There is a growing debate over the past couple of years of the question: Is gaming a sport? If not, should it be considered a sport? Or perhaps a hobby? It depends on who you ask. Whether it is a streamer, a professional, a regular individual, or even an academic, the debate continues.
Gaming Is a Sport And You Cannot Change The Tide Of Support
Academic Michael Wagner adjusted a quote by Claus Tiedmann, a sports scientist, to define to sports as:
“Sport” is a cultural field of activity in which people voluntarily engage with other people with the conscious intention to develop and train abilities of cultural importance and to compare themselves with these other people in these abilities according to generally accepted rules and without deliberately harming anybody.
Esports
With this broad definition, we could consider gaming, especially esports, as a sport. Gaming has great “cultural importance” and requires they “compare themselves” to others through competition. Not only that, but similar to other sports like basketball or football, there are fans who spend a lot of time and money watching gamers play online via streams or in a stadium.
Back in 2018, over 250 million viewers visited a live stream or an eSports Tournament. The primary demographic of who attended? Young teens to young adults were the most in attendance that day. The current generation has grown up consuming and creating content as a part of their lives since they could walk. The youngest age spends an estimated over three hours online watching streamers play video games per week. More and more people are online to provide entertainment, competition and hone their ability with unique skills.
It should also be included that games that can be played casually, such as the aforementioned angry birds, are usually played by the sixty and up generation on a mobile device. It is suffice to say that almost every generation is connected to the screen. This could be through the console, personal computer, or mobile device. Thanks to the rise of innovation and technology growth, people can compete with the early streamers such as Markiplier, PewDiePie, and more.
Polling The Streamers
Streamers can influence and cultivate a massive change to games and how they are played. Though some might not always consider streamers as esports athletes, thanks to them, the rise of eSports and the debate of this very article is considered in the first place. Without them, it wouldn’t be possible for this debate in the first place. Thus, it stands to reason that due to the level of entertainment and growth in this area, streamers have the right to express opinions on the same games that they entertain. Streamers behave similarly to professional athletes. They watch past videos of their performance, practice in their offline time, prepare for the best-case/worst-case scenario, and more.
Streaming games for hours at a time requires practice, stamina, and the funding needed to make the reality happen. While traditional sports do require physical activity, gaming does have a similar aspect to it. Many streamers have talked about the importance of stretching and the right equipment to support yourself during the stream. Just like an athlete having inadequate equipment, poor gaming equipment can lead to dire consequences to the player playing.
Streamers openly talk about using devices that allow for free range of motion. This is in addition to the practice and time they put into playing the streaming. It may not be the typical sport. However, like with many new things, humans will innovate. Many streamers and fans argue gaming should be included in the caliber of “playing sports”. Sports were once, after all, created as a way to compete. As any streamer will tell you, gaming requires much competitiveness.
Streamers Share Their thoughts
Streamers, like RaeFlare on twitch, say that video games should be considered a sport. She argues that video games take skill, talent, ability to improve, and an enthusiasm to grow. Playing video games requires hand-eye coordination and the ability to remain focused on providing entertainment to yourself and others.
Now, a rising actor, Wattpad author, and star have known as Diceandaspbergs (Dice) given name as Nate, who is an occasional guest on streams, argues that all video games are, in fact, a sport. Dice argues that if ping pong is at the Olympics, then there is no reason to adopt eSports and gaming as a whole to it. Ping-pong requires many of the same elements that make up for gaming as a result. Dice even went further to point out that playing video games requires stamina, like most things. While video games don’t usually require endurance, thanks to the rise of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, athletic ability will be counted into one’s performance. Regardless of what game you are playing, Dice argued, the point stands: you are using skills outside your familiar environment to improve abilities that sports require every athlete to know.
Conditional Yes
TheBearded_Rogue agrees but to a point. The Bearded Rogue argues that while video games take skill level and talent to grow. However, he believes that it depends on the video game itself. For example, he argues that League of Legends, Overwatch League, Call of Duty, and many more popular competitive games are considered games that fit sports definition. The games do not require traditional athletic ability. However, they need great reaction times, hand-eye coordination, and improvement of critical thinking skills. This is especially in games like Call of Duty, where a decision can determine if you or your competition prevails. This strategy goes without mention the work it takes to be a streamer. Both Rae and Rogue agree that playing these games to an audience takes practice, energy, and commitment.
Opportunities
Now, before one disagrees that, comparatively, video games do not foster opportunity the way sports does in that scholarships are put in place to allow rags to riches stories. Due to the rise of streaming and games in the past thirty years, academics have started to research and even fund for this niche. Throughout the world, there are scholarships to game professionally and opportunities to practice with a coach and team. Just like there are communities and teams for sports, there are the same for gaming that foster encouragement, mentorship, practice, and growth.
Gaming also allows anyone and everyone to play, regardless of anything. As long as anyone has access to it, anyone can do it. With this new and upcoming opportunity, the entry barriers allow more people to join and partake in fun. It doesn’t matter what you play; it’s about how you go about doing it. Academics, like Wagner, agree that gaming is on its way to change the way we define sports, as we previously discussed. The opportunities that arise are endless. They bring about the importance of evolving our society to include everyone and treat everyone equally.
While the consensus among RaeFlare, TheBearded_Rogue, and Diceandaspbergs is that gaming is a sport. others in the streaming community disagree. Games were meant to be a way to entertain oneself.
Games Were Meant To Be For Fun—Nothing More, Nothing Less
According to Adam Conover, who hosts Adam Ruins Everything Series, gaming was a way to foster innovation and imagination. However, thanks to the early workers on games, we have the vision to go above and beyond when games were first started. It’s a surprising fact, but an important one nonetheless.
Despite gaming’s rising popularity, thanks to eSports and streaming, some individuals disagree with trying to characterize it as a means of sole competition and sporting. An up and coming streamer with the twitch name known as Valkyriestarrxo noted that while she/they believe there are some components to traditional sports in gaming, it should not be called a sport. Valkyriestarrxo follows the guidelines from the International Olympic Committee who have stated the qualifying rule:
“Requires physical exertion as well as mental exertion, manifests itself physically.”
Valkyriestarrxo is skeptical of the idea of considering gaming as a sport. After all, games mean to challenge your mind only. It does take skill, practice, and mental training. However, gaming was told to turn off the thoughts racing in the frontal lobe, not amplify them at the end of the day. Additionally, while eSports has been somewhat ‘verified’ as a sport, eSports does not require one to be physically exerted but mentally exerted.
While physical activity does create an interesting point, there is also concern relating to the original purpose of games: fun. It shouldn’t be something to get frustrated over. Games were created to relax and have a good time. At least that is how another up and coming streamer, Odinn_sonn sees it. He argues that gaming is not meant to be a way of constant competition.
Is Competition Ruining the Fun?
Quite the opposite, Odinn_sonn argues that games’ priority is with the consumer, not the competition. While he is aware that it is an unpopular point, Odinn_sonn nonetheless contends that he does not play games to win. Rather, he plays to have fun. He points out that streaming is meant to entertain and engage with the audience. It helps in fostering an environment of goofs and laughs, not outpacing one another. He makes aware that competitive gamers are out there in the streaming community who participate in tournaments and rituals, but he notes that their opinions on this subject do not make it facts. Odinn_sonn points out that competitive gaming is what he’s doing: entertainment with a layer of competition.
It’s Gotta Be Fun
Taking away the fun would defeat the purpose of wanting to stream the game in the first place. Turning something fun and making it into an obligation would poison the intent of games first being created which is having fun. Without pleasure, this very topic would not be inexistent, nor would it have fostered the gaming industry’s growth as a whole. There wouldn’t be a reason to do anything without fun. Including making things different than what they were before. This is exactly what Lane Hauck, one of the Blockade creators, hoped this new technology would foster: fun, mental exercises, and innovation.
With the rise of competitive gaming, the building blocks of this could lead to a split within this tight-knit community that has always put creativity before profits. Streamers such as The_Fraz5 (Fraz), a veteran in the streaming community, saw this coming a long time before platforms are known as ‘twitch’ really took off back in 2014 or so.
Fraz agrees with the premise that gaming is entertainment with a flavor of competition. But, Fraz counters that in the coming years, this topic has the opportunity to expand and grow. It just depends on the content, the viewers, and the consumption. Fraz argues that it’s a no but not necessarily an open and shut case in terms of the future of gaming.
GAME OVER
To conclude, it’s not entirely clear-cut on whether gaming is a sport.
Our evidence varied greatly as to whether gaming is a sport. Some say that gaming is a sport because it requires skill, practice and can be taxing on the body. While it might improve the mind and body with hand-eye coordination and critical thinking skills, some say that video games aren’t a sport because it’s meant for their original intent: to have fun and relax. Others say it may be better categorized as a hobby. Then, there are ones who say it’s both depending on the games played and the level at which it’s played.
Regardless, streamers, fans, and everyone alike can agree: definitions of “gaming” and “sport” are subject to change over time. Our society is constantly evolving. As humanity grows and innovates maybe it’ll become more clear whether gaming considered a sport or solely a way of entertainment.
