U.S. government recognizes gamers as athletes | Hacker News Reader

U.S. government recognizes gamers as athletes

gamespot.com

67 pointsLusake35 comments

I love video games. The problem I have with recognizing video gaming as a sport is mainly that the rules and playing fields change too often, and with no regulatory bodies to provide checks and balances to these changes. The developer of the game being played can change and patch whatever they want, whenever they want, with no oversight.

Not to mention, the sport being played is essentially whatever the "cool" game is at the time, which changes year after year. It would be difficult to maintain interest in a game for even 2 Olympic cycles, let alone hundreds. Can Starcraft 1 still generate massive world-wide interest in 2013? How will LoL be doing in 2023?

Meanwhile traditional gaming and sports haven't changed a whole lot over the hundreds or even thousands of years we have played them, they have stood the test of time and are still capable of generating massive world-wide interest. Video games cannot claim to have done this.

With that said Im not against awarding visas to pro gamers.

I'm really happy this is happening. Is the static nature of the playing field actually a good thing? Does a single game even need to survive more than 2 Olympics (I also don't think video games need to be incorporated into the Olympics)? The vast majority of skills in video gaming carry over just fine to the next generation of the same genre. Flash was the undisputed god of SC1, and he is fast rising to that spot in SC2 less than a year after switching.

I think the evolution of the playing field is actually a great thing, and something I wish conventional sports did more. A rule change in a physical sport happens so rarely.

The only reason conventional sports remain balanced and interesting to watch at all is because they are nearly 100% symmetrical (ex: 5 on 5, symmetric court/field, tip-off to start, etc). In my opinion, this actually leaves a lot of sports as pretty poorly designed "games" -- any activity that you can assign a score to can turn into a competitive sport under the existing physical sport paradigm. I don't want to pick on any particular sport, but I think a lot of popular sports just ride on past passion, nationalistic/regional pride (rooting for your team), and sponsorship marketing rather than the game itself being intrinsically interesting to watch. Which could be an endless cycle, with schools giving scholarships for those who perform in those sports, and the next generation having the same feelings for them.

More importantly than having a wider viewership for eSports (as a game designer and developer by trade, this is obviously exciting), I'm more excited about how this will affect physical sports, and force them to evolve into becoming more entertaining and fun experiences than they already are, instead of stagnating as they have been for nearly a century.

These sorts of arguments often come up when people talk about which games deserve to be considered eSport-worthy. Ultimately, a game's legitimacy can be based on whether people are competing against each other and whether it's possible to be significantly better than another person or team.

> traditional gaming and sports haven't changed a whole lot over the hundreds or even thousands of years we have played them

They change less frequent, but they do change. Wikipedia has a list of rules and changes of soccer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_the_Game_(association_f...

i think the point though, is that the governing body for soccer has stayed the same, and a soccer player's status continues to be recognized despite a change in the rules. the structure of governance for whatever game is currently popular gets tossed and re-established as soon as a new game gains popularity. The organizations sponsoring these gamers for immigration purposes don't have much in the way of permanence or reliability. it seems like a huge potential for fraud or abuse.

I agree.

I also have some other problems with "pro gaming" being seen as legitimate due to the insane impact corporate sponsorships have on the landscape of competitive gaming.

Granted, massive corporate sponsorships are nothing new to sports, but there's nothing in other sports quite equal to the situation in console gaming where Microsoft is the official console of competitive Call of Duty gaming. Even though the game can be played on many consoles, to play it as a "sport" you need to be playing it on the Xbox. This goes well beyond the already unfortunate lengths to which corporate sponsorships impact other sports, IMO.

And thanks to Microsoft's hardline "no cross-platform play" guidelines for the Xbox line, this isn't something that can be easily solved even if everyone but Microsoft wanted to do it.

Heh. So they can get a P-1a visa now? That is an improvement over the mess of an O-1 or a dicey Tourist visa. A long time ago when the robotics club invited some Japanese Sumo robot competitors over there was a tremendous fuss over what sort of Visa they could get.

Are you an entrepreneur who failed to get a visa? Do you like video games?

Do we have an opportunity for you!

I might be wrong, but don't entrepreneurs usually need long stay visas to do long term work? An athlete/performer visa only allows you to stay for the duration, only. Hardly any residency.

True, but I'm sure we can hack it:

"Individual Athlete - Time needed to complete the event, competition or performance, not to exceed 5 years

Individual Athlete –Increments of up to 5 years in order to continue or complete the event, competition or performance.

Total stay is limited to 10 years."

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b...

Well if you are an entrepreneur with a high net worth we'll give you citizenship, no need for a visa. That said, I could imagine a competition where the 'sport' was something very much entrepreneurial bot I think the P-1a is limited to 30 days or some other reasonably short time. The interesting thing is, as I understand it, allows you to "earn money", in the US while you're here. As opposed to tourists who are only supposed to "spend money" :-)

Oh, is it about visas? I was going to snark it up and say they also recognize pizza as a vegetable. I approve of pro gamers getting visas to compete even if I'm not interested in watching.

Is chess a sport? If so, this decision is logical.

Like poker there are several versions of chess as sport with say 3m speed chess being a vary different game than a 3h game. My faverate being alternating rounds of chess and boxing. EX: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5TQSKmS3o

You don't need motor skills for chess, but you do for e-sports. If racing is a sport, why is racing in a simulator not? The only difference is the lack of g-forces.

> The only difference is the lack of g-forces.

And the heat (racing cars become hot, to say nothing of the fireproof suit), the noise (they are very noisy) and the fact you are actually risking your life (or, at least, serious injury). The most damage Gran Turismo 4 can cause is an RSI...

Well, sure, but those are not determining factors in the definition of 'sport'.

All this time, I've been a jock?!

I've actually been watching the current LCS despite not playing LoL for a while (it was too addictive).

Games spectatorship pushes all the same buttons that real sports do, and Riot is very intelligently pushing it in the same direction, with the excitable commentators and highlighting the personalities of the top players.

The kids are making money by training to be the best at something that is fun to watch, and businesses are making money off marketing them. Seems analogous to sports in the important ways.

Cool, yet another sport I can take an active disinterest in.

I am not surprised, this is the government that also recognizes pizza as a vegetable.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45306416/ns/health-diet_and_nutrit...

Maybe I should be a cyberathelete.... How crazy is this. Recently parents everywhere discouraged the amount of time spent playing games. Now it could be argued by the kid they're working on their professional skills.

reminds me of the old Far Side... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_QMuDihPPyPA/TFBCC4Wv0qI/AAAAAAAANp...

Oh thank you sir! I've spent hours trying to remember where I read this comic.

Apart from the fact that most "Western" (ie: Non Korean) players who dream about becoming the next major eSports hero will never make it, due to them not practising enough.

The reason why Koreans seem to dominate eSport games such as Starcraft 2 (SC2) is that they practice 12+ hours a day in a tiny apartment chockfull of other players.

The winnings are good: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Winnings , and the top players receive salaries but it's very cutthroat.

I don't follow League of Legends (LoL) (which the OP is talkin g about), however they really have paved the way for this as they fought extremely hard. LoL doesn't have as many open tournaments as SC2, however the main tournament (LCS) is run by Riot, the company who made League of Legends. Their typical viewers for livestreaming on sites like Twitch surpass atleast 100,000+ viewers. It's a crazy world out there.

> Apart from the fact that most "Western" (ie: Non Korean) players who dream about becoming the next major eSports hero will never make it

Of course this is true of most of those who dream of a career in "traditional" sports as well.

let's just say the competitive gaming scene in ridiculously smaller than the physical sports scenes.

you have a ridiculously higher chance of going pro in a video game than playing in the NFL, etc.

his point, while perhaps not really the best worded, is correct. there are way more Koreans who are better skilled than western players (called foreigners... even by westerners themselves).

also, as an american, I feel that it's kinda sad that american gamers are in no way able to compete on a large scale against europeans or asians in most big competitive games.

this doesn't include console fps games, since playing an fps game with sticks is like playing hockey with your penis.

Spending all your time playing games at the expense of your education is about as good a strategy as spending all your time playing sports in the hopes of becoming a professional athlete.

Only a few people become good enough to get paid to play sports, and of those people even fewer can get paid enough to turn it into a viable career. Banking your life on getting lucky like that without any kind of fallback plan is not a particularly sound decision.

at least playing real sports you get exercise.

There are many people who make a living off sports but don't do so professionally.

As an example, I knew many D1 tennis players who could charge upwards of 70$ an hour teaching private lessons (of which the club would take ~20$). I know one guy who is a pretty exceptional player but no where near good enough to make a living on the professional tour, and he brings in about 50,000$ every summer, then goes on tour with his band all winter.

I was merely a good high school player and even back then I was making 15/hr coaching and 25/hr for lessons. That's more than I make now sadly!

Hah. Back in 95 i was the guy people laughed at for claiming that one day games would be considered a pro sport and guys would be able to score girls by being good players.

Should have betted on that.

I'm not sure there is much proof to the latter. :) I think the critical components to groupies is fame and/or fortune. Although the female gaming 'athletes' may be in to you.

When Oculus Rift gamers start running all day long in their Virtuix Omni's, they will indeed become athletes who optimize food intake and workout schedule.

What about binge eaters? I bet they are athletes too

LoL: A more legitimate sport than NASCAR.

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