butthead aka 216

what im askin tho is if you consider a pick up bball game a sport, would a game of super smash bros with friends be a sport?? or are you only considering it a sport at a pro level

Antonio

this. In all seriousness I play a number of competetive shooters/games casually and know my general way around a match, but the quickness of reaction time and movement/dexterity with said reaction(something found in major sports, for example a baseball player being able to hit a 95 mph pitch) completely dwarfs myself as well as most of my friends(friends who've never played competitively)

I see you've never heard of APM(actions per minute):

Korean Gamers: APM Demonstration - YouTube

Now please show me your video of you excelling with that same dexterity and coordination, since you said there's no physical exertion needed.

But yeah, I feel like some of the people who are completely denying eSports' legitimacy as sports think that we're trying to replace the biggest sports out there or that people are saying they're objectively more difficult. I mean, you can say that certain sports take more physical than others, but that doesn't take away the competitive nature as well as the physicality required in certain aspects. Not every sport uses YOUR ENTIRE BODY; some sports only use certain parts of the body, but at a professional level can still take a large amount of control and refinement of abilities in order to compete in larger leagues.

And yeah, I know some people are going to say games aren't physical, but you GAIN muscle memory from the repeated button presses you initiate to fire and switch between in-game weapons, communicate with a team and move in certain formations. Unless they start developing thought based game consoles, there's physical exertion on display here.

Also, it's not like there isn't room for more professional sports out there or anything. Something such as skateboarding was thought of as a rouge pastime for punk kids until really skilled skaters started being competitive with each other; now it's being given more legitimacy by networks such as ESPN and getting sponsorships by companies that would only make deals with huge athletes.

No one's saying that Starcraft is going to be replacing MLB or the NBA anytime soon, but if f**king golf and fishing can be considered sports by the general public, even marginally, then surely competitive gaming can be as well.

I would say it's your mindset; I mean, you could get a bunch of people on the basketball court with ball in hand and just mess around, making trick shots and not taking it seriously at all. I would see gaming in a similar light; sure if you're playing a casual game with friends and not caring about who wins then yeah it's a casual game, but if you play in an organized manner and set out to win through your abilities alone then I can consider it sporting. And I know some people have trouble wrapping their head around this, but to be honest you could literally MAKE UP a sport right now if you wanted to. The only thing that would separate it from being pro level would be the popularity of it and people who take it to a level where ordinary people couldn't do it without a good amount of work.

I mean, if you explained to someone that had never seen or heard of basketball that people will pay hundreds of dollars just to watch a group of players try to throw a ball into a hoop then they would probably think you were crazy.

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FRED HALE SR.

Looking like Champions. And they wouldn't have to waste money on HGH tests either. Greatest sport ever.

djchameleon

It's an e-sport regardless of the level that it's played at but obviously the more skilled players will be at the pro level.

Your friends playing a pick up bball game wouldn't hold a candle to NBA players.

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GuitarBizarre

To add - me and my friends, or your friends, or Prince and The Revolution playing a random game of basketball is just that - playing a game of basketball.

When you do that, you don't go from being a spectator to being a sportsman - you go from being a spectator to being a player, the key term being "player" - as in, "to play" - recreational, for fun, etc.

You would, however, become a sportsman if you and your friends entered a local league and played competitively. I think the same applies to all forms of sporting activity. Until you're competing on a serious level, for the sake of victory and advancement, that's a totally different thing than playing for fun.

Which isn't to say you can't find competing for victory and advancement fun in itself, or that you can't have fun while achieving those goals, just to say that the two aren't the same thing, and sportsmanship(sportsmanhood?) is defined by the competition and rules of competition, not by the nature of the game/sport/whatever term you want to use.

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Newkie

I appreciate I'm probably not going to add a whole lot to this debate, but I'm just going to come out and say what I feel, which is no. So many real life situations you could apply to being competitive, or playing for cash or whatever. Are these tournaments? Sure, why not. But why do they have to be labelled a sport. Does it genuinely matter to someone who partakes in this if they are considered an athlete or not? If they are worried about some sort of social stigma or a lack of recognition because what they do isn't considered a sport well, that won't go away if it did become listed at the olympics because it would still be considered a bit of a joke.

Like Curling.

I mean can't you pretty much list anything as a sport against the initial criteria? If you go out on a Saturday and try and pull, do you think of yourself as a sportsman? You're engaging in physical (albeit often ridiculous) activity, competing with others for the "gold medal", those who are the best often become "Popular" whether in social circles or because of modern society-actual celebrities ala Jersey Shore/Geordie Shore/The Valleys. They have spectator audiences-people will often wonder "what's he doing that I'm not?" or they will gauge female reactions and try and figure out their own approach later. Finally there is a depth to it, you need good motoring and conversational functions and whether these be impaired by a beverage or aided by recreational drug use, you need to keep your focus and your eyes on the prize.

Forget all that-is trying to have sex and then having sex considered a sport? Because if so we can just all be athletes and be done with it. I realise I'm probably coming across as an insincere **** here GB but it was the easiest example I could find. And this isn't taking anything away from games or gamers, I'm all over that ****.

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GuitarBizarre

Lets say we try to define sex as a sport.

The immediate problem we run into is -

1 - Winning at sex is subjective. Just having sex is not a winning condition. There must be a degree by which one can compete with others - is that bar number of orgasms had, number of times had sex, number of places had sex in, etc etc? By which metric can one beat "competition" in order to become a world champion of sex?

2 - Assuming one defines such a metric, how does one verify it? Is there a system in place which defines and specifies the conditions by which one can be agreed to have achieved the set goal, and can be relied upon to not be erroneous or otherwise biased? Other sports use either a points based system of definite moments, such as goals, baskets, shots on target, etc. In subjective disciplines an impartial panel of judges is chosen and their scores averaged to provide a fair representation.

3 - Assuming we have both of those things, to who do we turn if there is a disagreement with the set criteria, or if someone is suspected of illegitimate play (IE hiring prostitutes when the rules forbid it)? In a sport, there is a body, set of bodies, or a multiple of bodies that may run concurrent, independent, or joint events, to whom competitors can turn in the event of a need for external arbitration.


Note, that a casual fling or one night stand or even a committed relationship, has none of these attributes - this doesn't devalue those things, but it does prevent them from being a consistent and self-contained sport. Same for games - a casual game of Quake with friends isn't bound by any of these attributes save for the rules of the game itself (Which are frequently modified by the whims of those involved, for example players challenging each other to melee only matches, or imposing voluntary weapon restrictions for the sake of fun.) This doesn't devalue a casual game of quake, but it does mean that it's not eSport.

In the same way, a casual kickabout with your mates falls to the same thing - that doesn't mean you can't have fun, doesn't mean its better or worse exercise, nor does it mean you shouldn't do it whenever you feel like, but it does mean you can't describe yourself as a sportsman/woman just for the sake of having invited your mates for some 5 a side.

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Newkie

How does a kickabout not encompass the three above? There is a winning condition, you verify it by goals scored, you follow the rules and/or have someone play ref to arbitrate?

Finally, if it doesn't devalue it as an experience, why are people in the gaming community bothered about being perceived as athletes? Are they bothered? If so, why?

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Newkie

Panel of three judges as in diving or boxing to mediate scores on one or all of the above counts, depending on which variation?

Again, the independent adjudicators? You just need to draw up the criteria and bam, you've made a sport?

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GuitarBizarre

I should have clarified - There's rather more to being a governing body than just being a referee. Specifically it involves being an authority to whom people in the discipline will refer in any and all calls, and that has the power (And the means to enforce that power) to both define, change, and amend the rules of the competition outside of the game itself - IE, the rules of a Cycle race are to get from point to point faster than the other guy - the UCI's job is to ensure that this is being done fairly and also to make judgements and rulings pertaining to the manner in which it is done - in the UCI's case they do things like rule on seat heights, bike weights, etc.

In football, for example, where there IS a governing body to refer to, your casual kickabout with your mates has no rules regarding ball size, weight, player transfer windows, proper enforcement of offside, pitch conditions, sendings off, proper timekeeping, etc. FIFA's job as the governing body of the sport is to ensure that in sporting competition, as opposed to amateur play, all of the above are followed.

It is possible that you could form a footballing offshoot where your kickabout rules would be considered valid at all levels of play, but you'd need to form a body of scope to do the above, or whatever other administrative tasks were necessary to keep play in your chosen discipline consistent across all players and (if applicable or forthcoming) tournament settings.

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