E-sports are electronic? That's a pretty damn obvious difference. On top of that regular sports have a wide fanbase outside of just a small niche like SC. And regarding your similarities:
a) You train about the same amount of time in both (lets assume both players in eSports and IRL Sports are pros).
Yes, but training for sports and training for e-sports are completely different things. One is far more physically taxing on your body than the other. Anyone can technically play games all day Yes, it's difficult and 99.99% of people would be terrible but still, it's possible. Very few people can physically do what professional athletes do.
b) There are teams
SC teams don't actually compete as teams, they compete individually and train as teams.
c) There are tournaments
Scale. Sports tournaments are massive compared to e-sports tournaments. Like on a scale of millions.
d) There are salaries
Boxer has the highest SC2 salary in the world, because of his name recognition. He makes ~$250k (?). Players like IdrA probably make less than $40k. On top of that, there are probably only around 30-50 people in the world who make their living solely of SC2 tournaments. In contrast, minimum first year NFL salary for a third string player is $350k and is well into the millions by 5-10 years. And this is for a guy who never actually plays in a single game. Top players have $100m contracts.
e) There is a fanbase
The biggest SC2 tournaments like Dreamhack have around 20,000 people watching live at peak times. The biggest soccer tournaments have 500m+. Even football and basketball have into the 50m+ range.
I'll assume both sports and e-sports aren't performed professionally, but as a hobby, since this will apply to the majority.
Sports creates a skill useful in real life. Yes, there may be injuries, but for most people, pursuing a sport means more fitness and less health issues. Also, unless all you do is jogging at night, you'll socialize and meet people that share your interests.
E-Sports - you don't really train any skills. Sure, you practice your hand/eye coordination, but not to a degree where you'll actually have any use from it. You don't socialize; you may meet people, but those are gone once you're offline and experience shows that real bonding only happens in rare cases (i.e. leading to real life, lasting friendships, including offline meetings). And last but not least, you waste time with Esports. Unless you're some super efficient uber-gamer, you'll probably spend a lot of time waiting, idling in menus, being in queue for something (patch download, tournament wait, you name it) - so you'll not only sit in front of your PC for hours, but you won't even advance your skills for a significant part of that time.
I don't know why this discussion comes up regularly. Computer gaming shouldn't be considered a sport because it isn't. It doesn't have any particular physical requirements. And even compared to real sports that don't either (e.g. golf, chess, darts), it lacks the special traits that make those unique (precision, logical thinking etc).
The frequent comparison of Starcraft and chess for example is ridiculous. Regardless of how impressive we think some korean 20 y/o may perform clicking a mouse and hitting some keys, it will never reach the level of strategical and logical thinking required by a chess master.
On December 15 2010 06:13 ashaman771 wrote: The issue isn't that starcraft isn't difficult to master, or doesn't require skill. It's a difficult game that requires skill.
The issue is
What seperates eSports from Sports?
Sports requires competition and physical exertion. Starcraft is missing physical exertion, so it's not a sport.
Chess is definitely a sport, considered so by most of society and large organizations. I don't believe this is an issue. Like someone posted before me, "perception is everything", when society accepts eSports as "Sports" then they'll be sports, societies define what sports are. Ever since chess, a non-physical activity, earned a place as a valid sport because of it's competitive and demanding nature, the definition of what a sport is became rather flexible. It will take a few years but if more games like SC, halo, CS, quake, etc are made thinking in competition, then they'll eventually be considered a sport, some day.
A reason not mentioned is what if you told your parents instead of wanting to be a e-sport progamer you wanted to become a professional athelete?
Two majors differences come to mind: 1.)The chances your parents would support you are higher since its more socially acceptable, you meet friends on sports teams, socialize, etc
2.) There are other (attainable) benefits such as looking better for college applications, scholarships, etc
but in the back of their mind parents would be just as opposed to being a professional athelete as being a professional gamer since the chances at suceeding are 1 in 99999999999. As long as you kept up in school, went to college, and had a semi social life I think most parents would support someone spending 3-5 hours a day playing SC2, going to tournaments, etc. Look at Day9's mom for example.
Also, Chess is a sport, and I think is a pretty close comparison for SC2 and its scene. I think the MMA/poker analogies are much more different to SC2 than Chess is.
On December 15 2010 05:03 Alpina wrote: Well eSports does not give you any benefits imo, unless you are making money from that.
People usually do sports cause it's very good for health, and eSports are bad for health.
eSports are waste of time usually, imho.
Wait...what? Can't believe you have 1000 posts on TL.net and write a post like this. How is eSports bad for your health, wtf?
Bad because most people tend to eliminate other primary factors out of their lives when gaming such as a proper diet and exercise. How many nerds do you know that workout on a daily basis/keep a fantastic diet? I don't know many. It's usually whatever can be microwaved faster. It's unhealthy because you are far too enveloped into the game.
i think it's due to lack of knowledge people are scared of what they don't know and when parents grew up there was no such thing as "epic gaming" so to speak
thats really it, the whole bullshit about esports being for unhealthy geeks is a stereotype, its just because the ratios are so skewed that ppl dont give it a chance.
On December 15 2010 04:49 eveo wrote: What seperates eSports from Sports?
e
Sorry
--edit--
On a more serious note, I think the main difference between esports and regular sports has a lot to do with the level of interest. The reason regular sports are so popular is because, well, they are so popular. The world and his wife plays football, or tennis, or hockey, or golf. Because of this, many more people enjoy watching them on TV. Esports doesn't have that support because, relatively speaking, it's a very niche activity. There's less money in esports because there's less money to be made from it.
There's also a certain social stigma against gaming as even a hobby, let alone a full-blown profession. Who here hasn't been subject to some variant of 'stop wasting time on that bloody computer and do something useful'? It's something you don't hear if you like books or movies, but as soon as a videogame is involved it's like a switch goes off in people's heads that says 'this is not normal - it must be bad'. Thankfully, that attitude is slowly changing, and the growing popularity of events like MLG, ESL, Dreamhack, or IEM, and shows like WCG Ultimate Gamer, show that the west is starting to be a lot more accepting of gaming.
On December 15 2010 05:03 Alpina wrote: Well eSports does not give you any benefits imo, unless you are making money from that.
People usually do sports cause it's very good for health, and eSports are bad for health.
eSports are waste of time usually, imho.
Wait...what? Can't believe you have 1000 posts on TL.net and write a post like this. How is eSports bad for your health, wtf?
Bad because most people tend to eliminate other primary factors out of their lives when gaming such as a proper diet and exercise. How many nerds do you know that workout on a daily basis/keep a fantastic diet? I don't know many. It's usually whatever can be microwaved faster. It's unhealthy because you are far too enveloped into the game.
This is true but can be easily changed. This fact doesn't derive from an actual effect of the game, but because of bad teaching. Regular physical activity and proper diet are habits, and as such are to be learned from the crib onward. Both activities are perfectly compatible, you just need to be orderly and keep nice habits, however, if these haven't been taught, it can be tough to make them in an older person.
The point about excessive involvement has been scarcely studied in medical terms, but psychiatry studies have concluded that it has a rather large addictive potential, given the highly rewarding experience (get a kill, get pampered by the game, win a ladder game, get points and that oh so cute little portrait for your account, etc), plus the adrenaline rush gaming produces in some people. This combination "imprints" the conduct in the reward cycle processes in the brain, an effect similar to some drugs' one, producing a psychological dependency. Basically, parents and people themselves have to be VERY careful in deciding who plays games, as this is a biologically determined effect, and as such it is personal for each and every one of us, some people just have a more addictable nature, and this can be very harmful.
On December 15 2010 05:32 IntoTheBush wrote: I can answer this! Sports is a physically draining activity, while e-sports is more of a mentally draining activity. Ive never heard of someone being sore from pwning newbs online.
I can think of many "sports" that aren't very physically demanding, example every shooting and marksmanship sport either with gun, rifle or bow and arrow.
What's the difference there? Don't tell me those aren't real sports they're in the Olympics.
Speaking from a very limited experience, marksmanship sports actually require a lot of physical training to keep the stabilizer muscles in peak condition for accurate shooting.
I'm suprised this conversation is still going on. Even the community doesn't consider video games as sport...hence the invention and use of a different category: esports. If we really thought SC2 was a sport, we'd simply call it a sport instead of parading it as an esport.
So the difference between sports and esports is that esports...aren't sports at all. We just call them that way because we're not satisfied with the label of "game". Mario Bros is a game...Farmville is a game....So many people devote so much time and energy into SC2 and it is so competitive that it can't possibly share the same category as those lame examples. So to better represent how we feel about SC2, SF4, CS, etc we created a new category for them that reflects the spirit of competition. And what's more competitive than sports? So esports makes sense in that way.
However, as was mentionned earlier in this thread, physical activity is required for a game to fit the definition of a sport. That's just the way the word is defined. It doesn't mean SC2 is less competitive or less worthy of our time. The OP was very good at listing similarities between sports and esports that make the latter quite valid. Lack of physical activity DOES, however, exclude video games from the definition of sports. The same thing applies to poker, cards, chess which are all very competitive with high skill caps but are categorized as GAMES and not sports.
So by definition SC2 is a competitive game but not a sport. It's still ok to call it an esport since that's a poorly defined word anyway. Personnally though I think esports is inadequate and kind of a clumsy terminology.
tldr: esports are not sports...they're esports or games.
On December 15 2010 06:32 PhiliBiRD wrote: 1 is via electronic device 1 isnt?
thats really it, the whole bullshit about esports being for unhealthy geeks is a stereotype, its just because the ratios are so skewed that ppl dont give it a chance.
Well, to be fair, using a computer isn't ever healthy. Running is. That's not to say gamers are terribly unhealthy people because most of us realize gaming all day is bad for us so we take break/work out/etc., but the established athletic sports are inherently "working out" anyways so yeah...
On December 15 2010 04:52 Rabbet wrote: One builds character, the other builds a basement lurking loser who can waste away their youths and go into adulthood filled with regrets.
omg your so cool
get lost
Well if he was intending to personify how "parents" and "adults" see it, than he nailed it on the head.
It's true. If most of the people on this forum spent as much time in the gym as they do playing Starcraft (which might not be humanly possible), it would definitely benefit them. That's the main difference between esports and real sports. Things like hockey and basketball are very good for your body, making it more physically fit and releasing stress, which is a medically proven fact.
I don't think esports does the same thing. Instead of being physically active for a few hours, you're sitting down at a computer moving your hands a grand total of maybe 6 inches at a time, performing a repetitive action that can lead to carpal tunnel and other RSI's.
However, the competition aspect and the skill aspect is very similar between real sports and esports, just in a different way. Peyton Manning has got nothin on Bisu's multitasking and mental agility, but it's pretty obvious who can run further, or lift more weights.
The reason that esports isn't huge in the West right now is because the athletes are NOT marketable. I'm sorry to all the baller-craft amateurs, but I have yet to see a professional SC2 player who could go on a respectable Western TV channel, do an advertisement or an interview, and not be laughed at. The exception to this rule might be InControl or Day9, but they are far behind the professionals like IdrA and Jinro who have much more introverted personalities.
People out here look at the TV, watch Tiger Woods (who is the world's most marketable athlete), swinging a certain golf club and want that product 50x more after watching it. They wouldn't watch IdrA sitting at a computer staring blankly into the screen and say "Holy, I want that guy's keyboard!" Companies can't make money off the players, they won't put money into the players, and there you have it.
However, as was mentionned earlier in this thread, physical activity is required for a game to fit the definition of a sport. That's just the way the word is defined. It doesn't mean SC2 is less competitive or less worthy of our time. The OP was very good at listing similarities between sports and esports that make the latter quite valid. Lack of physical activity DOES, however, exclude video games from the definition of sports. The same thing applies to poker, cards, chess which are all very competitive with high skill caps but are categorized as GAMES and not sports.
So by definition SC2 is a competitive game but not a sport. It's still ok to call it an esport since that's a poorly defined word anyway. Personnally though I think esports is inadequate and kind of a clumsy terminology.
tldr: esports are not sports...they're esports or games.
Here's where I think the mistake is. Ever since chess became a "sport" (and it did, there's no question about it, since most countries and large organizations consider it a sport), the definition widened away from physical strain requirements. The term is now flexible and focuses the competitive aspect of the activity. This is because what is a sport and what isn't is defined by society as a whole, and this is what eSports are lacking right now. Once that is achieved the path will be clear.
On December 15 2010 06:13 ashaman771 wrote: The issue isn't that starcraft isn't difficult to master, or doesn't require skill. It's a difficult game that requires skill.
The issue is
What seperates eSports from Sports?
Sports requires competition and physical exertion. Starcraft is missing physical exertion, so it's not a sport.
Chess is definitely a sport, considered so by most of society and large organizations. I don't believe this is an issue. Like someone posted before me, "perception is everything", when society accepts eSports as "Sports" then they'll be sports, societies define what sports are. Ever since chess, a non-physical activity, earned a place as a valid sport because of it's competitive and demanding nature, the definition of what a sport is became rather flexible. It will take a few years but if more games like SC, halo, CS, quake, etc are made thinking in competition, then they'll eventually be considered a sport, some day.
The problem with video games is that it only takes practice to get good. A 13 year old can be as good as 225lb 25 year old that can bench 4 plates. It only takes time to be good.
On December 15 2010 05:03 Alpina wrote: Well eSports does not give you any benefits imo, unless you are making money from that.
People usually do sports cause it's very good for health, and eSports are bad for health.
eSports are waste of time usually, imho.
Wait...what? Can't believe you have 1000 posts on TL.net and write a post like this. How is eSports bad for your health, wtf?
Bad because most people tend to eliminate other primary factors out of their lives when gaming such as a proper diet and exercise. How many nerds do you know that workout on a daily basis/keep a fantastic diet? I don't know many. It's usually whatever can be microwaved faster. It's unhealthy because you are far too enveloped into the game.
But then you look at people from all walks of life and they're often overweight and leading sedentary lives. Then you look at the progaming circuit and you notice that they're almost all fit and healthy people (From the GSL I think July was the only overweight person in the booth).
The idea of a gamer as some fat, greasy, eats-nothing-but-pizza shut-in is part of the social stigma against gaming. The fact is that society as a whole is becoming increasingly unhealthy, regardless of whether the people in question are gamers or not.
EPT
