Eric wrote:*Shrug* Not sure what it is you're arguing for or trying to prove or disprove really.
Competitive video games were classified as a sport and the people that played them are considered athletes so said competing players could get travel vistas to attend competitions internationally.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/us-gov ... 0-6411377/
Or do you have issue with the term "sport" being used, because that ship kinda sailed since they've been called e-sports over the past 15 years or so
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_sports
It's a silly debate Seek, and not something you should really take up arms for. It's not like golf, motor racing, or archery take a ridiculous amount of physical strength compared to say Soccor or Basketball, but they're still sports. You could argue your hands probably get a better workout then most other things classified as sports. :p
I agree, it is a silly topic debate, but for the opposite reason. Videogames are very obviously NOT a sport. Although, I am willing to debate a silly topic, it's been quite a while since we have really debated anything on this site.
Your first point - the Gamespot article:
What essentially happened is that the US department of immigration now grants P-1 work visas to people from other countries in order to compete in videogames; note that this is not an athletic commission, and videogame competitions do not require any kind of sanctioning by state athletic commissions. The department of immigration is hardly a definitive authority. All that has really occurred is that the immigration department of the US has decided they're going to issue competitive viodeogamers the same visas as athletes. If you take a look at the comment section of the article on Gamespot, it is filled with videogamers completely baffled at the article implying that videogames should be considered sports and videogamers should be considered athletes. I agree with the commenters, videogaming has nothing to do with athletics.
As for that wikipedia article, seriously, look at it, do you consider these kids (from your wikipedia article) to be athletes?
On your other comparisons: Golf, motor racing, and archery? I would most certainly consider golf and archery to be sports as they are competitions that have their basis in physical skill and form; unlike videogaming, which is based in neither. Nascar and F-1 racing; a competition, yes - but I wouldn't consider those to be sports, and I wouldn't consider drivers to be athletes. People will argue that drivers require a degree of physical fitness to compete - which may be true - I certainly don't see this in competitive videogamers, rather what I see is that it is almost the other way around. Motocross is different, it requires athleticism to turn and control the bike.
My own contention would be that a sport is an athletic competition; where physical prowess and physical precision are the primary basis. Sports entered our culture as a peaceful means of competition in events that mimic battle, or have some sort of applicability on the battlefield - such as running, wrestling, weight lifting, throwing, archery, etc....
The clicking of buttons in videogames does not really qualify as athletic activity; it's insignificant. For the majority of videogames (Just Dance, and Wii Fit aside), the skill is a mental exercise. The physical prowess and rate and complexity of button pushing required to play a videogame is significantly less than what is required for me to write this very paragraph - but that hardly makes me an athlete. Would you consider a competitive game show like jeopardy a sport and Ken Jennings an athlete because he hits timer very quickly?
Lastly, the physical activity that goes into videogaming is an indirect input. You are clicking buttons in order to make something happen on the screen that is unrelated to the motion you are making in most cases. This is unlike a direct physical action of hitting a ball, or firing an arrow from a drawn bow. You might argue that actions in something like Rocksmith; but would you consider something like American Idol or some other music precision competition to be a sport?
Realistically speaking, it is a far stretch of the imagination for anyone to ACTUALLY seriously consider videogames to be a sport, rather than a category of game. It's the same faulty reasoning as "mathletes" calling themselves math jocks, rather than math nerds. You can use the title "e-Sport" until you are blue in the face, it doesn't make videogaming a type of sport, nor does it make people who play videogames to be athletes.
PS, is there any way to edit image sizes with BBcode?
