Is Competitive Gaming a Sport?

Cheerleading as well as dancing and gymnastics are competitive disciplines IMO, not sports. The reason is because the "winner" of such things are based on subjective reasoning(usually judges) as opposed to an objective factor like time or a point/score counter. While you CAN argue calls in sports, a goal is a pretty objective thing. However, whether or not your choreography expressed the right message is mostly a subjective thing that can be seen 1298908453 ways.

I used to dance so I know full the level of stress of such disciplines, but I don't consider them sports no.

Generalizations much? Lots of athletes have glasses and quite a few like "geeky" things. Nowadays most of the geeks I know also frequent the gym when not gaming so they're definitely not the stereotypical image of gamers.

 

It seems like you skipped half the of the conversation between me and htwingnut We were not comparing the apm between sc2 and pianists, or anything else. The topic about apm submerged when htwingnut mentioned calories while playing games, so the topic of that particular discussion was calories and not about comparing APM between things. I was pointing out that games (some of them atleast) have a toll on calories at high levels

 

the number of calories you burn playing starcraft 2 is approximately equal to the number of calories you burn while walking slowly, or playing piano. Neither of those numbers approach representation of any sort of athleticism.

anyway, i know the topic strayed, i just wanted to point out that the APM of the piano player is a lot higher than the apm of the sc2 player, and (separately) that APM spikes don't mean as much as you think they mean.

 

Of course gaming won't burn as much calories as any sport, already mentioned it myself in my previous posts. As for the APM part, I myself doubt I can maintaining a 400+APM in sc2 for 30-60mins even if the only thing i was doing was just spamming one key, if you own sc2 or anything that can show your APM's try maintain that amount in 60mins (if you are in the mood to do something like that of course ) and you will see that its not a small feat.

The main issue with this thread in general is that the main question is wrong. Games are not considered a sport, they are considered an E-sport, mainly because they don't involved as much physical activity as "normal" sports. in a nutshell, sports =! esports

 

So we agree - I guess the point is that athleticism is one of the requirements of an activity being labelled a sport.

 

Pretty much yea, sports involve physical activities where's esports don't. Everything else is pretty much the same.

 

LOL @ a bunch of computer nerds trying to define sport.

 

Not that I'm denying being a nerd or anything, and I do love my video games, but yeah, it's not a sport. Even in a Gaming board, where you'd think that the results would be skewed in favor of yes, no still has it beat 2:1. I think if you asked the general population it would be more like 10:1.

 

Personally speaking even so called "physical activities" defined as sports I wouldn't classify as sports. Things like Bowling and Darts IMO are pseudo-sports.

 

I would also classify those as 'games' as opposed to 'sports'.

 

Nope. I also don't consider chess, golf, bowling, curling, etc... as sports either.

 

I think the biggest thing to remember that just because a word has a specific definition doesn't mean it never changes. The language is a living thing and is constantly evolving. Remember words like computer and "gay" used to have entirely different meanings within the last century.

 

"Gay" still means "happy" in French actually.

But yes, definitions change with times, but I still think that there isn't much of a reason to change the definition of "sport" just to add in new things. If they're all classified as "sports", then they would all need a common denominator together which IMO they don't really have.

 

Have you ever participated on-line FPS clan wars?
The level of mental and (to some extent) physical stress is just enormous!
If chess, darts and other low on physique games can be called sports, - I see no reason why shooters can't.

 

Absolutely.

Though the physical aspects are much different than say fencing, the mental are basically the same:
Think fast
React fast
Master your own style

 

Competitive video games are definitely a sport. You're just using your brain primarily. It's the exact same type of repetitive motion type thing that any other sport incorporates but because your brain is doing a majority of the work and that work can't be visualized in a motion like a physical sport so people don't consider video games a "sport".

 

If mental functions now define sports, where do we draw the line between sports and intellectual challenges?

 

Yes, if it is, for example, a LAN competition. Otherwise I don't consider it to be if its over the internet... mainly because of the anonymity involved and what infers from that (no sportmanship, cheating; AKA trolling).

On a LAN competition annoying 15-16 years old kids would probably know their place and keep their mouths shut, wouldn't they? Most of them wouldn't have the guts. It would also be very, very hard to cheat.

 

So Sudoku should be in the Olympics now I suppose...

 

That means I'd probably be a contender for a Gold Medal at Crossword Puzzles >.>

 

dancing, sure i agree with you there. However, gymanstics is a gray area. Gymnasts are pure athletes. athletes play sports.

sports have criteria to win; regardless of how the criteria is judged.

in brazilian jiu-jitsu there were often MANY "draws" due to the way the rule books were structured. a guard is considered no points, as the aggressor is on the bottom, though, with full control; the opponent is on top with a bit of control as well. however, in the last 5-10 years they have restructured and added in "aggressive" calling saying that you can earn 2-3 points depending on if you look like you're attempting to pull off submissions.

while that entire rule is completely subjective, and that they can't award you points for a submission due to the high failure rate of success, they can award you "advantage" points.

so subjective point calling is a gray area i guess if you're only considering sports to have objective rulings.

so while gamers may compete in e-sports, i guess perhaps you could consider competition games as sports, but i would never consider gaming something athletic, therefore, gamers are not athletes in that sense.

 

Well that's why we have this thread, to debate somewhat grey semantics.

To me, sports have to have some kind of objective element to them, otherwise it's more of an athletic discipline being practiced in a competitive manner.

Gymnastics I'd class as an athletic discipline more than a sport is because there's more to gymnastics than doing whirls and hand bars and getting judged on how well your succeed; quite a bit of it is interpretive as well with routines and choreography. They don't necessarily award points for routines with the most flips after all.

I definitely cannot classify any form of video game as athletic in the arch-typical sense no.

At the end of the day though, quite a few of these have similar tendencies, it's just a question of how personally you wish to classify them.

 

i've had people tell me that since they played counter-strike in CAL that they considered gaming a sport because of the dedication and training you need can be similar (in complexity and time needed) to that of a physical sport, but any profession or hobby can require the same dedication and/or training, but that doesn't make everything a sport.

to be good at math, it takes countless hours of dedication in memorizing theorems and practice in solving complex problems, but that doesn't make math a sport.

and just as much fun as games like beer pong may be, that doesn't make them a sport either when done in a competitive arena.

i guess people confuse the word competition and sports and they seem to mix the two words together.

 

A sport isn't really characterized by the amount of time spent on it. Just like with everything in life, some people will dedicated loads of time to it, some not as much. You really could apply that equation to ANYTHING as you said.

Yes, competition and sport aren't the same. Mind you, I do believe that it works in a one way scenario. IMO, any arch-typical "sport" carries within it some form of latent competition. If it doesn't, then it becomes more of a grey area which is why I employ the use of the word "competitive athletic discipline" in that case because sometimes the activities I classify under that category can be practiced nearly 100% free of competition(dancing here would be a good example since it can stand alone from competition as an entertainment art or such).

I do believe that most if not all arch-typical "sports" have competitiveness embedded into them due to the nature of having an opponent of some sort.

 

Video games are games. Sports are sports. Let's not mix them up. If you argue then you are looking into it too hard.

 

Why the "other than"??

Korea unless I'm mistaken has some of the most advanced technology as commonplace more so than any other country.

Starcraft 1 has been a serious competitive sport there for so long now, I mean there are professionals and everything...

They are pretty serious about other games too, not just starcraft. I saw a documentary about this. Its generally what there is to talk about, there are gaming cafes, and its not just a casual thing at all. Although they may not all be about the competitiveness.

The way I think about it, the "fad" will catch on in other countries as it probably has in japan, and in the US once literally everyone has the capability to game there will be much more culture around it and more defined groups of people etc.

Oh and as far as what everyone else it arguing about I think the only real distinction is the popularity factor.

 

Word !

 

THANKS, I have been trying to remember that word for months!

IMHO the general question of the thread is "what does it all mean" and most people just shy away from the very real cultural implications of things with semantics because they are more "absolute"

 

According to Shaquille O'Neal it is. Watch the episode of Shaq Vs. where he takes on Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the race track, or even just the highlights of it. It wears out Shaq, and he's certainly used to physical activity.

I don't consider competitive gaming a sport, just as I don't consider chess or card games sports. To me sports must be both physical and competitive. There are some gray areas as to what's physical enough or competitive enough (the classic question of whether golf is a sport, for instance), but gaming, chess, and card games are all obviously not qualified in the physical department, even if they are in the competitive department.

 

Game. Maybe a competetive game but a game. I'm not saying it's not tough to do it, but so is chess on a competitive level.

Attempts to call video gaming "sports" lowers my opinion of this competitive arena. It is an attempt at "validity" for what they are doing. Yet by trying to classify it as something it is not, has a negative impact on the image of the competition, effectively making the arena worse off because of the false pretense. Games are games. There are a lot of them and they are no less valid for being competitive games. But sports are sports and that is that.

 

Amen to that

 

This indeed is a semantic argument.

You can't argue this without having a warrant that has been agreed upon. In this case, what is the definition of a sport?

For example..

If sport is defined as any competitive activity that requires both physical and mental skill, but has more emphasis on physical actions than on mental skills THEN gaming is NOT a sport.

However... if a sport is defined as any competitive activity that requires a varied degree of physical and mental skill THEN gaming IS a sport.

 

As long as it's competitive, entertaining, and takes an above normal skill I consider it a sport. I guess it comes down to different strokes for different folks.

 

I will consider gaming a sport when Chess, Checkers and Tiddley-Winks are considered a sport. Until then NO!

 

It is a form of leisure/entertainment but i think there's something called e-sport?

 

Is chessboxing a sport?