LoL's player officially recognized as "Athletes" in US

[Puck]

I think it's stupid.

I think the entire pro player scene is stupid.

It is a video game.

[Deleted]

thoughts? OMG,/facepalm,LOL etc you get the idea

apparently some people don't know what athlete means and they're getting more and more every year...

sports= boxing,wrestling,football(THE REAL ONE NOT THE EGGBALL),basketball,swimming,running etc

games= video games,table tennis,trading card games,golf,shooting etc

notice a pattern? it's like the excercise in the elementary school 'can you tell the difference?'

i'm tempted to post pictures of athletes and gamers to make my point even clearer but since it's early i won't be that mean yet.

the only motive i can see behind this is to tell the chicks that you're an athlete and not a gamer,but if they ask what sport are you on what will you say? LoL? WoW? trust me it's better to just be yourself and not mention the whole gaming thing at all.

[Tradu]

i'm tempted to post pictures of athletes and gamers to make my point even clearer but since it's early i won't be that mean yet.

Not all pro gamers look like Liquid.Sheth and Crs Edward. I know that sounds crazy, but the majority of pro gamers are actually in decent shape, because it does improve your performance in videogames.

As to the main topic, I think it's great, and hope more games are accepted and more countries follow suit.

[Repefe]

i'm tempted to post pictures of athletes and gamers to make my point even clearer but since it's early i won't be that mean yet.

the only motive i can see behind this is to tell the chicks that you're an athlete and not a gamer,but if they ask what sport are you on what will you say? LoL? WoW? trust me it's better to just be yourself and not mention the whole gaming thing at all.

Pretty sure regardless of what you say to the chick it will be embarassing ... I run for a living. Wow, that's hmm ... like being a model, but even less useful ? I don't think gamers want to call themself athletes ... saying I am a professional gamer > I am an athlete. It's just a status that has legal implications. Also gamers actually acknowledge that they have to physically exercise if they want to stay on top of their game. If you ever did some mentally challenging job for a long period of time you should understand the importance of physical exercise.

I think it's stupid.

I think the entire pro player scene is stupid.

It is a video game.

You have to put it in the right perspective ... the whole athletism is stupid. No reason what so ever to care if somebody can jump high or far or throw a spear or whatever they are doing nowdays. So in that regard it's an even field.

[Ladey Gags]

Well, this doesn't really affect me as I avoid e-sports anyway, so I guess I shouldn't really care much at all. At least not until it's in the Olympics, which it most likely will be eventually. Once that happens, an epic facedesk will occur.

and yet, still a more legitimate sport than this shit:

Congratulations, you've acquired two unfortunately timed photos of the most popular sport in the world. Would you like a cookie?

[Pisholina]

As I said in the thread that got locked not a long time ago, I like eSports. I like that they are finally getting the attention they need, but I still stay behind the statement that I'd rather see Starcraft as a sport rather than LoL (or both, for that matter, but please, include Starcraft). If you really think that being a professional gamer has nothing to do with physical exercise and training, try becoming one yourself. Trust me, it's not as easy as you think.

Now let's go back in time. Back in the old days, only the sports like running, swimming, spear-throwing, stone-throwing etc. were considered sports. But then, people invented football, rugby, American football, basketball and all the other famous stuff. The people back then also thought those were games for children to play, and not a legit sport because what's a big deal if you kick a leather thing full of air into a square 17.86 m^2 big? That's nothing compared to throwing a spear 60 meters away.

All in all, professional gamers that take their job seriously eat healthy, go to the gym, do a lot of mental exercises, evolve strategies and get a lot of practice games. It's pretty tiring doing 300+ APM constantly during a match and when the shit hits the fan, 500+ APM (8.66 clicks per second) to be able to win. And that's not just random button mashing. It's thought out playing and logically used tactics in order to overthrow the enemy.

[Tradu]

As I said in the thread that got locked not a long time ago, I like eSports. I like that they are finally getting the attention they need, but I still stay behind the statement that I'd rather see Starcraft as a sport rather than LoL (or both, for that matter, but please, include Starcraft). If you really think that being a professional gamer has nothing to do with physical exercise and training, try becoming one yourself. Trust me, it's not as easy as you think.

Now let's go back in time. Back in the old days, only the sports like running, swimming, spear-throwing, stone-throwing etc. were considered sports. But then, people invented football, rugby, American football, basketball and all the other famous stuff. The people back then also thought those were games for children to play, and not a legit sport because what's a big deal if you kick a leather thing full of air into a square 17.86 m^2 big? That's nothing compared to throwing a spear 60 meters away.

All in all, professional gamers that take their job seriously eat healthy, go to the gym, do a lot of mental exercises, evolve strategies and get a lot of practice games. It's pretty tiring doing 300+ APM constantly during a match and when the shit hits the fan, 500+ APM (8.66 clicks per second) to be able to win. And that's not just random button mashing. It's thought out playing and logically used tactics in order to overthrow the enemy.

The only reason it's just LoL(at least for now) is that it's SIGNIFICANTLY bigger than SC2 and that Riot themselves did something about it. I hope more games get the same treatment, but for now I'm just happy that at least the biggest eSport is officially recognized.

[Seani]

It's funny, watch the reaction to one of these kids when you tell them it's not a sport.

[PickleballAce]

Congratulations, you've acquired two unfortunately timed photos of the most popular sport in the world. Would you like a cookie?

As long as it's not oatmeal raisin. I'm not a masochist.

[Repefe]

I guess a lot of ppl here haven't got past the thread title. The reason why the status athlete is important is for visas (and probably some other legal stuff) It basically means the government recognizes that these guys are in the same situation as professional athletes. They play a sport albeit electronic in professional leagues and are paid for it.

If you don't want to call them athletes the government will have to come up with a new name with same rights just for the sake of semantics. A lot of work so purists can sleep at night.

[Tradu]

In what universe is LoL a bigger eSport than Starcraft.

And they dont even need recognition, gamers are already sponsored by gaming companies. They get their own tournaments, massive cash prizes. Theres almost no difference in treatment between gamers and real athletes. If anything the gaming scene is doing great on its own, theres more of a community between everyone.

Pretty sure there's more money in competitive LoL than there is in SC2. As far as I'm aware, LoL tournaments(at least in the west) get way more stream viewers than SC2. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that from quite a few people who work in eSports.
Possible source, not sure how reliable CPL is

[nodq]

If ANY game could have such a title for their players. then it has to be starcraft. but srsly... LoL? The 4 button game which you can play with ONE hand and half asleep? even wow is more of an athlectic "sport" than LoL will ever be.

[Arenis]

Out af ANY game(including actual diehard skillgames like quake,cod promod, counterstrike etc) they could pick for skill-based display in sports, they picked League of Legends. Dammit that game is so retarded. Doesn't even take a fraction of the skill that above games take. Good job mankind.

[Duronos]

Well the thing is, people are taking the term "athlete" to literal. Do you people know how hard it is to obtain visa's for a lot of these players? All this does is give them the ability to travel much more easily. Just a quality of life thing.

[Repefe]

Some teams actually couldn't get their players from outside of US to play on their team because of visas. That's why Riot did this. All this verbal masturbation about what is the best esport sport is complete shoot and miss. It's not what this is about.

Not to mention if one esport gets players qualified as athletes, it will be much easier for other esports to qualify if they are in similar situation to LoL. So honestly everyone should be happy that one game made it.

[Yvaelle]

In what universe is LoL a bigger eSport than Starcraft.

And they dont even need recognition, gamers are already sponsored by gaming companies. They get their own tournaments, massive cash prizes. Theres almost no difference in treatment between gamers and real athletes. If anything the gaming scene is doing great on its own, theres more of a community between everyone.

In this universe.

League of Legends has over 32 million (monthly) active players, and 70 million accounts. Starcraft 2 sold 4.6 million copies, and has ~3 million people who have played a ranked game so far this season. At any given hour of the day, there are more people playing League of Legends (at that moment) than everybody who has competed in Starcraft 2, ever.

Those people who play Starcraft 2 are obviously a more die-hard community than the majority of the LoL community. 2/3rds of the SC2 community has played enough ranked games to appear on the rankings (usually takes like, 5-ish to place you right?). But if even just 10% of the active LoL community plays competitively it's as big as SC2 - in reality - the competitive LoL community is probably much closer to 50%, right? So 15 million active competitors - or five times bigger than SC2.

Furthermore, and non-trivially - outside of the competitive SC2 community - nobody cares about SC2 (maybe Korean schoolgirls, I don't know how it is across the pond - we hear weird things sometimes...). Those 70 million people who have played LoL at some point can all understand what's happening in a LoL match - and they have at least a mild interest (they've tried it before, which demonstrates interest): that's your audience size.

Lastly consider that for someone who has never tried either before - SC2 makes no sense at all - LoL is extremely intuitive to the uninitiated: it follows the stories of human beings (rather than a swarm of SCV's and build menus) as they poke other human begins with sharp objects and magic: we've all been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years (what, you guys don't have magic? We at least all wish we had magic).

[Thallidomaniac]

In this universe.

League of Legends has over 32 million (monthly) active players, and 70 million accounts. Starcraft 2 sold 4.6 million copies, and has ~3 million people who have played a ranked game so far this season. At any given hour of the day, there are more people playing League of Legends (at that moment) than everybody who has competed in Starcraft 2, ever.

Those people who play Starcraft 2 are obviously a more die-hard community than the majority of the LoL community. 2/3rds of the SC2 community has played enough ranked games to appear on the rankings (usually takes like, 5-ish to place you right?). But if even just 10% of the active LoL community plays competitively it's as big as SC2 - in reality - the competitive LoL community is probably much closer to 50%, right? So 15 million active competitors - or five times bigger than SC2.

Furthermore, and non-trivially - outside of the competitive SC2 community - nobody cares about SC2 (maybe Korean schoolgirls, I don't know how it is across the pond - we hear weird things sometimes...). Those 70 million people who have played LoL at some point can all understand what's happening in a LoL match - and they have at least a mild interest (they've tried it before, which demonstrates interest): that's your audience size.

Lastly consider that for someone who has never tried either before - SC2 makes no sense at all - LoL is extremely intuitive to the uninitiated: it follows the stories of human beings (rather than a swarm of SCV's and build menus) as they poke other human begins with sharp objects and magic: we've all been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years (what, you guys don't have magic? We at least all wish we had magic).

There's also the issues with Blizzard and the KeSPA in negotiations regarding SC2, the SC2 play model (you need to buy the game box and add it to a battle.net account), and the game fixing scandal in BW didn't help SC2's popularity at all.

[Axethor]

Closing this. Half the thread is arguing about the definition of athlete and the other half is game bashing.