Would you consider video games a sport or another type of competitive activity? What do you think of the term “esport”? Also, would you consider chess, go, or nascar sports or their own thing?
I don’t think any video game truly qualifies as a sport, or a video game player can be called an athlete. I think these terms imply physical fitness.
The term esports is a misnomer in my view, used to describe not just competitive videogaming, but on a large institutionalized level. More than that it’s also used to describe certain trends towards commercialization, professionalism, and production quality, much to some players’ actual disdain. I don’t think esports is a subcategory of sports, I think it’s the video game equivalent of sports.
I don’t think Chess or Go are sports. Nascar’s in a weird grey area.
re: esports and sports. on that note, do you consider game fishing/hunting, gambling, archery, target shooting (the Olympic activity) sports or would you categorize them differently?
I never understood why people considered game hunting/fishing a sport. I never really got the term, “hunting for sport.” Just didn’t follow for me.
Gambling ends up on ESPN, I point it out when people complain about DOTA, or about defining what a sport is.
Archery is definitely a sport. It’s an olympic sport no less. Target shooting I’ll give a probably.
I don’t think the distinction between sport and notsport is very important. It’s kind of an arbitrary divide that isn’t incredibly useful or descriptive from a semantic point of view.
Celia Alexis Wagar's CritPoints 