Topic: Rick Fox "Pro Gamers are Athletes"

And on The View no less. Rick Fox has made a moving statement that could really spark something.

So wait, I can get college scholarship by playing video games?! Sign me up!
But really, I don't get how "professional" video gaming is a sport, it really sounds like something a fat, secluded, hyper geek came up with as a job experience. Who is paying for this and why?
What next, pro movie watching? Pro book reading? What?

next up, pro stare contests!!!!!

You're all gonna lose! I'm the pro world champ!

Oh I don't know, maybe http://www.majorleaguegaming.com
Seriously, considering that poker, lumberjacking and even meat examination are declared as college/pro sports, absolutely nobody can make a case against pro gaming.

My brother watches DOTA2 matches that have stuff like sponsorship / commentators / large amounts of money for the winners. (More than many things that are considered sports anyway).

In South Korea people watch Starcraft matches in bars in a similar way most places watch sports.

pro forum complaining.
some of you guys would have a PhD by now.

I don't even. I like to know who started pro gaming and why.
Though if we're talking official games as sports, where is Tetris, Puyo Puyo, or Dr. Mario?
They're just as skill based as CoD, if not more. Puyo Puyo can be seriously competitive with skilled players.

If that were the case gamers would be spending more time with the ladies instead of video games like they were Johnny Manziel.

@ZeroZX_Dev You seem to be coming down kind of hard on the idea of gaming as a sport. Calling it a sport is strange, but it's not bad and I'm not sure what else you'd call it other than Competitive Gaming.. heck, they consider competitive eating a sport and that's way more ridiculous.

It's nice to see gaming coming out of the shadows and being taken a little more seriously. I'm not really into serious competitive gaming, but I know if I was good enough to make money off of it I'd definitely try to get into it. Making money doing what I love would be great.

@Spuratis The idea is just strange to me, I'll warm up to it eventually. I'll try sound like less of butt hole about it.

hacking being the equivalent of doping. I'm happy for gaming to be a sport.

Here is relevant discussion

I had a friend who briefly went pro in SC2. Then a while later I went and tried the game for myself. The difference in skill is really staggering - I can appreciate the amount of talent that goes into playing competitively. It also seems that many pro-gamers are intelligent and sociable, which is great at breaking the gaming stereotype.

But athlete isn't the word I would use, to be honest. Expert and professional seem to fit it better.

The answer is $$$. Millions of people watch competitive video game matches. This October the League of Legends world finals is going to be at a stadium that seats 66,000 people, and I bet you it'll sell out within a day. Players from outside the US can even get athlete visas to go play too. Also, good managers/players would make them go to the gym at least a few times a week to stay healthy. It's quite a bit less stereotypical than you seem to think it would be.

Haha, that's okay, it's definitely strange. I needed to warm up to the idea of it as well. The worst part about it, for me, is that it makes me a bit jealous of the younger gamers. The younger me would be going crazy trying to get into competitive gaming especially if it was in Smash Bros or even Counter Strike. (just examples.) now I don't think I'd stand a chance.. but who knows.

Right now the only real competitive games that seem to garner any real prize money is SC2, DOTA or LoL and I can't stand the way DOTA plays and LoL is great, but the people who play it.. that's a whole other story. SC2 on the other hand just doesn't appeal to me.

They're not athletes (neither are card players), but competitive gaming is a viable commercial enterprise.

Appreciating art is not a sport.
Video games are art, and playing games is appreciating that art.
You wouldn't say that going to an Art Museum is a sport, would you?

Dota 2 has a 10 million dollar prize pool (okay, $9,969,141). People make a living playing these games.

I've played a variety of sports my whole life and i've never met an athlete that considers Poker, Meat examination (seriously WTF who considers this a sport?), or video games as a sport. Anybody who plays sports understands they are athletic endeavors and not all GAMES qualify. Video games are games, not a sport. Hockey and gaming can not be compared. Just because some whack job apparently thinks meat examination is a sport does not mean it or other frivilous games/activities are. Video games, i repeat, are not a sport, the slash i took last night in hockey on my ankle is not comparable to my Nintendo thumb from mario kart. Calling video games a sport is like calling sports interactive video games, it's ridiculous and undermining of the entire concept.

Well most people don't call video games sports straight up, they call them this silly name called "esports". I don't really consider them to be """sports""" and I hate the term esport myself. Whenever I talk to someone about saying it is a sport, I'm usually just loving with them. Honestly though, it doesn't really matter what people consider competitive gaming to be.. they get paid just the same as athletes and basically have to do the same thing when it comes down to it. Training, scrimming, getting coached, having people analyse and take advice from them etc. Some people can make a poopoodoodoocacapopiedoopieload of money from playing esports, some don't make very much. It really just if your going to be >that> guy who follows the exact definition of the term "sport" or if you just say it's close enough and consider video games as one.