We all know about mlg and big gaming conventions all over the place but does anyone think that it will become a legit sport in a country, iknow that starcraft is big in korea but will competitive gaming someday have the pull and influence as like the NFL or NHL ect ect.... this generation has been very influenced by gaming from my time with atari to my dads with arcades so i was just wondering what peoples thoughts are?
Pretty sure that if we're not at this point already then it will be much less than 10 years, let alone 30, until it is recognized as one.
It won't become a sport anymore than Poker or Chess. Yes, yes, Poker is on ESPN, but is it REALLY a sport, is it REALLY? Edit: I sure wish it was though, so I could at least feel productive on my lazy days.
I don't think gamers can or should be called athletes, it's insulting to actual athletes who have to put in tons of time and effort to get good at their sport.
Clearly you have never seen competitive gaming if you think that they don't put in time and effort into their gaming. There IS a reason that UC Berkley is offering a SC course that recommends/requires some of the same reading material to succeed in as are recommended/required for officers in the U.S. Military. Other genres can be MADE to mimic real-life activites. Take FPSs for example. Some police forces in the U.S. use simulators to train their police for encounters.
True, but I am talking about hours upon hours of physical effort and training and the mental willpower to perservere and not give up, that is what an athlete has to have to succeed. A chess player has to put many hours of practice to hone his skills, or a student must dedicate many hours to studying to succeed, but does that qualify either as an athlete? No, it does not.
What is so special about persperation? Are you saying that gamers don't sweat? Are you saying that they don't suffer from doubts, thoughts to give up? Are you saying that there is no mental willpower needed to continue? I think that you are severly underestimating the trials that competative gamers have to go through to succeed.
This is from Webster ath·lete: a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina. I never said that they never doubt themselves or anything like that, what I'm saying is that it is much harder to stay dedicated to a sport, exercising and training daily(not to mention dieting). No matter how hard a game is, if you think playing it for hours at a time(the worst that happen is carpel tunnel and extreme frustration) is in anyway as hard as dedicating months upon months to stay skilled and in shape for a sport, you are simply lying to yourself.
Never should gaming become a sport. Gaming is basically sitting in a chair using your fingers on a joystick, mouse or controller. Sparticus is right. I have never heard more bullshit.
Maybe athlete is too far, but they are certainly sportsmen. The olympic games currenty recognises archery and shooting as sports. You don't really sweat much in these sports. As has already mentioned competitve gaming like StarCraft has proffesional players who practice for many hours, study theoretics and the meta-game etc. Such games involve accuracy and speed as well as intelligence and tactics. It is very much like chess more than a "sport" but the respect given to a grandmaster chessplayer, olympic competitor and proffesional gamer should be the same.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that it is easy to be a pro gamer, It's different. The skill set required, the type of training and work involved, it's in a different category. I don't understand why you need to shoehorn it in as a sport.
I've written an article on this for a subject, eSports is pretty much already a sport, although there are some that have a different definition of sport that disagree.
it's a sport mainly because of no other term aside from e-sport. but yeah it will get bigger and bigger, sc2 is the main game played in korea already and they have jobs, actual salary jobs around coaching teams for sc2. anything that require skill and is popular will always generate a competive side. and as gaming becomes more and more easily avaiable to the masses it will be played more and more and though it probably never be in the olympics, there are massive international tounemounts, such as dreamhack. 10-30 years? its already there, your just not looking.
