Many professional video gamers have made thousands of dollars from their competitions. For example, the “League of Legends” competitive team “South Korea Telecom” (SKT) have won millions of dollars in prize money alone. This doesn’t even include sponsorship and advertisement deals; in their home country of South Korea they are A-List celebrities.
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In college, there are many ways in which an individual might find peace. Among these ways, it is pretty common for the average college student to be quite fond of video games.
What is a video game? A video game is an electronic activity that uses display devices such as televisions and computers to send the images of a simulated reality to a player. These display devices are connected to platforms that enable people to play. These platforms are some of the biggest names in the industry. Names like X-Box, PlayStation, Nintendo have shaped more than decades of gaming.
Some people take gaming so seriously that they refer to the activity as a way of life. Playing alone or playing with others can get competitive. Gaming can lead to fights and destruction of gaming platforms. Friendships can end when the prospect of losing faces someone. To compare gaming to a sport, one ought to know what sport is. A sport is defined as being any form of competitive physical activity that aims to maintain and improve the abilities or skills of the participants. At the same time, sports aim to entertain the participants and viewers. SportAccord defines sport as “any activity that possesses an element of competition, that does not harm any living creature, not rely on equipment distributed by a single supplier and should not rely on any luck element specifically designed to be in the sport.”
Following this statement, it is hard not to put video games in the lines of an actual sport. Video games possess all the necessary requirements to be classified as a sport. First of all, video games are highly competitive and bring out the best in an individual, which rule out the first requirement. Second of all video games only harms the eyes if it is overused. Excess in anything is harmful, in life.
Third of all, video games offer a plethora of providers thus rules out the third requirement. The games, consoles, and controllers are provided by a large variety of companies, so there is not one particular supplier. Lastly, the luck factor does not exist in the majority of video games as the outcomes are regulated by sheer skill.
When asked if video games should be considered as a sport, Sebastien Beaulieu, a senior in West Broward High School says “everything in 2017 is a competition, if ballet is a sport, I guess video games should be too, it does involve competition.” Though, the gentleman later added that video games did not feel like a sport to him.
Myriam Beaulieu, a mother of two, is opposed to the idea that video games might be considered as a sport. She feels that sport should be an activity that requires physical activity. In her own words, “using your fingers does not cut it.” She follows by explicitly reminding that it is her opinion and others might not feel the same way.
Despite the fact that video games possess key characteristics of a sport, it is peculiar that it would be an Olympic feature. Most video games are based on the different disciplines in the Olympics; it seems odd that it would be an Olympic Sport to many people out there. Video games competitions, however, do exist around the world and the prizes are highly enticing.
The overall assumption is that although possessing the features of a sport, not many people view the activity as a sport. Most people agree to label video games as a sport due to the fear of offending that is present in our generation.
