good candidate on the basis of being open-source. I wouldn't want to see a commercial game be used in the Olympics, the balance would be different every year and features could appear and disappear without control. Plus, there's enough branding going on in today's world without having an event dedicated to a commercial product.