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Here's the article in question: Video games should be in Olympics, says Warcraft maker
It cites Rob Pardo's declaration that E-sports should be at the Olympics. If you like the idea, what would you like to see in terms of StarCraft?
*How many foreigners? / How many per country allowed?
*Team or individual format...or both?
Poll: Would you like to see StarCraft as an Olympic event?★★★★★ - Absolutely! (188) 34% ★★★★ - Sounds cool! (3) 1% ★★★ - Could work (19) 3% ★★ - Maybe not (20) 4% ★ - Not a good idea (323) 58% 553 total votes Your vote: Would you like to see StarCraft as an Olympic event? (Vote): ★★★★★ - Absolutely!
(Vote): ★★★★ - Sounds cool!
(Vote): ★★★ - Could work
(Vote): ★★ - Maybe not
(Vote): ★ - Not a good idea
Poll: Would you want to see team play, individual or both?Individual (166) 54% Team (18) 6% Both (123) 40% 307 total votes Your vote: Would you want to see team play, individual or both? (Vote): Individual
(Vote): Team
(Vote): Both
PS: Merry Christmas!
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Well, putting aside whether or not it should be at the olympics, if it did get in, there would be an absolute outrage from more traditionally physical sports who don't get in. It would be a media shitstorm and bad publicity for the medium in general.
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On December 25 2014 14:13 neobowman wrote:
Well, putting aside whether or not it should be at the olympics, if it did get in, there would be an absolute outrage from more traditionally physical sports who don't get in. It would be a media shitstorm and bad publicity for the medium in general.
That's just what I'm afraid of, frankly.
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Media (and apparently Rob Pardo) needs to stop thinking of eSports as something that needs to be "incorporated" into physical sports to legitimate itself. A separate eSports Olympics sounds much more interesting and would be far less poorly received. Adding eSports to the actual Olympics is just silly. You might as well ask whether there should be a Madden competition added to the Super Bowl. The two are just different things.
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On December 25 2014 14:22 Yakikorosu wrote:
Media (and apparently Rob Pardo) needs to stop thinking of eSports as something that needs to be "incorporated" into physical sports to legitimate itself. A separate eSports Olympics sounds much more interesting and would be far less poorly received. Adding eSports to the actual Olympics is just silly. You might as well ask whether there should be a Madden competition added to the Super Bowl. The two are just different things.
Love the comparison to Madden. Why not Frogger or Donkey Kong?
eSports is a long way off from being seen as a serious competition in the eyes of the public - and many of their complaints would be legitimate and damning - but to outright suggest that eSports will never have a place at the Olympics? Chess is considered a sport, and SC is far, far more physical an activity than chess. Shooting is an Olympic sport. The lines of distinction here are not unambiguous.
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On December 25 2014 14:31 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 14:22 Yakikorosu wrote:
Media (and apparently Rob Pardo) needs to stop thinking of eSports as something that needs to be "incorporated" into physical sports to legitimate itself. A separate eSports Olympics sounds much more interesting and would be far less poorly received. Adding eSports to the actual Olympics is just silly. You might as well ask whether there should be a Madden competition added to the Super Bowl. The two are just different things. Love the comparison to Madden. Why not Frogger or Donkey Kong? eSports is a long way off from being seen as a serious competition in the eyes of the public - and many of their complaints would be legitimate and damning - but to outright suggest that eSports will never have a place at the Olympics? Chess is considered a sport, and SC is far, far more physical an activity than chess. Shooting is an Olympic sport. The lines of distinction here are not unambiguous.
Chess has a separate olympics, as it should.
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Not into the actual Olympics...there should be an e-sport Olympics to heighten awareness between games and give a sense of solidarity to the e-sport genre in general. But definitely not into the physical Olympics as is current.
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On December 25 2014 14:39 GolemMadness wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 14:31 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 25 2014 14:22 Yakikorosu wrote:
Media (and apparently Rob Pardo) needs to stop thinking of eSports as something that needs to be "incorporated" into physical sports to legitimate itself. A separate eSports Olympics sounds much more interesting and would be far less poorly received. Adding eSports to the actual Olympics is just silly. You might as well ask whether there should be a Madden competition added to the Super Bowl. The two are just different things. Love the comparison to Madden. Why not Frogger or Donkey Kong? eSports is a long way off from being seen as a serious competition in the eyes of the public - and many of their complaints would be legitimate and damning - but to outright suggest that eSports will never have a place at the Olympics? Chess is considered a sport, and SC is far, far more physical an activity than chess. Shooting is an Olympic sport. The lines of distinction here are not unambiguous. Chess has a separate olympics, as it should.
Shooting, and the use of tools in sports is not the same as E-Sports. E-Sports makes use of an engine outside of the real world engine to make the game work. That's like arguing that a sport like Hockey isn't as much of sport because a player uses a stick or skates. There is very little that is unambiguous here. If a sport makes use of an engine that isn't based on nature then it isn't going to be olympic.
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On December 25 2014 15:02 docvoc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 14:39 GolemMadness wrote:On December 25 2014 14:31 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 25 2014 14:22 Yakikorosu wrote:
Media (and apparently Rob Pardo) needs to stop thinking of eSports as something that needs to be "incorporated" into physical sports to legitimate itself. A separate eSports Olympics sounds much more interesting and would be far less poorly received. Adding eSports to the actual Olympics is just silly. You might as well ask whether there should be a Madden competition added to the Super Bowl. The two are just different things. Love the comparison to Madden. Why not Frogger or Donkey Kong? eSports is a long way off from being seen as a serious competition in the eyes of the public - and many of their complaints would be legitimate and damning - but to outright suggest that eSports will never have a place at the Olympics? Chess is considered a sport, and SC is far, far more physical an activity than chess. Shooting is an Olympic sport. The lines of distinction here are not unambiguous. Chess has a separate olympics, as it should. E-Sports makes use of an engine outside of the real world engine to make the game work.
What a funny thing to say with such confidence. What, pray tell, does "outside of the real world engine" mean?
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Starcraft an Olympic sport? What would Blizzard do if *gasp* an American represented the US? Blizzard isn't ready for this. They would probably reprimand the Olympics and give them a lecture about how enthralled the world is with third-10th tier Koreans, and how they should represent every nation, else what's the point?
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I'm gonna say no cause e-sports have no staying power. How long is CSGO, DOTA2, StarCraft etc going to remain popular? 5 years? 10 years max? We're talking about an event that takes place every 4 years. Only Brood War has stood the test of time, but even its 16 year span is like a blip compared to the majority of sports at the Olympics, and it's mostly played by Koreans so it wouldn't be a good Olympic sport nor is it the most popular e-sport anymore.
This is the fundamental problem with e-sports at the Olympics: graphics get old, people get bored, new games come out and popularity wanes. Public perception can change in the future but this problem will stay with us.
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i don't recall any olympic sports that feature everyone sitting in chairs lol
honestly i think i'd rather just have a WCG that's 1000x better. there's already a lot of preparation that's required for the olympics i'd rather not have internet, pc and tournament preparation added on top of what they already do.
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On December 25 2014 16:04 Gamegene wrote:
i don't recall any olympic sports that feature everyone sitting in chairs lol
honestly i think i'd rather just have a WCG that's 1000x better. there's already a lot of preparation that's required for the olympics i'd rather not have internet, pc and tournament preparation added on top of what they already do.
Plenty of chairs in paralympics, lets go for paralympics guys.
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First we need to petition for Chess to be in the Olympics, then we can talk about eSports.
On December 25 2014 16:04 Gamegene wrote:
i don't recall any olympic sports that feature everyone sitting in chairs lol
honestly i think i'd rather just have a WCG that's 1000x better. there's already a lot of preparation that's required for the olympics i'd rather not have internet, pc and tournament preparation added on top of what they already do.
I think there was one archer in the Olympics that had to sit down to shoot. Not sure if she was in the para-olympics though.
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On December 25 2014 16:11 TargA wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 16:04 Gamegene wrote:
i don't recall any olympic sports that feature everyone sitting in chairs lol
honestly i think i'd rather just have a WCG that's 1000x better. there's already a lot of preparation that's required for the olympics i'd rather not have internet, pc and tournament preparation added on top of what they already do. Plenty of chairs in paralympics, lets go for paralympics guys.
SC2 in paralympics, the dream.
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This is one of those ideas that sounds cool at first, and then after a couple seconds of thinking you realize that it's incredibly stupid.
StarCraft is a proprietary product by Blizzard. Think about the legal and financial mess of license agreements this would entail. Blizzard does not deserve excess money thrown at them.
If StarCraft was open-source and released under a strict copyleft license, then maybe it would be a plausible idea. Like that's ever going to happen.
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On December 25 2014 16:47 TAMinator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 16:11 TargA wrote:On December 25 2014 16:04 Gamegene wrote:
i don't recall any olympic sports that feature everyone sitting in chairs lol
honestly i think i'd rather just have a WCG that's 1000x better. there's already a lot of preparation that's required for the olympics i'd rather not have internet, pc and tournament preparation added on top of what they already do. Plenty of chairs in paralympics, lets go for paralympics guys. SC2 in paralympics, the dream.
Physically "inept" geeks playing a game for money. Woot go SC2!
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Absolutely not.
I would not want to see IOC getting their hands involved.
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On December 25 2014 17:23 Piste wrote:
Absolutely not.
I would not want to see IOC getting their hands involved.
We could add the IOC to the evil StarCraft organisations rating thread
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Absolutely not. Olympics are about physical abilities so skinny nerds playing computer games dont really fit. 
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It wouldn't be exciting for non-esports fans who don't know it that much. (For esports fans it will be exciting). Not all countries have players who are the same lvl as the pros are
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Has everyone just overlooked the WCG? It's already there just not popular/optimised. (Why would you compete in that and show your strats when you can just enter that $50k tournament which gives money for top 16)
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On December 25 2014 20:58 TC_Beynbio wrote:
It wouldn't be exciting for non-esports fans who don't know it that much. (For esports fans it will be exciting). Not all countries have players who are the same lvl as the pros are
That's the same thing as real sports though there's lots of amateurs from the smaller countries going up against pros.
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On December 25 2014 17:19 Lazare1969 wrote:
This is one of those ideas that sounds cool at first, and then after a couple seconds of thinking you realize that it's incredibly stupid.
StarCraft is a proprietary product by Blizzard. Think about the legal and financial mess of license agreements this would entail. Blizzard does not deserve excess money thrown at them.
If StarCraft was open-source and released under a strict copyleft license, then maybe it would be a plausible idea. Like that's ever going to happen.
This. An olympic sport should absolutely not be something that's 100% under the control of a profit-seeking company. Not even FIFA can flick a switch and intantaneously end every game of football being played.
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IOC is extremely corrupt. I don't think you want to give a piece of the esportdollar pie to a corruption netwerk of the type that has proven to be able to thrive in countries where overall corruption is low because of regulation; rich white men leading multinationals.
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Olympic events are only physical sports afaik and furthermore eSports is targeting a niche audience compared to other sports events like soccer. I don't think eSports and Olympic Games fit. We had the World Cyber Games (WCG) which were the eSports event similar to Olympia, but the organisation didn't manage it well over the last years.
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Starcraft and esports in general do not belong in the Olympics, regardless of whether or not they are considered "sports."
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the competitions we have are way enough, why should it be introduced into the olympic games ?
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It's called World Cyber Games..
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No thanks. Theread would be a lot of stigma and criticism towards esports if it were to happen, so what's the point? We already have enough competition, and esports isn't a traditional Olympic sport, regardless of what we or Pardo might think
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the olympics are for physical sports, which require a different set of skills and abilities from esports, so i don't see the sense in smushing them together
i really dislike the obsession with making everyone's hobby a "sport". poker is a sport, esports are a sport, everything is a sport. for me "sports" means physical sports, and that's fine. it doesn't mean physical sports are somehow morally better than other recreations. but in terms of language i think it's fine for sports to just be sports.
also, in terms of logistics, i don't see what the point is of having esports "at" the olympics. physical sport fans aren't that likely to be interested in them, and vice versa. why force them together? the only reason i can think of is because of a bitter jealousy on the part of geeky esports fans, which i find petty and pointless. you don't have to force shit down people's throats just because they like athletics and not computer games.
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there is no 1 right answer for this.
sooner or later you must draw the line in the minimum required physicality. it all depends on where you want to draw that arbitrary line.
if you include Curling though then i think you SC qualifies as well.
Curling has 50 year old world champions.
flip side of this is....
If Curling is not physical enough and does not qualify then neither should Starcraft.
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I think it would be cool but it will never happen. If they can't get baseball or squash in the Olympics, much less martial arts like karate and wushu fighting for legitimacy and even scaring people that wrestling might not be in the 2020 Games, and you have other hobbies like climbing and roller sports knocking unsuccessfully at the door, e-sports has no chance at all. It doesn't have the money, the spread among countries, or the diversity of winners to get in.
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On December 25 2014 23:53 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
there is no 1 right answer for this.
sooner or later you must draw the line in the minimum required physicality. it all depends on where you want to draw that arbitrary line.
if you include Curling though then i think you SC qualifies as well.
Curling has 50 year old world champions.
flip side of this is....
If Curling is not physical enough and does not qualify then neither should Starcraft.
it's not really that simple. you don't have to draw a line with physicality as the one and only criterion, and inclusion in the olympics is based on more than whether something is categorically a sport. baseball was removed and baseball is a sport by anyone's definition.
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When we have one game significant in esports for more than 30 years, why not. Currently most games wouldn't be on Olympics more than 2 times and that wouldn't make much sense.
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One problem I see is which Games? when you say esports I think of so many different games that it just wouldn't work. We need our own Gaming Olympics that hosts many many games.
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Voted not a good idea.
But if you forget all the obvious issues...
What game would it be? The problem is these games constantly change/get updated.
You would have to decide on 1 game (a final version mind you - no more patches) and stick to that....
So that people can train in 4 year Olympic cycles, good luck finding a rts game which doesn't get stale in that scenario.
And of course it should be a rts game, since fighting/fps genres and the like have real world physical counterpart that are much more appropriate for the Olympics.
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People should stop to begging for attention, progaming can live without being a "sport" and this is the best part because the competitive games will always evolve and change while sports will stay the same over and over.
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On December 26 2014 00:01 brickrd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 23:53 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
there is no 1 right answer for this.
sooner or later you must draw the line in the minimum required physicality. it all depends on where you want to draw that arbitrary line.
if you include Curling though then i think you SC qualifies as well.
Curling has 50 year old world champions.
flip side of this is....
If Curling is not physical enough and does not qualify then neither should Starcraft. it's not really that simple. you don't have to draw a line with physicality as the one and only criterion, and inclusion in the olympics is based on more than whether something is categorically a sport. baseball was removed and baseball is a sport by anyone's definition.
right, there are 43857847 potential sports that can be put into the olympics.
there has to be some limit due to logistics. i think 28 was the limit when baseball got dropped. that is the "official" IOC narrative.
what it really boils down to is greasing the skids of the IOC. and the MLB and MLBPA was unwilling to do so and unwilling to pay to the insurance for the players.. something the NHL and NBA are willing to do... namely, pay for the player's insurance.
the IOC refuses to pay for insurance for the players pro contracts.
that's the reason baseball was dropped.
If some software publisher really greases the IOC skids they could get their game into the olympics.\
it'd be obscene... but the IOC is all about kick backs and quid pro quo.
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On December 25 2014 20:50 FanaticCZ wrote:Absolutely not. Olympics are about physical abilities so skinny nerds playing computer games dont really fit.
Sure the Beer-Belly Air-Pistol and Skeet shooters are the best Athletes in their Sport. But Code S level players keeping up their highest level of focus with an average of 300 APM matching up in BO-x Series which can last up to several hours are just skinny nerds.
Or take a look at riding; the only reason why this is still in the olympics is because it was there even in the ancient olympic games - not because it is so demanding for the rider to jump over several obstacles.
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We've had this debate many times over the years and I still stick to my answer. Definitely not.
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Broodwar maybe, SC2 definitelly not.
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On December 26 2014 01:06 StarStruck wrote:
We've had this debate many times over the years and I still stick to my answer. Definitely not.
same comment.
I really don't want to see this happening
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You guys are talking about negative opinion from random people around the world, the truth is that if (SC2 for example) got 100 new fans and 1000 haters, it's worth it every time.
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i don't think anyone has argued that it wouldn't be helpful to esports lol
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On December 26 2014 02:04 Gamegene wrote:
i don't think anyone has argued that it wouldn't be helpful to esports lol
I didn't say I want it to be helpful to esports. I just said that we shouldn't look at people who will be against putting e-sports into Olympics. I mean it will happen sooner or later, the only question is if they will do something parallel to Olympics or not.
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On December 26 2014 01:51 Nerchio wrote:
You guys are talking about negative opinion from random people around the world, the truth is that if (SC2 for example) got 100 new fans and 1000 haters, it's worth it every time.
Any publicity is good publicity!
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On December 26 2014 02:24 darthfoley wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2014 01:51 Nerchio wrote:
You guys are talking about negative opinion from random people around the world, the truth is that if (SC2 for example) got 100 new fans and 1000 haters, it's worth it every time. Any publicity is good publicity!
apparently not the right impression
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I don't know how or if it could possibly work, but getting a BBC article that mentions ESports (Starcraft no less) and the Olympics in the same phrase is great.
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Well there was an org that tried to do exhibition matches with olympic ruleset and at the olympic venues during the olympics. That was almost official, Big reason that it didnt happen was cost and lack of interest from players. A 0 prize pool tournament with huge costs just isnt that appealing .and the big question of why compete in that? when there was WCG at the time.
edit: for clarity, this was several years ago.
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On December 25 2014 20:50 FanaticCZ wrote:Absolutely not. Olympics are about physical abilities so skinny nerds playing computer games dont really fit.
A skinny nerd doesn't fit... But a 50yo fat guy with an air pistol fits. I see.
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On December 26 2014 03:56 Pr0wler wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 20:50 FanaticCZ wrote:Absolutely not. Olympics are about physical abilities so skinny nerds playing computer games dont really fit. A skinny nerd doesn't fit... But a 50yo fat guy with an air pistol fits. I see.
If SC and other games were about how precisely you control a mouse and keyboard or how fast you can do it then maybe we could slide into the olympics.
DDR + Osu please.
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I've always seen WCG as somewhat being the olympics for e-sports, though obviously my view on that has changed after a while, but I would rather see e-sports have its own olympics instead of being put in the same "category" as the real olympics.
Obviously, chances are slim anyways, to see e-sports being included to the olympics. Would be awkward as well tbh.
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eSports might have viewership numbers comparable to some Olympic events, but they're far from being "mature" enough disciplines. There are simply too many games in too many different genres that rotate in and out of popularity too quickly.
But even beyond that, the competition is too volatile; the "rules of the game" can be drastically changed. Other sports do have similar examples (In foil fencing, the time it takes for a hit to register was increased in 2005, eliminating most "flicking". As a side note, if you thought swarm host mirrors are boring enough to require rule changes...), but nothing like introducing entirely new units, weapons, heroes, or maps.
Besides rule changes, the other problem is in athlete turnover. Take the example of SC2 as a relatively long-lived eSport that might fit in the Olympics; if you had one "Olympic-eSports" event in 2010 and another one in 2014, the list of top competitors you might expect to see would have completely turned over multiple times. And then in 2018 SC2 might not even be popular enough to feature anymore. In traditional sports you expect to see familiar faces year after year, people that try to defend their title or overtake a rival over multiple seasons. In eSports players and teams not infrequently go from champions to forgotten over a single year.
Also, eSports are fundamentally commercial products, which in my opinion is highly problematic for neutral international competition. No-one "owns" the rights and profits of basketball or the 100m sprint the way Riot owns the rights to LoL or Valve does in Dota2 and CS:GO.
That eSports are sedentary doesn't matter. I'd support Chess as an Olympic sport over any eSport (long history, few rule changes, stable professional scene, open copyright, deeply strategic, etc.)
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3070 Posts
There are so many sports that deserves getting in before eSports. Still think dancing should definitely be in before eSports. So many different styles require insane physicality, all from ballet to bboying. Plus I think almost everyone non eSports viewer will think an air-flare is more awesome than some marine dropping (even I think so).
Air-flare:
+ Show Spoiler +
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On December 26 2014 04:02 Gamegene wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2014 03:56 Pr0wler wrote:On December 25 2014 20:50 FanaticCZ wrote:Absolutely not. Olympics are about physical abilities so skinny nerds playing computer games dont really fit. A skinny nerd doesn't fit... But a 50yo fat guy with an air pistol fits. I see. If SC and other games were about how precisely you control a mouse and keyboard or how fast you can do it then maybe we could slide into the olympics. DDR + Osu please.
I don't think that eSports should be at the olympics, because of 10 million reason... I just dont like these "skinny nerd" comments. The olympic games are not exclusively for ripped swimers and runners.
btw. Judo and Taekwondo are olympic sports and Karate is not... Fix that first, then think about esports !!!
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On December 26 2014 00:57 Terah wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 20:50 FanaticCZ wrote:Absolutely not. Olympics are about physical abilities so skinny nerds playing computer games dont really fit. Sure the Beer-Belly Air-Pistol and Skeet shooters are the best Athletes in their Sport. But Code S level players keeping up their highest level of focus with an average of 300 APM matching up in BO-x Series which can last up to several hours are just skinny nerds. Or take a look at riding; the only reason why this is still in the olympics is because it was there even in the ancient olympic games - not because it is so demanding for the rider to jump over several obstacles.
Sure u can start to cherrypick but u definitely get my point. PC gaming (e-sports) has nothing to do with Olympics. Obviously there are silly disciplines there, but they are still a lot closer to a sport than Starcraft OR they have a long history to justify being there (e.g. shooting, horse riding).
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On December 26 2014 04:41 Pr0wler wrote:
btw. Judo and Taekwondo are olympic sports and Karate is not... Fix that first, then think about esports !!!
why would the esports community fix that before thinking about esports?
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In terms of public acceptance and awarenesse, chess has higher chances for being olympic. But it wont. Chess is not physical, its just sitting and thats why esport will never be olympic.
Some years ago there was World Cyber Games, kinda the esport version of Olympic Games. But as buisseness goes, and esport is all about buisseness, it made no profit and due to bad decisions to make profit, it lost everything that made it so special in the first place.
What esport needs is an association, something that is not a company from a game. Esport right now is more about promoting a game to make money than doing actuall sport. Atleast from the point of view of their companies. Take LoL and Riot or Dota2 and Valve or SC2 and Blizzard.
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Olympics? Just do not see it. A reinvigorated WCG or something would be better for e-sports imo.
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On December 25 2014 18:52 algue wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 17:23 Piste wrote:
Absolutely not.
I would not want to see IOC getting their hands involved. We could add the IOC to the evil StarCraft organisations rating thread
IOC + KeSPa working together would be just great. Just absolutely great.
Echoing what a lot of others have said, not really a great idea. We're legitimate to ourselves, I don't feel we have to "prove ourselves" to the greater audience of the world since we ARE a niche and I like it that way. Not to say we shouldn't get bigger, I just don't think getting "olympic big" is where we need to go, especially since there are so many things that could be done wrong by the IOC if they don't handle esporting events correctly.
On December 26 2014 05:30 KrOmander wrote:
Olympics? Just do not see it. A reinvigorated WCG or something would be better for e-sports imo.
So much this, just of course with less money falling through the floor and mobile games of course.
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it'll be the laughing stock of olympics. people are trying to compare it to the least physically demanding sports, that is the first problem. though some sports may not take physical prowess, it does require physical skill like shooting and archery, even golf.
finger dexterity? get the fuck out. its a strategy game, not a typing competition.
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France9034 Posts
I think eSports could be at the olympics the day it's opensource, though it'd still face the other problems (why eSports and not other more classic sports that don't make it already? is it really a sport that fits in? etc.)
I can't see it there otherwise, as the fact esports games today are developed by companies and that it makes it quite strange. Dunno how to express it correctly, but my gut feeling is that it's wrong in the way it is today ^^.
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Mr Pardo argues that e-sports could be visually appealing to a broad audience.
"You can do whatever you want with the graphics, you can make it be really excited and competitive," he said.
It's unfortunate that the whole article is based upon comments from one guy who doesn't understand why a sport/esport becomes popular/interesting to watch. Graphics are almost irrelevant - at least good graphics doesn't make it more exciting.
Rather, the issue with esports is mainly that it can be quite difficult to understand what's going on if do not have any experience with playing them yourself. That's unlike sports such as swimming that you can watch and root for your nationalty, even if you do not have any past experience with the sport. At the current point in time, CS is probably the esport that is the easiest to understand for the mainstream audience.
The size of esport difficult isn't the issue though. A game such as League of Legends is much more widely played and watched than many of the smaller sports at the olympycs. Moreover, esports is also almost certain too grow at a very high rate over the next 5-15 years, and it also creates an opportunity for the olympycs to target the young audience. Therefore, there are definitely strong arguments for including esports into OL. However, there are much stronger arguments against it, and those it isn't realistic withing an 8-12 year old time frame.
it'll be the laughing stock of olympics. people are trying to compare it to the least physically demanding sports, that is the first problem. though some sports may not take physical prowess, it does require physical skill like shooting and archery, even golf.
I see that as unlikely. League of Legends could fill out a 40k stadium at the worlds final. You would see similar numbers - or perhaps even better - at the olympycs, and thus it will be way too popular to be considered a laughing stock. There will definitely be critics, but I think the general perception will be that this is the future. Therefore it would be great if it could be included, but it's very unlikely that it will.
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Also something that may happen(although probably not) is that the people organizing the events would get some random guy to commentate,like in WCG 2005 which started Tasteless' career
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No. Olympics should promote physical health and the beauty of what the human body is capable.
Honestly they don't deserve to be in the Olympic Village with all these other hot athletes and fine specimens.
It would be embarrassing.
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Geez some people are so stupid. The argument of "oh, curling or whatever else doesn't require much physical exercise etc" is such a bad argument because there is so much more to the situation.
Like it was pointed out already, how can you have something in the Olympics that is owned by a company? Automatically, any "sport" that is physically owned by a company is disqualified from being in the Olympics. An Olympic sport should be accessible to any person in the world for free if you can recreate the tools to use it. Not depend on Blizzard servers and giving Blizzard $30 to play the game. This is the number one thing that will NEVER allow an esport game to be in the olympics. Unless a company says, hey, we're done with this game, you can set up your server, and play it. As long as there is any copyright, it wont work.
Next, the lifespan of a pro and the lifespan of games... It's too short. Putting a game like Dota 2, LoL, or SC2 is a completely waste in my eyes. They are games that have been around for 3-4 years, with truly an uncertain future. I would say at MINIMUM, a game must have 10 years of active play with an active audience and tournament base... And to be considered it'd need to have a positive outlook for the next 10 years. There is no game in the world right now (not even BW), that is at that level. Like mentioned, most games would be in the olympics once or twice if it was selected from current games, and considering that a players career tends to be 1-5 years in SC2 or Dota, 4 years seems far too long anyway.
Anyway, I kind of like what one poster said, I think Olympic games should be ones that take place in "the real world engine". I think that's what separates sports like curling, shooting, archery, etc... And video games. They are similar in a way, where physical strength isn't that important, it's more so concentration, dexterity, mental strength, etc. And that's why I think the best option is also the "Cybersport Olympics"...
Except they don't need to be called olympics, and they don't need to take place every four years. There are many logistic problems associated with it however. Firstly, Olympics don't really payout money, and as such, you compete in the Olympics mainly for prestige. Look at WCG, it has no prestige, nobody cares enough to even go there. Until some body gets enough recognition, no country will make some bid to host the largest annual or biennial event if it gets no exposure from it. And in video games, I just feel like people aren't playing to make people proud, rather to have fun and make money, I'm not using the right words to express it, but I hope some people understand what I mean.
Oh, last thing I would also add is it's difficult to regulate or promote an esport in a country. Like when you have an Olympics team of ski jumpers, nobody in your country and just come up, and be like... yo, I'm better. But the seeding process for esports seems quite hectic. Since how do you decide who gets to play? You host a random online tournament, and you'll send someone who you've never even seen before to these olympics? It's not an impossible obstacle to overcome, but anything that takes place over the internet just naturally has less structure, and it'd hurt the event.
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On December 26 2014 10:40 zimz wrote:
No. Olympics should promote physical health and the beauty of what the human body is capable.
Honestly they don't deserve to be in the Olympic Village with all these other hot athletes and fine specimens.
It would be embarrassing.
Just like in:
Archery
Canoe Slalom
Canoe Sprint
BMX
Equestrian/Dressage
Equestrian/Eventing
Equestrian/Jumping
Fencing
Golf
Sailing
Shooting
Table Tennis
Bobsleigh
Curling
Luge
Skeleton
Ski Jumping ?
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never would i want esports part of the olympics. first of all, esports games would have to be part of either summer or winter games which is an initial problem plus olympic sports require a massive amount of skill, mental focus and physical endurance. esports on the other hand requires plenty of skill, mental focus, mental endurance but a very small amount of physical endurance therefore sort of sucking the "sport" aspect out of esports. thats just my opinion on it tho
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On December 26 2014 10:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2014 10:40 zimz wrote:
No. Olympics should promote physical health and the beauty of what the human body is capable.
Honestly they don't deserve to be in the Olympic Village with all these other hot athletes and fine specimens.
It would be embarrassing. Just like in: Archery Canoe Slalom Canoe Sprint BMX Equestrian/Dressage Equestrian/Eventing Equestrian/Jumping Fencing Golf Sailing Shooting Table Tennis Bobsleigh Curling Luge Skeleton Ski Jumping ?
All those promote physical health.
and
Fencing(Sword Fighting),Archery, Sailing, Shooting, Horse Riding, Canoe= over 10,000+ years old arts human co evolved with for survival.
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On December 26 2014 11:04 zimz wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2014 10:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 26 2014 10:40 zimz wrote:
No. Olympics should promote physical health and the beauty of what the human body is capable.
Honestly they don't deserve to be in the Olympic Village with all these other hot athletes and fine specimens.
It would be embarrassing. Just like in: Archery Canoe Slalom Canoe Sprint BMX Equestrian/Dressage Equestrian/Eventing Equestrian/Jumping Fencing Golf Sailing Shooting Table Tennis Bobsleigh Curling Luge Skeleton Ski Jumping ? All those promote physical health. and Fencing(Sword Fighting),Archery, Sailing, Shooting, Horse Riding, Canoe= over 10,000 years old arts human co evolved with for survival.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind these being olympic sports and video games not being.
But simply put, most of the ones I listed don't promote physical health. They have a history, and require certain skills, but don't require a body in great physical shape.
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At this moment no. Maybe after 50 years or so, when gaming is more accepted. Gaming not being a so called physical sport should not be an issue. Town planning and poetry were once part of the olympics, and the reason they were omitted was that it was deemed illogical that professional were allowed to compete, while the other activities were amateurbased.
I'm not saying e-sports shoudl be included, they should be held to the same criteria. When doing that I can only disagree with it's inclusion, as there is in my view a lack of organisation of professional scene ánd amateur scene. Also, e-sports are too broad. I might support a game that has a large following after a longer period of time. Lengthwise only bw (compared to the age of games in general), and in terms of social impact only LoL would come even close what I'd think is necessary to warrant inclusion.
Edit: Fiwifaki has a great point about commercialization of games. That's a point i overlooked. If a company has direct commercial benefit from the inclusion, it can't happen, ruling out almost all games.
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Well e-sports simply doesn't have the level of popularity necessary for it to be considered on the world stage. The only ones that should really be considered are counter strike...or league of legends. I don't think the sport necessarily needs to be easy to understand; just so long as it has a sufficiently large audience it should be okay. But it definitely helps in obtaining a large audience; most people tend to enjoy relatively simple things which are nevertheless exciting to watch.
edit 2: Actually I suppose the olympics is known throughout history for being about physical sports, so "finger dexterity" doesn't really cut it. And the same is true for chess. But curling is basically all about the gentlest of touches and is more than just fat dudes hurling rocks down an alley.
Also I think the issues of ownership by a company could be sorted out; after all you need quite a bit of money to participate in many other olympic games, and you will surely purchase supplies from a variety of different companies for any (physical) sport. So I'm not sure how paying $40 (whatever the price is now) to one company is a very meaningful impediment. Even if it does have a monopoly, how does this really affect anything?
edit: Did you guys read this tidbit from the article? I found it funny (anti-doping??), but it also addresses exactly the issue with chess:
Take chess, for instance. Supporters of the game have long called for its inclusion the Games, but the IOC has been reluctant, considering it a "mind sport" and therefore not welcome in the Games.
Video games face the same hurdle, but has done its best to at least act like a sport, by adding measures such as an anti-doping programme.
Mr Pardo argues that e-sports could be visually appealing to a broad audience.
"You can do whatever you want with the graphics, you can make it be really excited and competitive," he said.
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On December 26 2014 12:15 radscorpion9 wrote:Well e-sports simply doesn't have the level of popularity necessary for it to be considered on the world stage. The only ones that should really be considered are counter strike...or league of legends. I don't think the sport necessarily needs to be easy to understand; just so long as it has a sufficiently large audience it should be okay. But it definitely helps in obtaining a large audience; most people tend to enjoy relatively simple things which are nevertheless exciting to watch. edit 2: Actually I suppose the olympics is known throughout history for being about physical sports, so "finger dexterity" doesn't really cut it. And the same is true for chess. But curling is basically all about the gentlest of touches and is more than just fat dudes hurling rocks down an alley. Also I think the issues of ownership by a company could be sorted out; after all you need quite a bit of money to participate in many other olympic games, and you will surely purchase supplies from a variety of different companies for any (physical) sport. So I'm not sure how paying $40 (whatever the price is now) to one company is a very meaningful impediment. Even if it does have a monopoly, how does this really affect anything? edit: Did you guys read this tidbit from the article? I found it funny (anti-doping??), but it also addresses exactly the issue with chess: Show nested quote +Take chess, for instance. Supporters of the game have long called for its inclusion the Games, but the IOC has been reluctant, considering it a "mind sport" and therefore not welcome in the Games.
Video games face the same hurdle, but has done its best to at least act like a sport, by adding measures such as an anti-doping programme.
Mr Pardo argues that e-sports could be visually appealing to a broad audience.
"You can do whatever you want with the graphics, you can make it be really excited and competitive," he said.
Popularity? Who plays/watches curling? When I think of the Olympics, I think of obscure niche sports that only a handful of people play (at least in my mind). And, ofc I think of track and field, and who is the fastest black person... I'm all for more events that are country vs country, whether it involves sweating or thinking or w/e. Anything that would further legitimize esports would be a big plus, too.
It's too bad there aren't more WCG type things. The only player that would probably be against it would be Crank, who would be throwing a pity party for not being able to play for Ghana. Sorry, random but true jab.
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On December 26 2014 11:07 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2014 11:04 zimz wrote:On December 26 2014 10:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 26 2014 10:40 zimz wrote:
No. Olympics should promote physical health and the beauty of what the human body is capable.
Honestly they don't deserve to be in the Olympic Village with all these other hot athletes and fine specimens.
It would be embarrassing. Just like in: Archery Canoe Slalom Canoe Sprint BMX Equestrian/Dressage Equestrian/Eventing Equestrian/Jumping Fencing Golf Sailing Shooting Table Tennis Bobsleigh Curling Luge Skeleton Ski Jumping ? All those promote physical health. and Fencing(Sword Fighting),Archery, Sailing, Shooting, Horse Riding, Canoe= over 10,000 years old arts human co evolved with for survival. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind these being olympic sports and video games not being. But simply put, most of the ones I listed don't promote physical health. They have a history, and require certain skills, but don't require a body in great physical shape.
most of the ones you listed promote physical health, they just don't go onto extreme ends like weight lifting.
Most people don't realize but shooting for example does require quite a bit of physical strength
@playa
Curling viewership is not bad at all:
"According to a CBC feature, curling at the 2006 Winter Games drew 5 million viewers, eclipsing ice hockey and figure skating"
from the wiki
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In my opinion, I would vote No.
I would keep the Olympics as they are and continue something like the World Cyber Games.
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I really find this insulting to the Olympics. I think there are already too many stupid events in the Olympics and should stick to its roots of more traditional events - track & field, swimming, wrestling, boxing, etc. "Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for "Faster, Higher, Stronger." The Olympics is about feats of physical ability.
Personally, I think eSports has enough genres and games behind it to earn its own type of event. an e-lympics if you will (or the uhm World Cyber Games perhaps?). It should really be its own thing.
This is something most people may not know, but the Olympics is in a quandary because some members want to remove classic events for more extreme sports in order to be more appealing. They are removing events because they want to cap the number of participants in order to keep down logistic costs. So, introducing eSports (especially, LoL, dota, cs) would be a fucking nightmare because they all have large rosters. So introducing esports would necessarily be removing other events and I think that's shitty. They even removed wrestling. FUCKING WRESTLING. The oldest goddamn event there is. Jesus christ.
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On December 26 2014 10:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2014 10:40 zimz wrote:
No. Olympics should promote physical health and the beauty of what the human body is capable.
Honestly they don't deserve to be in the Olympic Village with all these other hot athletes and fine specimens.
It would be embarrassing. Just like in: Archery Canoe Slalom Canoe Sprint BMX Equestrian/Dressage Equestrian/Eventing Equestrian/Jumping Fencing Golf Sailing Shooting Table Tennis Bobsleigh Curling Luge Skeleton Ski Jumping ?
The majority of sports that you listed require the athlete to be in quality physical shape.
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Let's assume that esports is adopted in the Olympics. Would Starcraft 2 be an eligible game? That is, could its popularity survive for more than 1 Olympic cycle?
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What we need is some more coverage on t.v so we can get more people to play sc2 or any other e-sport games. Even a movie which would help I think which we had a discussion about this in another topic. So what I am getting at is that we need something like wcg back because it will never be in the Olympics right now for many reasons it could give us some coverage but it could backfire and you could see a lot of Criticism. It just will not fit in with all the physical sports. Wcg games was good it gave gamers there own completion to compete in so maybe something like that again. Voted no.
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Gamers already know where to watch gaming events. Gamers already know that if they want to watch it they can find a way. Television isn't needed because that's not our audience. The people who don't play games or didn't grow up playing them aren't suddenly going to come flocking to ESPN8 to watch LoL, Dota, SC, SF, whatever. The audience already knows where to find it; just like with things such as poker.
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I read a lot of comments about olympics being about physical performance, and that's why starcaft should not be in.
Well, theres lots of sports in olympics that requires understanding of the game, game sense and ability to read your opponent(s) to get into that level. It's not all about muscles, endurace or agility.
Except thinking ability, at least starcraft also requires good mechanics and not everyone is cabable of achieving 350apm in 30min match with awesome precision and pixelpresice accuracy. Not all computer games requires this (e.g. HeartStone).
Yet, I do not think that e-Sports should be mixed and messed with regular sports.
edit:
On December 26 2014 14:32 I_Love_Bacon wrote:
Gamers already know where to watch gaming events. Gamers already know that if they want to watch it they can find a way. Television isn't needed because that's not our audience. The people who don't play games or didn't grow up playing them aren't suddenly going to come flocking to ESPN8 to watch LoL, Dota, SC, SF, whatever. The audience already knows where to find it; just like with things such as poker.
Yeah, I agree each sentence.
+ traditional TV is becoming kind of outdated source for media and entertainment anyways.
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Not in favor of it. At all. NOBODY benefits.
1) It's not good for the Olympics to bring Starcraft on as an event.
- Think of the derision that's been thrown their way when a sport like Ribbon is introduced as the new Olympic event. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_%28rhythmic_gymnastics%29). Can you imagine the outrage from the general 'sporting' community that'd show up when our mostly-Korean 'athletes' show up?
- Think of the logistical nightmare associated with every previous Olympics, an event which typically loses a lot of money for the host nation. Now, add another large venue to the required list of facilities. SC2 tournaments don't happen in a shoebox. This venue requires equipment no other sports require, so no doubling up.
2) It's not good for the nations involved, except South Korea.
I don't expect a ton of support from many nation's Olympic teams to fund an event in which they stand barely any chance of bringing a medal back. South Korea dominates the Starcraft scenes so heavily that it's almost a given that Gold, Silver, and Bronze all go to the same nation. The question is just which specific Koreans will take the medals, more or less.
Sure, there's an outside chance that another nation *might* pick up a medal, but it's going to be the event most dominated by a single nation in either winter or summer Olympics. I'd place serious cash on 2/3 medals going to Korea and an extra rider on the third going that way too.
3) It may not be good for the E-Sports scene to get involved with the Olympics.
This is a point I've yet to see mentioned in the discussion. There's some popular opinion that the Olympics is a dying thing. It's going to be a long, drawn-out death, but it's on the decline. Time wrote a particularly damning article, about how it's getting difficult to find hosts for the games. Winter 2022 only has two cities left that are even trying for it - Beijing, China; and Almaty, Kazakhstan. [Article: http://time.com/3462070/olympics-winter-2022/］. We're trying to be up-and-coming - is getting involved with this increasingly corrupt and bloated organization even a good idea?
Further, the format of the Olympics is just WRONG for Starcraft. Whichever Olympic Games Starcraft would end up it, it'd be four years between competitions. Think of all the changes in metagame, tactics, strategy, maps, etc that occur on a seasonal basis. A four-year cycle is impossible for us. We're literally not playing the same game we were four years ago, and we won't be playing the same game four years from now. Four years after that, it'd quite possibly be yet another game as Starcraft 3: Revenge of the Rocks could be in development right now for all we know.
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On December 26 2014 14:32 I_Love_Bacon wrote:
Gamers already know where to watch gaming events. Gamers already know that if they want to watch it they can find a way. Television isn't needed because that's not our audience. The people who don't play games or didn't grow up playing them aren't suddenly going to come flocking to ESPN8 to watch LoL, Dota, SC, SF, whatever. The audience already knows where to find it; just like with things such as poker.
I get where your coming from most gamers know where to go. But we can always get new people involved if we what it to grow. By stretching to a different audience some people will be interested some will not. I am sure some kids that watch it would get excited and be intrigued to watch it but some adults will find it really boring and out of place. Just saying the because it would benefit the game.
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On December 26 2014 11:07 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 26 2014 11:04 zimz wrote:On December 26 2014 10:56 FiWiFaKi wrote:On December 26 2014 10:40 zimz wrote:
No. Olympics should promote physical health and the beauty of what the human body is capable.
Honestly they don't deserve to be in the Olympic Village with all these other hot athletes and fine specimens.
It would be embarrassing. Just like in: Archery Canoe Slalom Canoe Sprint BMX Equestrian/Dressage Equestrian/Eventing Equestrian/Jumping Fencing Golf Sailing Shooting Table Tennis Bobsleigh Curling Luge Skeleton Ski Jumping ? All those promote physical health. and Fencing(Sword Fighting),Archery, Sailing, Shooting, Horse Riding, Canoe= over 10,000 years old arts human co evolved with for survival. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind these being olympic sports and video games not being. But simply put, most of the ones I listed don't promote physical health. They have a history, and require certain skills, but don't require a body in great physical shape.
What? Fencing is one of the most physically and mentally demanding sports at the Olympics.
The problem with any e-sport at the Olympics is that to be an Olympic sport you need all the rules to be very precise and standardized. Everything needs to be standardized, patches are a big no-no.
Aside from Brood War, which game is 'finished'? Adding one patch in lol or dota is equal to changing the rules of the sport, you in essence change the game. This is why e-sports are called e-sports, not sports. And its completely fine to be in a different genre. Being in the Olympics would just turn everything into one big circus anyway, it would be chaos.
The IOC hosting a kind of e-sport Olympics every 2-3 years would be a nice solution.
edit: Oh, and the fact that there would be companies 'owning' Olypmic sports... yeah... Games would need to be open source.
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On December 25 2014 15:02 docvoc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2014 14:39 GolemMadness wrote:On December 25 2014 14:31 pure.Wasted wrote:On December 25 2014 14:22 Yakikorosu wrote:
Media (and apparently Rob Pardo) needs to stop thinking of eSports as something that needs to be "incorporated" into physical sports to legitimate itself. A separate eSports Olympics sounds much more interesting and would be far less poorly received. Adding eSports to the actual Olympics is just silly. You might as well ask whether there should be a Madden competition added to the Super Bowl. The two are just different things. Love the comparison to Madden. Why not Frogger or Donkey Kong? eSports is a long way off from being seen as a serious competition in the eyes of the public - and many of their complaints would be legitimate and damning - but to outright suggest that eSports will never have a place at the Olympics? Chess is considered a sport, and SC is far, far more physical an activity than chess. Shooting is an Olympic sport. The lines of distinction here are not unambiguous. Chess has a separate olympics, as it should. Shooting, and the use of tools in sports is not the same as E-Sports. E-Sports makes use of an engine outside of the real world engine to make the game work. That's like arguing that a sport like Hockey isn't as much of sport because a player uses a stick or skates. There is very little that is unambiguous here. If a sport makes use of an engine that isn't based on nature then it isn't going to be olympic.
I didn't know that electrons in motion were outside of nature.
I guess it's time to start believing in the supernatural.
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I was always talking about this, and I completely agree that it should become a Olympic discipline. Reasons are big, and I'm lazy to count them all again!
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Weren't WCG the esport olympics?
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If esports makes it to the olympics then why not the paralympics?
Kane vs LookNoHands gogogogogogo.
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On December 26 2014 14:32 I_Love_Bacon wrote:
Gamers already know where to watch gaming events. Gamers already know that if they want to watch it they can find a way. Television isn't needed because that's not our audience. The people who don't play games or didn't grow up playing them aren't suddenly going to come flocking to ESPN8 to watch LoL, Dota, SC, SF, whatever. The audience already knows where to find it; just like with things such as poker.
Well, we got Counter Strike twice from TV this year in Finland and alot more people are now interested in esports in here, so i think it was a good move.
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Mexico2170 Posts
to a little comment, karate as far as i know was in the olympics as a "trial" sport, and failed miserably, taekwon do didn't, thats why its in the olympics.
Esports are different that sports, they don't need olympics, arguably all DH, MLGs and sthat kind of stuff are the olympics right now.
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Lots of issues from Blizzard (or Riot or whoever) owning all the rights to the game to games changing every few years.
I'm not too much into the whole sport vs not sport debate; don't see why the Olympics couldn't include competitive games as well as sports. In terms of popularity the most popular esports are vastly more popular than the least popular olympic sports, especially if you include winter olympics, so no issue there.
But realistically, we have to ask how relevant the Olympics really is. Maybe it was 10 years ago, when you could watch events on TV or live. Nowdays, not so much. People are more likely to be exposed to esports through other channels and this will only be more true 10 years from now.
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Although the "theme" of the Olympics has historically been physical in nature (some are arguable, like equestrian which is physical but relies heavily also on an animal), I see no problem in adding games of "the mind" to the roster. A broader approach to human capabilities would just add to the show. And if your argument against esports in the Olympics is a conservative one which argues that things should stay as they are, then okay, I guess...?
Granted there are many problems. I agree with the concern above that the games change too much. But if you could have a stable e-sport, then that'd be great.
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EPT
