For some reason I thought Squash was already in.

WorKid wrote:

1. It's a terrible thing to watch. 2. If Counter Strike is in the Olympics then all other human competitive activities might as well be. From squash to darts to connect 4, chess, scrabble, power boats, that funny little birdman competition where they jump off the pier, sheep dog trials, pumpkin growing, and gurning. 3. With most if not all Olympic events there's visible evident skill and/or effort, and you can usually see people pushing themselves to the very limit in the pursuit of their dreams. A nerd tippy-tappying away on a keyboard does not an Olympian make.

1. Thousands, if not millions, disagree with you on a regular basis.

2. I'd totally support chess for an Olympic sport. The high level guys spend as much time honing their game as any "real" athlete. And as for your other examples, other events in the past have included dog grooming and city planning. No, really.

3. Sounds like you don't watch much competitive video gaming. High level stuff is intense. If you're picturing the fat bloke with the wrist brace from the World of Warcraft episode of South Park, you're a million miles from how players actually compete.

Blending points 2 and 3 - high ranking South Korean Starcraft players practice 10 hours a day, six days a week. That's a more intense training regimen than most "real" athletes, AFAIK.

WorKid wrote:

The other fairly obvious problem is the 'current' games change too bloody often.

The Olympics has a history of 'guest sports', including angling, pidgeon racing, and motor cycling. While it would probably be unfeasible to have a specific version of a game as an Olympic event every time, you could easily have the current competitive scene darling as a demonstration sport.

For me, the Olympics should be about celebrating skill and high levels of achievement, rather than only promoting "real" sports or things that are "fun" to watch. (I'd rather watch paint dry than synchronised swimming, but I get that floating with your arse in the air and maintaining a smile, all in time with music, can be difficult.)

Bollockoff wrote:

Comp Cites: Skylines unf yes.

"And we see the British competitor building a lovely little park in the middle of his shopping district... oh no! A tornado! How will he deal with this?"

Fucking sold.

Squash should be an Olympic event. It's already recognised by the IOC, and has been voted on for inclusion multiple times. It lost out to the re-instatement of wrestling last time. How it isn't in but BMX, synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics is boggles my mind.

As for counterstrike being a terrible thing to watch...



I find it better to watch than a fair few of the existing Olympic sports.

Gets stop this its SGDQ time! All the best speedruns of a couple of the best games and a phenomenal amount of shit! For charity!!

It could work in the context of making it an Olympic sport tho.

" Oi put de nut on dat Lithuanian fella in de first row, sweaty wanker"

Skerret wrote:

high ranking South Korean Starcraft players practice 10 hours a day, six days a week. That's a more intense training regimen than most "real" athletes, AFAIK.

Ahem... whut?  This is nonsense Swoily.

Citation needed. I know they train hard (hence being Olympians) but a quick internet search suggests Michael Phelps, the best swimmer of all time, trains for six hours a day.

I think Skez was questioning the intensity of playing Starcraft vs swimming, running or other athletic conditioning, not the time spent.

Counter Strike is beginning to disprove the 'constantly changing games' thing now. And MOBAs are similar enough for changing one to be almost akin to changing the individual events within something like track cycling.

To the untrained eye it doesn't necessarily look like great skill is being displayed in something like CS but then it doesn't with lots of Olympic sports. And the reality is, both for individual skill and teamwork CS is nails.

Tempy wrote:

These guys hit like two hundred actions per minute

Korean guy ABCD, best on the planet at bms:



Not his best performance but the only hand-shot I know of. Sure the actions may not be as complex as mouse+keyboard manoeuvres, but that's over 3000 keys in around 2 mins.


Any road, FPS is pretty boring to watch in its current form, you simply can't see enough of the action at once. We need free-roaming cameras, operated by professionals, which can then switch to player cam etc. for hype moments. I'd watch something like Gears if captured by a decent free-cam, swooping over the action at the start, seeing the teams fan out making plays etc. Realistically though only classics like Tetris or fightmans have a chance, and even then it's a minuscule chance, of being accepted as legit contenders.

Aye pretty much what I was going for - people like G.man operating the default action cam, but viewers can switch to player cam if required.

Would be humorous to mix proper Olympics with failfish chat OMG LOLZZZ GAY FAIL USAIN KILLAH FAAAIILLLL streaming up the side of the telly on BBC coverage.

Any high level mental activity puts a great strain on your body. Chess might just be sitting there occasionally moving something just in front of you, but the strain on your cardio vascular system is massive.

It's also true for high level esports. It's not the same thing as me bumbling around on halo.

Tempy wrote:

WorKid wrote:

I think Skez was questioning the intensity of playing Starcraft vs swimming, running or other athletic conditioning, not the time spent.

It's probably not as intense, but it's not exactly a slouch either. These guys hit like two hundred actions per minute and I'd wager it's fairly mentally draining and stressful too. The difference being they can quite likely kick back and have fun a lot easier and with a lot less risk to performance than someone like Phelps.

Indeed.  At his peak Phelps was consuming 12,000 calories a day and would have needed a good ten hours of sleep a night, plus (presumably) physio and other conditioning work that wasn't part of his higher intensity training.  Elite Olympic athlete regimes would near kill your average schlub (me).

If someone can produce some research to support the notion that elite e-sports generates a comparable level of intensity, I'd be interested to read it.

Fucking AC Slaters up in this thread trying piss on the Screechmens chips.