orthis
They’re categorized as “mind sports.”
On a related note, I was talking with a certain sponsored player (who I won’t name since he told me not to say that he told this to me) mentioned to me that their sponsors do require them to stick to a healthy diet during tournaments.
You have a good point regarding intent and the evolution of communities.
Depending on how broad your definition of sport is, you could argue that something can become a sport for certain players if they approach it like a sport. I’m not sure I buy it because of my more narrow definition, but it’s logical.
At this point though, the primary production goals for fighting games are for the purpose of sport, even with your broad definition. Again, that might change in the future, but we would have to see a huge surge of popularity (which would be great, obviously).
The corollary of that is “Is it even good for anyone if people started treating FG’s as an extremely serious sport rather than as entertainment?”
Seems like it would dry the genre right out to me… as it is, people can still take the games fairly seriously if they want, but we don’t have to deal with the soulsucking microtuning patch iterations that other complex ‘esport’ games have had to deal with (Looking at you, Blizzard).
I don’t think the microtuning is a requirement to be an ‘eSport’
I don’t think there is a checklist for becoming an ‘eSport’
And “extremely serious sport” is not mutually exclusive to “entertainment”
Well of course they’re not mutually exclusive, but things change when people take them super seriously (to use a quote I love “You don’t hear any old whores giggling”)
I’ll rephrase my question slightly, “Do you think it would be good if the culture started treating Fighting Games more seriously as a sport?”
No idea but I’d think it would be good if the culture recognizes that “games” in general can be taken seriously or there’s fun/entertainment to be had taking them seriously like a sport instead of writing them off as nerdy, antisocial, waste of time, for kids, etc.
I mean look at the types of theory and planning some players go out there way to do. People have fun doing that.
It would better for everyone if people realized that there’s fun and entertainment to be had in playing games in different ways.
Well the ‘nerdy/antisocial/for kids’ thing is changing on its own, I kind of consider that fight mostly won.
In general though right now, even our ‘pros’ take the games seriously as a hobby (a very important hobby they’re willing to put dozens of hours a week into, but a hobby nonetheless). None of them, afaik, are taking it seriously as a “job”. They all have day jobs (or are not supporting themselves entirely on games, correct me if I’m wrong in that), and are still in the end doing fighting games for fun and entertainment and personal fulfillment (with a bonus of a little scratch here and there to fund their hobby).
I tend to think all the ‘eSports’ talk kind of misses that distinction. Even with all the time spent and effort put into analysis and practice and whatnot, there’s still a basic distinction between what we do and work, and I tend to think the games and the scene are more vibrant for that distinction.
Right now, tournaments are being organized, all these videos are getting released, players are putting a lot of work in because they love the game. I think a real transition to a Sport model would hurt that immensely.
Then why are floe, justin, and marn top players? Yipes too…
There’s always room for improvement. Obviously, being in shape isn’t the most important thing in fighting games, but it sure doesn’t hurt.
If justin being in shape means that the years of destruction would still be going on now, then i say lets leave this balance patch to be.
Then you have Starcraft
heh in which way?
Let Mike “I somehow stomached stars1ayers vagina” Ross work on a game. and listen to his every whim. And let gootecks charge 100 dollars an hour to learn said game. Call it the Fraudulent adventures of the Multi racial pals. And it should have gems.
On a serious note companies should stop listening to people bitch about characters that are good in games because usually they just listen to people who suck and don’t want to learn to deal with a specific character. Basically stop listening to the Online community.
Contracts, salaries, player houses, basically a career, when they are at an event the last thing they’re doing is playing casuals because they’re playing/training in the game most of the week like a real job.
I can’t tell if you think that’s good or bad though
Or just a thing thing
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HEHE…Remember, Magic:The Gathering was on ESPN too.
Throughout the history of sports, there are have been multiple sub-categories of sport that didn’t always fit the initial definition as people found more and more ways to compete with each other. There’s stuff like chess, poker, etc. which some are sub-categorizing as “mind-sport.” Then we have “motorsport” where, at the top levels, the competition isn’t even between the drivers, but the engineers (the last few World Championships have mostly been won by the aerodynamicist). “E-Sports” is simply another one of these.
on the “We’re all actually the same front”:
About sport, seems like there are 2 different ways this community looks at FGs as a 'sport'
[LIST]
[*]As something that people take very seirously
[*]As something with true professionals
[/LIST]
They're both valid, but they're both slightly different things.
As a corollary to the first one, I think there's also a bit of thinking that a game is less worthy of respect than a sport, (which I heavily disagree with), so folks are trying to control the language somewhat.Civ5 is complete trash, though.