Olympic Dreams for eSports

The more headlines I check on videogames, the more I see how popular gaming is becoming. In an article hosted on benzinga.com, NewZoo’s Global Games Market Report is cited as showing that roughly 30 percent of the world’s population plays video games.

They’ve also estimated that the global games market will grow to be worth $115.8 billion in 2018, while esports is only projected to reach $906.6 million in 2018. Nevertheless, this represents a 38 percent year-over-year increase in market worth.

This growth isn’t going unnoticed. A number of outlets have recently begun reporting on the Olympic potential of esports, with Variety stating that “last August, the Paris 2024 bid team expressed interest in including esports as a medaling event.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) released a response the following October, that said, “competitive esports could be considered as a sporting activity, and the players involved prepare and train with an intensity which may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports.”

Many people don’t understand that there’s a physical toll involved here too. Training and playing video games all day can produce complications comparable to many recreational injuries, sometimes requiring physical therapy. This includes swelling of the joints, back stress, strain on the eyes and dry eyes, not to mention the “sitting is the new smoking” argument.

Nevertheless, AFR is reporting that “Intel has pledged to use the success of a recent esports tournament, held alongside the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, as a launchpad for a lobbying campaign to make video gaming an Olympic sport.”

Lulu Yilun Chen writing for Bloomberg reports that China’s biggest e-commerce company, Alibaba, has joined Intel in endorsing esports for the Olympics, with one stipulation: no violence or gore.

The problem here is that some of the biggest titles would be automatically excluded, such as League of Legends, Overwatch, PUBG, and others.

“In our communication with the Olympics committee, we’ve come to have a better understanding of their values, which is to promote peace,” Alibaba’s Zhang said to Bloomberg. “That’s why for the future development of esports, we will focus more on titles that are actually related to sports, instead of games that focus on violence and slaughter.”

IOC president Thomas Bach told the South China Morning Post (an Alibaba-owned newspaper) that he’d prefer games which are sports simulations, according to the Chicago Tribune.

"We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people. This doesn't match with video games, which are about violence, explosions and killing. And there we have to draw a clear line," he said.

Of course, this is logically ridiculous. When sports like boxing, fencing, archery, and skeet shooting currently exist as Olympic sports — all inherently violent or even weaponized sports — this “clear line” is not so apparent.

Violence or no, some are against the inclusion of esports in the world games. Reinhard Grindel, president of the German Football Association (DFB), believes the whole idea is “absurd.”

“Grindel went on to proclaim the social importance of sport within the community,” reports Ali Jones with PCGamesN, “saying that ‘with sport you have direct contact with those you play. Football belongs on the green pitch and has nothing to do with other things that are computer-related. For me esports is not sports.’”

Whether or not esports will make their way into the 2024 Paris Olympics is still anybody’s guess. Nevertheless, the current year-over-year growth has lead to predictions that look good for the esports industry — Olympics or not.