Video Games as an Olympic Sport

Well I first heard of this on a news broadcast today, so I thought I would bring it to ATS.

It seems that Ted Owens, who runs the Global Gaming League (GGL), is attempting to gain support from the Chinese government and then present the thought to the Olympic Committee.

"People aren't watching [the Olympics] as much anymore," he argued. "You need to bring younger viewers back if you want to keep making money. To do that, you need to embrace non-traditional sports. They did it with snowboarding - and look how the popularity of that has surged in the Games. Video games deserve to be seen as a non-traditional sport. ... They would bring something to the Games that [that age group] engages in and everyone understands."

money.cnn.com... ndex.htm

Would you support Gaming as an Olympic sport?

I doubt that I would. If a man is capable of running the 100m in less than 10 seconds, being able to reach the next level of the latest video game is not the equivalent.

The idea is fresh and would deffiantely attract new fans, but how many would be pushed away?r

E for effort on this one though.

Well, how much of a sport is handball? I mean, how can a gold medalist who plays handball look in the eye of say...a marathon gold medalist?

Handball bloke: hey, how did you win your gold medal?
Marathon bloke: I ran 26 miles in extreme heat.
HB: Wow, that's really something. I threw a small ball around abit, and then I had a big bath.
MB: ...

You play Handball up against an Olympic Goald Medalist and then turn around and say he is no athlete. Physical conditioning, hand eye coordination, stamina are all essential to the game. Now you can say well you need this for Gaming, and you need this.

Sure some Olympic sports are alittle tougher then others, but should the bar be lowered enough for Gaming?

I am an avid gamer myself, I own an Xbox360 that I play often. Restricted to sport games anyhow. Madden, NHL, NBA, Tiger Woods Golf, Top Spin, I play almost any sport. Do I consider myself an Olympic Athlete? No, I am just an average couch quarterback.

I don't believe that games should be held as an olympic sport. Neither should Handball. It's a stupid game. Video games require a degree of skill, but it would be just insulting for the folk who run under 10 secs in the 100 metres dash, who run 26 miles, who break records, for the gold medal to be handed out to a gamer who was quite nifty at Counter-strike. Don't they have their own Olympics? Gamers I mean.

it is a interesting question, according to me the video game we are playing right now are not realy consider a sport but international olympic commitee are more concern about finding discipline white ppl can win or make a few profits out of the running city to get the olympics.
Video games can be as tuff as alot of sport including curling and or horse jumping, it is very stressfull and need good judgement but we havent see the most of it, soon it will become more active , just think about the wii mote coming out soon. Imagine a virtual reality experience, every posible angle with the latest tech in term or gameplay that would be awesome and a great $$$ platform for the international olympic commitee. I bet we could see nvidia sticker all around the place lol. money run the world