The tug-of-war over whether esports should be included at the Olympic Games is becoming its own sport. In 2017, statements from the Paris Olympic bid committee and the International Olympic Committee, plus the forum on esports with major video game companies made it all sound plausible.
This past fall, however? Not so much. In September, the sitting president of the International Olympic Committee, a champion fencer who’d downplayed esports in the past, downplayed the idea again, pointing out the mismatch between “Olympic values” and “killer games” that promote “violence or discrimination.” And now the International Olympic Committee has backtracked as well.
As GIbiz reports, at the Olympic Summit this past weekend, the committee determined that indeed some esports aren’t “compatible with Olympic values” and that the constant changeover and commercial drive of the industry are at issue since sports are “values-based” rather than commercially driven. That line ought to make some eyes twitch.
Not all is lost, however; the committee also recognized esports’ physical rigor and said engagement with the esports community should continue. Simulation games, moreover, might see “accelerated cooperation” since they pose no values problems.
Further reading:
And here, straight from the back server room, are your pasty faced 90 lb gold medalists! Rejoice at the accomplishments of mankind.
Haven’t been following the Olympics since dumping my TV about 5-10 years ago. And I can’t say I’ve ever missed them.
The only TV sports programme I miss is Snooker tournaments. I know I could watch this via some sports streaming service but I did a free trial of one and it was shoddy quality. Never really got around to looking for another.
EDIT:
violence is not the nature of the Olympics which was created as a sporting event alternative to gladiatorial arenas. A perfect mind and body, natural philosophy. So I can see why dead matches have no place at the Olympics, that said some one should get him into a challenge of track field on some kind of vr game, or racing or any of the hundreds of sporting video games. Most fencers have lost respect for the sport of electric cattle prodding that foils and the forced line dancing that is Olympic fencing that resulted as a safety issue. A video game could give fencers back fencing in the round. Though for those who are only skilled the lunge that might hurt there standings…
As someone who has been gaming for almost 20 years, I think that video games don’t belong in the olympics or any other sports tournament. They are not a sport, they are something you do at the end of the day to unwind and forget about you problems in the real world.
Nerds really have jock envy, don’t they?
They can include e sports in the Olympics once they include epic guitar soloing. It’s basically the same thing.
More like, epic air guitar soloing. Air guitar players aren’t really playing the guitar and video gamers aren’t really shooting each other in the face… well, not usually
Great, now fix the rest of things and have some better standards outside the athletics… and maybe I’ll care about the Olympics other than to avoid them? Likely minimally, but hey…
Well, I cast doubt on the olympic comittee, especially their integrity and incorruptness, so how is a doubt by such an organisation of any value to me?
A fencer says that games where you attempt to hit your enemy in a way that would be deadly is against Olympic values? You mean … like fencing?
I’m not going to argue semantics. I simply don’t think video games belong in the Olympics.