I love ESPN. I love how they pass off all male entertainment as SPORTS! It started with the whole Texas Hold'em craze and it is flowing over into other areas. I've heard on sports radio channels here in Detroit shows about home improvement and auto repair. Sports Illustrated has been putting out a totally non-sporty Swimsuit issue for years and one sports channel in particular does shows from a strip club here in Detroit (classy).
Since they already have us locked in and tuned in they just want to show us whatever we want. One ESPN channel only plays sports movies. Not even real sports, just movies about sports.
ESPN is the new MTV, for men. I am convinced that MTV is strictly marketed to middle school girls.
What set me off on this topic was when Flammer visited last week he showed me ESPN'S TOP 10 MLG HALO HIGHLIGHTS. It was a top ten highlight reel just like on Sports Center, only with exceptional plays in the VIDEO GAME.
It raised some questions (and some eyebrows) about what exactly is a sport?
According to Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge) "Sport is an activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively. Sports commonly refer to activities where the physical capabilities of the competitor are the sole or primary determiner of the outcome (winning or losing), but the term is also used to include activities such as mind sports (Card games, chess) and motor sports where mental acuity or equipment quality are major factors."
According to this definition, card games (Hold'em) and motor sports are actually sports. And, by this definition, Halo 3 (are you ready for this guys?) is a legitimate sport. At first I was skeptical, but my deep desire to be more athletic is almost satiated by my prowess at the controls.
The game itself plays a lot like most of the sports I've ever played. Each team works together to achieve an objective and when you achieve the desired outcome you taunt your opponent and believe me, they are colorful!
What I love most is how this argument will rankle the anti-video game pundits. The fact that this is a competitive sport and not just wanton blood and gore should satisfy some of the questions asked. It is not a justification for all video games but most for sure.
Oh and by the way, April 15th Bungie releases the new Map Pack. Here's the trailer.
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4 comments:
"Reflexes like that do not exist in a normal human being!"
LOL. Yeah. I've said that same thing more times than I care to count while playing Halo. I still think people who play this well have entirely too much time on their hands and should seriously consider getting a job and moving out of their parents' basement. And yes, I am fully aware of the mind-warping irony of that statement.
On a side note, WHAT'S WITH THE ALL CAPS IN THE TITLE? We can hear you just fine. ;)
Thanks for the vid. Brought back some memories from before I was a pacifist communist wimp.
"Reflexes like that do not exist in a normal human being!"
I actually think there is something to this claim.
Brandon and I have played Halo together online for years now. Really, years. Not as much as a lot of other players online, but much more than others.
We often joke with each other that we have possibly "topped out" in our ability to get any better at the game. Halo uses a ranking system to rate your competitive level, and even though we both surpassed level 30 a long time ago, neither of us have been able to pass level 35, even after playing hundreds and hundreds of games since we hit 30.
This, while other players like those in the video, coast along quite easily in the upper-40's. I do believe that their ranking is not strictly a reflection of how much time they have sunk into playing the game, but also of their superior hand-eye coordination to mine.
In short, they're freaks.
Pre-Comment Disclaimer:
I've tried to be as uninflamatory as possible in my choosing of words. I have no intention of insulting, judging, or condeming. I would much rather have the conversation not in written form since it's so difficult to carry across meaning in writing. I had a hard time deciding whether to write anything but I decided to go ahead and do so. Continued conversation would be great - give me a call.
To me calling something a sport doesn't make it fine to participate in. I think that there are many sports that are difficult to justify participating in. Particularly ones where the whole point is to inflict serious injury on the other. (I haven't figured out how 'serious' is 'too serious' to me that's not the point) Examples might be those cage match tough man competitions and probably boxing in general. Of course over history we've had 'sport' being applied to death matches in man vs. man or man vs. beast type of battles - these are of course no longer acceptable - but they might come around again who knows?
Other sports have varing levels of violence but depend on how the game is played. Football of course leads to many injurys, as do many other sports. Usually these are accidents but some are intentional injury inflictions. Most sports have rules against these intentional things. Personal fouls and the like.
Please, I'm not trying to start a flame war. To me HALO and other FPSes are centered around virtual killing with virtual deadly weapons (ie. an automatic shotgun or sniper rifle or the classic BFG from Doom) whether you call them a sport or not. It also makes a difference (to me anyway) that there is a higher level of realism than that of say Mario Kart.
And finally to weigh in on the is it a sport or isn't it - I'd think that it probably is. The hours practicing the skills required the physical stamina to participate in some of these 24-48 hour marathon HALO/Crysis/Quake 3/Whatever else is paramount to a marathon runner/basketball player/chess champion/badmitten prodigy.
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