2 ms·

Olympic games should be activities that will remain largely the same for decades, or forever. Fortnite, or any eSport game out today, will not be a thing 40 ye

by Alupis 6y ago

Olympic games should be activities that will remain largely the same for decades, or forever. Fortnite, or any eSport game out today, will not be a thing 40 years from now, let alone 4. You can't have records when the game constantly changes.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> Olympic games should be activities that will remain largely the same But why? > You can't have records when the game constantly changes. Many olypmic games have no records. There’s no records in fencing, for example, as all matches are against an opponent not an absolute like a time or distance. Nobody considers this a problem. Why do you think it matters if there are records or not?
- bathtub365 6y ago
  When the rules stay the same, it pushes people to improve their performance within the rules (or, sometimes, unfortunately, outside of the rules). When the rules are constantly changing, the focus shifts from the competitors to the game itself and the corporation promoting it.
  - noodlesUK 6y ago
    The rules in sports change pretty frequently. Little changes to the rules have a massive impact on the way the game is played at a high-level. See fencing, or goal-line tech in football (soccer).
    - bathtub365 6y ago
      The rules in sports don't change nearly as much as they do in competitive video games. In the sports where the rules do change often, the focus ends up on the governing body for the league for changing the rules. This is one of the reasons the Olympics often has different rules for their sports than the professional leagues that feed competitors into the Olympics.
    - notahacker 6y ago
      I'm the first to sneer at the merchandising elements of [association] football, but the rare substantive changes to the game aren't driven by sales cycles. Ensuring the game isn't significantly different at grassroots level has always been a sticking point for tech adoption in football, and this is a sport so contrary to the original amateur ethos of the modern Olympics that the top players earn millions every month, clubs have official tractor sponsors and manufacturer sponsors promise the official World Cup ball will curve differently from the last one. Also, you don't have to use the IP of Epic Games Inc to play any variant of football, or even a stereotypical rich person sport like dressage, so performance improvements aren't contingent on enhancing a specific corporation's bottom line
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- cgriswald 6y ago
  I think that’s not seeing the forest for the trees. There’s nothing special about Fortnite. It’s in fashion and it will pass out of fashion. When auto racing, chess, or any other number of long-lived competitive not-primarily-physical activities are in the Olympics then we can start thinking about video games. And then we ought to think about the games which have lasted a long time as competitive activities on their own while consistently bringing in new blood. Fortnite is a flash in the pan compared to, say, CounterStrike. I think, maybe 50 years from now, after some very physical VR game takes the world by storm in the next couple of decades and demonstrates staying power, we’ll have a serious contender. We JUST got skateboarding...
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    I thought the problem was that there 'you can't have records'? When we point out many events have no records, now the problem is something else? Seems like you're just picking whatever out of the air to object to it. If we want a sport to be extant for a hundred years before it's considered (seems pretty reasonable to me), why not explicitly say that rather than looking for proxies?
- mirekrusin 6y ago
  Why not eating fries or hot dogs? Even spectators could be doing mini competitions during breaks. Pure fun.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > Why not eating fries or hot dogs? Yeah, why not? I'm sure competitive eating genuinely does involve training, skill and determination. What are the criteria of the olypmic games, anyway?
    - Godel_unicode 6y ago
      The first step is to have a large, international NGO overseeing the sport. This is one reason why e.g. American Football isn't an Olympic sport. That NGO must have a proven history of enforcing the Olympic Movement Anti-Doping rules, including out-of-competition testing of athletes. Imagine if top fortnite players had to submit to random year-round drug testing to be allowed to compete.
- thatoneuser 6y ago
  Come on man, fencing is an odd man out. The biggest Olympic sports have records and that makes Bolts and Phelps. That's what people come in droves to see. I remember when I was younger watching a guy who had the world record for carrying a 40lb bag of coal a certain distance the fastest (or smth). My impression: Who cares? Video games are fun and watching people who truly master that dexterity based are are amusing as hell, but let's not include them in the Olympics just because the gaming industry has a compelling "were 'e'-sports" campaign...
- noodlesUK 6y ago
  Ex-international fencer here - even if there were records, the rules have changed substantially in the past few years anyway. Sabre especially is a totally different sport than it was 30 years ago. The scoring box lockout timing has changed twice, which has made a huge difference. Lots of sports are in constant flux though. The reason I’m opposed to something like fortnite being in the olympics is actually because a single for-profit vendor (Epic) has a total stranglehold on everything about the game. In fencing, any manufacturer can make any of the equipment (if they can do so safely), and anyone can (theoretically) read the rulebook and try to give it a go. The same can’t be said about fortnite.
  - opan 6y ago
    I agree about it being tied to a single for-profit company being a problem. I also don't think anything at such a big scale should be proprietary. (schools, government, especially anything international) It would be neat to see some free-as-in-freedom games made with high-level competition in mind. Xonotic comes to mind, but something made with things like the Olympics in mind would be good as well. You could have judges as part of the team talking to developers.
minikites 6y ago
Does it have to have an athletic component? If not, why not Olympic chess?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pletsch 6y ago
  I'd be ok with Olympic chess.
- zapnuk 6y ago
  Esport has a physical component where every millisecond and mouse/keyboard action can decide the game. Chess doesn't, except maybe blitz.
  - chongli 6y ago
    Hearthstone is a popular esport where games are decided by strategy (and maybe luck) rather than physical reflexes. So that does not seem to be a differentiator.
    - zapnuk 6y ago
      Tbh Hearthstone would probably not be chosen considering the amount of RNG and the fact that it's not very popular compared to other games. But I agree, it's more comparable to chess and could be played as a tabletop game with little if any adjustments.
  - gpm 6y ago
    My vote is for blitz chess + allowing competitors to kick the opponent under the table.
    - minikites 6y ago
      Just go all the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing
giancarlostoro 6y ago
Does Counter-Strike count? People still play Counter-Strike 1.6, although maybe the solution is merely to have an eSports olympics instead.
- zapnuk 6y ago
  Yes, CS counts and Source can be considered a successor to 1.6. Similar with Dota2 and Dota. While the game changed in big parts, the concept and required athleticism remains the same. It's comparable to how tools for other sports changed over the year. No one would want to play with tennis balls or rackets from 50 years ago. It just happens that change happens much more rapidly in esport games.
- gpm 6y ago
  Counter-Strike 1.6 is... only 7 years old? [1] Starcraft broodwar is also still played competitively with a few hundred thousand in prizes per year [2], at 22 years old (and I don't think there have been any changes apart from a recent graphics refresh) it's probably a better contender for the olympics than cs. 22 years is still nothing compared to most sports, and it's clearly reaching the end of its life. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20130214014350/http://steamcommunity.com/games/10/announcements/detail/1010199179645672708 https://web.archive.org/web/20130214014350/http://steamcommu... [2] https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Leagues/Recent_Tournaments https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Leagues/Recent_Tournaments
  - zapnuk 6y ago
    Counter-Strike was played as an esport well before 1.6 Starcraft broodwar is basically nonexistent besides south korea. Other titels are orders of magnitude more popular. And while 22 years very little compared to the rich history of other sports, I'd like to remind you that the olympics already contains many 'odd' disciplines. Many of which have a small competitive history. So the question is really if it matters how long the discipline will be around. And I'm not quite sure it would matter. There are many disciplines that were retired after only a few competitions. And it not like additional change would hurt the olympics much. It's already quite different compared to the original concept. Why not adjust it for the digital sports?
romanovcode 6y ago
Isn't CS like 20 years old and still the most popular e-sport shooter?
efrafa 6y ago
Age of Empires 2 is still strong after 20 years

by Alupis 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Olympic games should be activities that will remain largely the same But why? > You can't have records when the game constantly changes. Many olypmic games have no records. There’s no records in fencing, for example, as all matches are against an opponent not an absolute like a time or distance. Nobody considers this a problem. Why do you think it matters if there are records or not?

bathtub365 6y ago
When the rules stay the same, it pushes people to improve their performance within the rules (or, sometimes, unfortunately, outside of the rules). When the rules are constantly changing, the focus shifts from the competitors to the game itself and the corporation promoting it.
- noodlesUK 6y ago
  The rules in sports change pretty frequently. Little changes to the rules have a massive impact on the way the game is played at a high-level. See fencing, or goal-line tech in football (soccer).
  - bathtub365 6y ago
    The rules in sports don't change nearly as much as they do in competitive video games. In the sports where the rules do change often, the focus ends up on the governing body for the league for changing the rules. This is one of the reasons the Olympics often has different rules for their sports than the professional leagues that feed competitors into the Olympics.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    I'm the first to sneer at the merchandising elements of [association] football, but the rare substantive changes to the game aren't driven by sales cycles. Ensuring the game isn't significantly different at grassroots level has always been a sticking point for tech adoption in football, and this is a sport so contrary to the original amateur ethos of the modern Olympics that the top players earn millions every month, clubs have official tractor sponsors and manufacturer sponsors promise the official World Cup ball will curve differently from the last one. Also, you don't have to use the IP of Epic Games Inc to play any variant of football, or even a stereotypical rich person sport like dressage, so performance improvements aren't contingent on enhancing a specific corporation's bottom line
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
cgriswald 6y ago
I think that’s not seeing the forest for the trees. There’s nothing special about Fortnite. It’s in fashion and it will pass out of fashion. When auto racing, chess, or any other number of long-lived competitive not-primarily-physical activities are in the Olympics then we can start thinking about video games. And then we ought to think about the games which have lasted a long time as competitive activities on their own while consistently bringing in new blood. Fortnite is a flash in the pan compared to, say, CounterStrike. I think, maybe 50 years from now, after some very physical VR game takes the world by storm in the next couple of decades and demonstrates staying power, we’ll have a serious contender. We JUST got skateboarding...
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  I thought the problem was that there 'you can't have records'? When we point out many events have no records, now the problem is something else? Seems like you're just picking whatever out of the air to object to it. If we want a sport to be extant for a hundred years before it's considered (seems pretty reasonable to me), why not explicitly say that rather than looking for proxies?
mirekrusin 6y ago
Why not eating fries or hot dogs? Even spectators could be doing mini competitions during breaks. Pure fun.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > Why not eating fries or hot dogs? Yeah, why not? I'm sure competitive eating genuinely does involve training, skill and determination. What are the criteria of the olypmic games, anyway?
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    The first step is to have a large, international NGO overseeing the sport. This is one reason why e.g. American Football isn't an Olympic sport. That NGO must have a proven history of enforcing the Olympic Movement Anti-Doping rules, including out-of-competition testing of athletes. Imagine if top fortnite players had to submit to random year-round drug testing to be allowed to compete.
thatoneuser 6y ago
Come on man, fencing is an odd man out. The biggest Olympic sports have records and that makes Bolts and Phelps. That's what people come in droves to see. I remember when I was younger watching a guy who had the world record for carrying a 40lb bag of coal a certain distance the fastest (or smth). My impression: Who cares? Video games are fun and watching people who truly master that dexterity based are are amusing as hell, but let's not include them in the Olympics just because the gaming industry has a compelling "were 'e'-sports" campaign...
noodlesUK 6y ago
Ex-international fencer here - even if there were records, the rules have changed substantially in the past few years anyway. Sabre especially is a totally different sport than it was 30 years ago. The scoring box lockout timing has changed twice, which has made a huge difference. Lots of sports are in constant flux though. The reason I’m opposed to something like fortnite being in the olympics is actually because a single for-profit vendor (Epic) has a total stranglehold on everything about the game. In fencing, any manufacturer can make any of the equipment (if they can do so safely), and anyone can (theoretically) read the rulebook and try to give it a go. The same can’t be said about fortnite.
- opan 6y ago
  I agree about it being tied to a single for-profit company being a problem. I also don't think anything at such a big scale should be proprietary. (schools, government, especially anything international) It would be neat to see some free-as-in-freedom games made with high-level competition in mind. Xonotic comes to mind, but something made with things like the Olympics in mind would be good as well. You could have judges as part of the team talking to developers.

minikites 6y ago

Does it have to have an athletic component? If not, why not Olympic chess?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pletsch 6y ago
I'd be ok with Olympic chess.
zapnuk 6y ago
Esport has a physical component where every millisecond and mouse/keyboard action can decide the game. Chess doesn't, except maybe blitz.
- chongli 6y ago
  Hearthstone is a popular esport where games are decided by strategy (and maybe luck) rather than physical reflexes. So that does not seem to be a differentiator.
  - zapnuk 6y ago
    Tbh Hearthstone would probably not be chosen considering the amount of RNG and the fact that it's not very popular compared to other games. But I agree, it's more comparable to chess and could be played as a tabletop game with little if any adjustments.
- gpm 6y ago
  My vote is for blitz chess + allowing competitors to kick the opponent under the table.
  - minikites 6y ago
    Just go all the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing

giancarlostoro 6y ago

Does Counter-Strike count? People still play Counter-Strike 1.6, although maybe the solution is merely to have an eSports olympics instead.

zapnuk 6y ago
Yes, CS counts and Source can be considered a successor to 1.6. Similar with Dota2 and Dota. While the game changed in big parts, the concept and required athleticism remains the same. It's comparable to how tools for other sports changed over the year. No one would want to play with tennis balls or rackets from 50 years ago. It just happens that change happens much more rapidly in esport games.
gpm 6y ago
Counter-Strike 1.6 is... only 7 years old? [1] Starcraft broodwar is also still played competitively with a few hundred thousand in prizes per year [2], at 22 years old (and I don't think there have been any changes apart from a recent graphics refresh) it's probably a better contender for the olympics than cs. 22 years is still nothing compared to most sports, and it's clearly reaching the end of its life. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20130214014350/http://steamcommunity.com/games/10/announcements/detail/1010199179645672708 https://web.archive.org/web/20130214014350/http://steamcommu... [2] https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Leagues/Recent_Tournaments https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Leagues/Recent_Tournaments
- zapnuk 6y ago
  Counter-Strike was played as an esport well before 1.6 Starcraft broodwar is basically nonexistent besides south korea. Other titels are orders of magnitude more popular. And while 22 years very little compared to the rich history of other sports, I'd like to remind you that the olympics already contains many 'odd' disciplines. Many of which have a small competitive history. So the question is really if it matters how long the discipline will be around. And I'm not quite sure it would matter. There are many disciplines that were retired after only a few competitions. And it not like additional change would hurt the olympics much. It's already quite different compared to the original concept. Why not adjust it for the digital sports?

romanovcode 6y ago

Isn't CS like 20 years old and still the most popular e-sport shooter?

efrafa 6y ago

Age of Empires 2 is still strong after 20 years