It's true.

What do you think of this and the really bizarre selection of games for it:

They also did the same for the special olympics, right? I was imagining what the esports in the special olympics will be like, even for the ones who are the deaf and the blind.

it makes sense for like the paralympics or something, the whole point of those is to accommodate for people who can’t really do the big events. but for the regular olympics? hell no, get off your ass and earn that medal

This is probably the funniest thing that has happened this year so far. Making games an official sport to the Olympics.

I'm interested how would this perform.

To be fair, when the olympic revival first started out, they had a few odd categories such as sculpture, poetry, flower arranging and literature (which Pierre le Coubertin, the founding father of the olympic revival, won a gold medal in), so it's not like something like this is unprescedented.

The reason why they got rid of those categories was that they didn't want to encourage professionals, who did these activities all year round for work, have an advantage over those who were more amateurish; so that you weren't trying to become the best because that was your job, but so that you did it because you WANTED to. Breaking a world record is an achievement, not a step in your career.

Which bring into question one of the problems of e-sports; people play video games for a living now, what's stopping them from having the advantage? Not to mention other problems such as bugs, glitches, hacking, defects, etc. Do you ever update the game? Wouldn't that make the post-update records be different from pre-update records? How about balancing? The SSB community has enough problems getting all the contestants to use the same controlled for pete's sake. God, just the thought of all the gaming companies and console companies trying to get deals with the olympics just to get their system or games the official standard makes me sick.

Personally I also dislike the selection of games. What's the point of online chess when you can have in person chess? Why sailing when they already have real life sailing! In a way it's invalidating and somewhat mocking to those who practiced and work hard in the other fields by being put on the same pedestal as someone who sits in a chair and presses buttons. It's not just subjectively stupid, it's objectively redundant! If you're going to have video games, at least use games that have a prescendence in being competitive (and are also exciting and more importantly fun to watch), like starcraft or SSB or street fighter or something.

And the olympic committee is super corrupt, so frankly, I would recommend watching some of the other world multi-sport events that exist instead, instead of indulging in their desperate attempt to stay relevant.

Trying my hardest not to mention minecraft in any way

same thing with roblox

Before anyone says this is a bad idea or a bad case of political agenda... I would welcome this, one, because there's nothing that says a few bonus additions to contests can't be enjoyed as it takes nothing away from the actual Olympics, and two, the Olympics as is aren't as respectworthy as they should be, so what if this does good?

I kid you not, I'm going to train to be an Olympic star starting now.

I bet smash melee bros have been submitting applications for years to create their own category

Huh I thought Esports are for gamers or something

I saw Virtual Taekwondo and I thought it would be VR related.

But it looks like it is some motion camera style game.

This is legitimately the stupidest addition to the modern Olympics ever. Esports is a fringe sport with no personality and little audience to begin with, but having games that are either virtual depiticons of real sports or are just redundant and pointless.

At least with recent additions like skateboatding, surfing and 3x3 ball, they have some degree of legit athleticism involved and 3x3 ball is a variation of basketball. Esports OTOH doesn't even qualify as that, and most are just virtual depictions of real sports/events, which are completely redundant. Who exactly is this supposed to appeal to, other than the hardcore Twitch crowds, if that?

big win for e-athletes

Fatass Olympics

I'll watch baseball and just dance

The modern athlete:

Get ready for racist and homophobic slurs on live tv, kids!!!!

Video games aren't sports.

im mad mario and sonic at the olympic games isnt on the list

its just 99cents rn in thr playstation store

who the hell even plays this game

ikr who would play that dumb game

I don't know that's ever going to happen because society is so progressive at this point that they would ban those people who use racial and homophobic slurs on live tv.

But they're all basic bitch games

Hey they're on yugioh

Don't bully olskoo you fucks

woaha

That automatically makes me respect it

Even tho I wouldn't be caught dead playing such a stupid shitty awful dogshit game

I respect that you like it tho

It's not illegal to be wrong

No disrespect here

It's cool that you enjoy such a stupid fucking awful dogshit bullshit garbage shit shit game

What about cycle sports? They're sitting down too.

Glad I don't watch this drek

Imagine the next olymics has a bunch of gdash players in it