http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/02/24/003230.php I fully support this idea. My thumbs "exercise" at times, so why not consider the "art" a sport?
major league gaming is gay. The fata1ty guy or whatever his name is only plays like 2-3 games tops. At least like with football or baseball, they're fairly standard. I could be the best professional tetris player in the world and suck ass at UT. This stuff will also be more corprate funded than the x games.
Despite my love of videogaming, I realise it cannot be classed as a sport. There are too many game types to give it such a broad classification. Are videogames art? Now there *is* a valid argument
Exactly. However, the NFL, NBA and MLB are all funded by corporate sponsors. Without that, we wouldn't have the mass media attention that those sports have now. The main genre that they are using is FPS games. Counter Strike matches, deathmatches in Quake games, UT, etc. Then there's RTS games. I'm thinking that they'll have both specialized clans such as clans where the only game they play is CS: Source, and other tournaments that involve multiple types of games that involve teamwork ranging from Battlefield2 to Rise of Nations. I saw a 60minutes documentary on this, where they interviewed John Wendell, aka Fatality. Now I think he is a great poster child for this emerging sport. Not only is he good at playing games but he is also an active sports player in Highschool I; he's fit and healthy. He breaks the stereotype that the mass media has put into people's minds thinking that intense players (I wouldn't call them hardcore per-say) are nothing but fat-overweight teens with pale skin. John Wendell is quite the opposite. Videogames are already considered a sport in Korea. They have televised events and some of the top players get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from sponsorships and they have bodyguards to protect them from crazed fans and jealous competitors.
Ah well, I meant the "art" of hitting my thumbs across the controller. ;-) I agree with you! To most people, video gaming is associated with the stereotype of the "fat & lazy nerd" which I cannot stand. ...out of all the times I watch 60 minutes, I just happen to miss that one documentary...
The last thing that we want is people thinking video gaming is a sport. I mean really, do you want to see some snot nose punk, who can barely make a complete sentence, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doing something we all can do, just a little bit better? They tried to turn Magic (the card game) into a sport and it took out all of the fun in playing it. I don't care about the stereotypes or stigmas that gamers have; they are all irrelevant and made up by ignorant people. Sports, in my opinion, are the last bastion of the useless. If you were to take any major league sport and dissolve it immediately, how many of those athletes would become productive members of society? Hell, how many of them belong in jail right now, but aren't there because of who they are? It sickens me that someone who can play basketball, but barely passed remedial English can get a free ride through college, yet someone with perfect grades doesn't get jack. And another thing....[rant continues for another 2 hours and 51 minutes]
Yeah, but unlike say basketball where you have to have the correct body type and everything, this would be a sport I could actually be good at I don't think it's so bad, I doubt we'll ever see professional leagues of Halo or Counterstrike players akin to the NBA or NFL though. But what's wrong with some kind of yearly tournament where you can actually win money? If people want to go for it more power to them. However I can see how pro gaming could cheapen the experience for the rest of us. It's already to the point where I don't even try playing certian games online becasue the skill level of the people involved is so far beyond me (like Halo.) It's no fun getting repeatedly owned and made fun of when you're trying to play catch up to get to thier skill level.
The problem is that when games become a sport, they stop being games. It was one of the determining factors for why my wife and I stopped playing (and in my case judging) Magic tournaments. Players stopped playing the game for fun and only played it to win tournaments. The sets became completely geared towards tournament and professional play as opposed to casual play. Hell, they even televised some of the tournaments on ESPN2 (I think I managed to avoid the cameras...). I can easily see this happening to video games as well.
Xbox live ruined halo so damn bad for me. It's not that i'm bad, it's just that getting called a noob by some pice of shit 8 year old while the guy crouches over your face yelling TEABAG'D gets kinda goddamn annoying.
I was called a "noob" by one of my friends because I quit playing Halo 2 a long ass time ago to move on to other things, and also called me a noob since I have one XBL account, while he has 10. Not to sound like him, but he is the noob since he cheats and get this: He stole a 3 month free trial out of the XBL starter kit from Wal-Mart! h: 99% of the people, like him, on XBL are truly pathetic.
No offense, but your friend sounds like an asshole. But still, I don't think that pro gaming will turn all of video gaming into such horror. Who knows, maybe something would come up one of us could be good at. Maybe we need to form an Assembler league, teach the noobs how it's done?
99% of the time when I say "one of my friends", its the same guy. I'll give you a hint, he is banned from the website, now.
The idiot-gamer ruined the MMOs for the rest of us (enter live and hear it by youself) and now they're getting paid for it? that's sucks! In my opinion even real sports shouldnt be a tool of massmarket and corporations, becos that ruins the whole experience. And koreans seem to be crazy anyways.........
