Do you view eSports, as a sport?

[McNeil]

And now logic has given way to emotion.

And stop crying about balance. Chess is less balanced than SC2. SC2 is basically perfectly balanced at a tournament level. Win rates are so ridiculously close, they're literally within 1% of each other. In Chess the first move gives you a 2-6% advantage. I'm sure your height in Basketball gives you more of an advantage than race in SC2.

SC2 is so ridiculously balanced, those less than 1% variances in win rate could be called a fluke. And well, SC2 is kind of the symbol of esports. That's the one that every other game aspires to be. There are other esport games that are inherently 100% balanced, such Halo: Reach.

Oh come on... one miniscule part in my response ''chess is 100% balanced'' yet you say ''stop crying about balance'', yet its so small it isn't even noticable, yet you've taken that part to response back? Please, and lets begin with the ''chess is less balanced than SC2'' bulllcrap, you know damn well the units and factions in SC2 are not 100% equal, thus making is never be 100% balanced. In tradional sports you don't even have units, and sports SHOULD NEVER have ''units'' at all, thus video games should never be sports. Sports is about the prestation of people, not some virtual guys. Maybe you will find me narrow-minded, but this is just how it is. There's little point discussing this if you keep whining about balance to me.

I'm just going to repeat the most important part of your fairly useless argumentation: Yes people call chess a sport aswell, but in my opinion it shouldn't be a sport anyway.

You're being extremely narrow-minded throughout this entire thread. Your premodernistic perception of reality is your choice, but I find it to be annoyingly ignorant. Also, being fat used to be an attribute of the upper class, as it indicated they had enough resources to feed themselves thoroughly. It doesn't matter what someone wants the next generation to be their hero, it matters on how society evolves as a whole. Your depiction that a necessity for a sport is to have a nation wide competition also holds no ground on its own and is in your part not explained as to why this is supposed to be. Perhaps intuition? Furthermore, your assessment about what the target audience is for eSports, followed by audiences that possibly know eSports right now is a sublime case of illogical reasoning. You can not generalize that the entire 30-60 age range would not be interested in eSports when coming into contact with it.

Edit: Food for thought: Is Guitar Hero a possible sport? There is physical exertion involved, this cannot be denied, there is competition involved and it is a video game.

Chess is just an accepted widely known sport thats 100% balanced. I can't stop it being a sport, its just accepted that way, simply of being its popularity. Trust me if I had the choice to kick chess out of the sport category, I would.

There's no point responding much back now, but since you've watched me in this thread, just re-read my older responses if you'd like...

[Against the Modern World]

I'm not saying race in SC is imbalanced ( I don't play this game). I'm saying that you can't compare race to height, because they're totally different things.

Yes, there're lots of advantages and disadvanteges in "real" sports for tall or short people (depending on sport), but the sports themselves and equipment for them ARE balanced. There're standarts like how much the ball weights.
Same (dis)advantages are in gaming - players with longer and more nimble fingers are clearly have better chances compared to "sausage fingers".

[insmek]

It's not a sport, but that doesn't need to take anything away from it. Racing isn't a sport either, it's a competition. Those who participate are competitors, not athletes. A spelling bee isn't a sport, but that doesn't mean the participants trained any less hard for it. Same thing goes for E-Sports.

[OrcsRLame]

Oh come on... one miniscule part in my response ''chess is 100% balanced'' yet you say ''stop crying about balance'', yet its so small it isn't even noticable, yet you've taken that part to response back? Please, and lets begin with the ''chess is less balanced than SC2'' bulllcrap, you know damn well the units and factions in SC2 are not 100% equal, thus making is never be 100% balanced. In tradional sports you don't even have units, and sports SHOULD NEVER have ''units'' at all, thus video games should never be sports. Sports is about the prestation of people, not some virtual guys. Maybe you will find me narrow-minded, but this is just how it is. There's little point discussing this if you keep whining about balance to me.



Chess is just an accepted widely known sport thats 100% balanced. I can't stop it being a sport, its just accepted that way, simply of being its popularity. Trust me if I had the choice to kick chess out of the sport category, I would.

There's no point responding much back now, but since you've watched me in this thread, just re-read my older responses if you'd like...

I'm not the one whining about balance, you are lol. And Chess isn't 100% balanced. First move gives a 2-6% advantage. And units in SC2 aren't 100% equal. Proper unit compositions are balanced though. And I never claimed factions are 100% balanced. Terran is overpowered. Their early game rush is simply too powerful. BUT, the community has done things to make up for Blizzard's balance failures via map editing. That's why tournaments have their own map versions.

In tournament play, specifically Code S GSL, the factions are 100% balanced, (or at least 99% balanced. There's a small statistical variance between the races at any given time, but it's too small to make any conclusions based on it.)

And everything else you've said is your emotional opinion. The reason I only commented on the part of your post where you talked about balance is that was the only time where you were discussing something based on facts, and not your opinion. There's simply nothing to say to the rest of your post. It's not wrong or right because it's your opinion, and that's about as far as a discussion like that can go.

[Anonimus]

Chess is just an accepted widely known sport thats 100% balanced. I can't stop it being a sport, its just accepted that way, simply of being its popularity. Trust me if I had the choice to kick chess out of the sport category, I would.

There's no point responding much back now, but since you've watched me in this thread, just re-read my older responses if you'd like...

Given that everything you say is either a strong personal opinion that you try to word as a fact or just you being plainly incorrect about Googlable (is this a term?) facts, there is indeed not any point to responding. Yet I can't help myself. I find it funny that you proceed to miss my entire point. I'll once again highlight what you said that is most characterizing of your posts: "I can't stop it being a sport [..] Trust me if I had the choice to kick chess out of the sport category, I would."

I am not annoyed by your idea, which would condensed down to basics be that eSports is not a sport, but I am annoyed by the way you try to prove your point. I'll just leave it at that

[Zyzzyx]

Huge grey area for me. By the definition of sport, some games could be considered just that when played against others. It does take skill to play competitive games, and the definition can fit.

That being said: I call it a game. It's a game you play against other people. It isn't a true sport in my eyes. Being good at clicking in the right direction doesn't impress me too much.

Edit: It also would sound really silly if someone said "Hey, let's go watch some sports on television", and then we sat and watched Starcraft tournaments. My biggest problem is that the players involved aren't physically doing anything. You're not watching people play, you're watching things happen on a screen. The "sport" part involves mental activity, which is boring as hell and shouldn't be lumped in with anything else.

[Borfl]

And now logic has given way to emotion.

And stop crying about balance. Chess is less balanced than SC2. SC2 is basically perfectly balanced at a tournament level. Win rates are so ridiculously close, they're literally within 1% of each other. In Chess the first move gives you a 2-6% advantage. I'm sure your height in Basketball gives you more of an advantage than race in SC2.

SC2 is so ridiculously balanced, those less than 1% variances in win rate could be called a fluke. And well, SC2 is kind of the symbol of esports. That's the one that every other game aspires to be. There are other esport games that are inherently 100% balanced, such Halo: Reach.

Lolwut.

Marines vs T3 Zerg. Rines win
Marines vs Mutas. Rines win
Ghosts vs anything. Ghosts win

SC2 is far from a balanced game. Terran has insane aggression potential. Ever watch Nestea vs IMMVP Blizzcon? Yeah What kind of shit was that best Zerg vs best Terran, Nestea was crushing him, then herp derp I have ghosts, GG ubadzerg? Terran has higher potential than any other race and arguably the easier of the three to play.

[vindicatorx]

Sorry no I don't then again I don't really consider baseball much of a sport either as I have always said if you can play a game while having a huge wad of tobacco in your mouth it's not a real sport.

[OrcsRLame]

Lolwut.

Marines vs T3 Zerg. Rines win
Marines vs Mutas. Rines win
Ghosts vs anything. Ghosts win

SC2 is far from a balanced game. Terran has insane aggression potential. Ever watch Nestea vs IMMVP Blizzcon? Yeah What kind of shit was that best Zerg vs best Terran, Nestea was crushing him, then herp derp I have ghosts, GG ubadzerg? Terran has higher potential than any other race and arguably the easier of the three to play.

If bio wasn't strong Terran would have nothing. Terran is the hardest race to play perfectly, which is why Code S GSL players prefer it. The required APM is higher, and many Korean players like the more frantic playstyle. This is why you see many Protoss and Zerg players, (particularly Protoss) with lower effective APM than Terran players.

And you can't just compare individual tiers of units. For one, overall, Infestors are the strongest Zerg unit, not Hive tech. Ghosts and Marines can win against anything, but they don't always do. Just like Infestor/Brood Lord/Ultra can win against Ghost/Marine/Siege/Medivac/Viking. It's not a sure thing either way; it comes down to micro and how many units you have. What units should Terran use to beat Zerg? Battlecruisers are garbage, Thors are situational at best. Fyi, mass ling owns Thors, Zerg T1 beats Terran T3 OPOPOP!

Mutas aren't supposed to beat armies in a direct fight. Their strength is their mobility and large dps/aoe. They force you to turtle in the mid game so Zerg can expand and gain map dominance. They're also used for harass, by targeting the mineral line, tech add-ons, units that can't attack air, and research buildings. All good Zergs know that Mutas are squishy and don't mix well into a late game army. It's a mid game tool that you need to transition out of.

You can't compare individual units, it's all about builds and composition. Just talking individual unit strength, the Immortal is the best ground unit in the game, barring DTs and lack of detection, and the Battlecruiser is the best air unit. Yet Immortals and BCs are both situational units, though the BC much less so, as it's very rarely useful.

If Terran were so blatantly OP they would be winning every tournament all the time, which they don't. And late game, even if you're ahead by a lot, one mistake, one misclick, is all you need to throw the game, and that applies to any matchup.

You also gotta consider production capability as well. Ghosts are great, but they have a longer build time than Marines, they cost gas, and you need Barracks with a tech lab. When it gets to late game, if the Zerg is on 4-6 bases, he can produce a lot more Infestors than a Terran can produce Ghosts, unless the Terran has been stacking Barracks with tech labs. And if he hasn't been using any reactors the whole game, his Marine count should have been WAY behind in the early to mid game so it's your fault that you let him use survive the early/mid game with a greedy opener. And if he transitions into 10+ Barracks with tech labs late game, well he's got a shitload of money. If he can build enough structures to keep up with late game Zerg production on pure ghosts then he's got a shitload of money, and if that's the case you should have more. If you do, then you can force an attack and use the old 300 supply push strategy. And if you don't have the money for it, then well, you simply got out-macroed.

Ghosts, Infestors, and High Templar are all basically caster support units. They all have the capability to wreck any army in seconds, but they're squishy and you need to protect them. They counter each other almost perfectly. In the case of Ghost vs Infestor, the Ghost has an individual advantage, due to the range of snipe, but you should have way more Infestors than the Terran has Ghosts. If you outplay him you will lose some Infestors to snipe, but you can kill all his Ghosts with fungal.

This perception of imbalance only exists within the community. The best pros all know the game is balanced.

[UR1L]

I do. Especially StarCraft. I have huge respect for players in the big leagues and in Korea who's mind and quickness is beyond most traditional sport players.

[Darkfriend]

Definition of a sport - an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

Based on that, absolutely not. It requires VERY little physical prowess, if any at all lol

Counter definition, V"Sport" comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure" prefer this definition