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Forums - Gaming Discussion - ESPN Radio Host Slams Competitive Gaming

JWeinCom on 28 April 2015

https://gotgame.com/2015/04/11/for-the-love-of-god-stop-calling-it-e-sports/

I wrote an article about this not too long ago. When you call gaming a sport, you invite comparisons to other sorts, which will invite negative comparisons. It's like if someone ordered a pizza, and you gave them a slice of cheesecake. They both may be great, and they both involve a lot of the same things, but they are fundamentally different. So, if someone tried to give you a slice of cheesecake and told you it was pizza, you'd be confused and probably annoyed.

But if you went up to someone who you know likes Pizza and said "Hey you want to try this thing called cheesecake?" They'd probably be willing to give it a shot, and might like it.



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-CraZed- on 29 April 2015
binary solo said:
-CraZed- said:
binary solo said:
-CraZed- said:

Gaming is not a sport period. Can it be competitive like many sports are? Sure. But sports require physical exertion. And unless my sitting on my ass for hours at a time to partake in my most favorite hobby is now considered physical exertion, it definitely isn't a sport.

Oxford Dictionary - Sport: An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

Whether or not ESPN should show 'eSports" is debatable however because they do show non-sport activities like poker and pool etc. But as a sportscaster yeah I'd be offended at having to cover gaming as a sport.

Target shooting is a sport, and that requires less physical exertion than playing a video game. In fact the less you move in target shooting the better. And in some cases you spend the entire time lying on a mat. The general dictionary definitions for sport are really poor for encompassing all things that the vast majority of people do agree are sports, and they're even worse for things that are on the margins of what people agree are sports.

For every argument there is against pro-competition video games being sports there are counter arguments that can be found in events that are widely accepted as sports, including sports that have been Olympic events for decades.

Do you know how much physical exertion it takes to "hold still"? A lot actually. Have you ever held a shotgun or a rifle? Most are pretty hefty (compared to a game controller anyways) and require some strength to to hold and keep it trained on a target. There is definitely physical exertion in target shooting. The definition holds.

Not when you're lying flat on the floor, which I notice you conveniently forget to address. Other target shooting events include air pistols, with a maximum weight of 1.5kg, so not so hefty really.

Even while lying down you still need very good muscle control and while yes pistols are reletively light (I've held plenty of hefty pistols though) but again it takes muscle control and coordination. And even if one were to concede it isn't 100% the deffinition of a "sport" it is much, much closer than playing video games. The point is moot here.

Shooting "sports" is a far cry from sitting on a couch playing video games.