It's not so different from your own example of "football where [you] don't want to exercise." Many video games require skills and can be stressful to play [1] [

It's not so different from your own example of "football where [you] don't want to exercise." Many video games require skills and can be stressful to play [1] [2]. It's a lot more fun to watch people more skilled than you accomplishing admirable feats. This way, you get to experience the fun without the stress, the same way people watch pro-footballers without playing football. Also, people doing this aren't all kids. Dota and Starcraft are > 10-year-old games, and many people watching them are in their 30s. [1] Dota 2 https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2nfzrx/how_to_overcome_ladder_anxiety_in_solo_ranked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2nfzrx/how_to_overco... [2] Starcraft 2 http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Dealing_with_anxiety http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Dealing_with_anxiety