Does e-sports count as sports?

E-sports is not a sport! Even if it enters the Olympics, I firmly oppose it is sports!

The words of iQiyi Sports CEO Yu Lingxiao in the 5th "China Sports Industry Carnival" completely angered the e-sports circle and attracted the "criminal" of many game enthusiasts, and also won many sports defenders. support.

At the event, Yu Lingxiao expressed his views: "In 2020, the epidemic has created a vacuum in sports events, and online games have become particularly important. However, e-sports evolved from games. I firmly oppose it as sports, whether you join or not. After the Olympics, capital can be profitable, but don’t pretend to be sports. Sports needs more online products, but it must be an active and healthy online lifestyle."

Overnight, the pros and the opposing factions began to talk online, and the smell of gunpowder was full of gunpowder. It may be a blockbuster news that prompted Yu Lingxiao to clearly oppose e-sports becoming a sports event: the Asian Olympic Council General Assembly approved e-sports as an official project. The 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games .

As early as 2003, e- sports has become a sports competition

To many people's surprise, e-sports was listed as a sports competition by the National Sports Bureau as early as 2003.

Around 2000, major countries in the world have been keenly aware that the Internet is a must in the future, and have begun to vigorously promote the popularization of the Internet. In order not to lag behind the trend of the world, China built the first next-generation Internet regional trial network in Beijing in 2001. Since then, China's broadband network has ushered in rapid development.

In those years, the Internet in China exploded, and Internet cafes of various sizes emerged across the country, "captured" a large number of young and middle-aged groups. The reason why Internet cafes can attract a large number of customers is because of the PC games-World of Warcraft , StarCraft, Counter-Strike (CS), Legend and so on.

The thrill of the game makes many people want to stop. In order to make users addicted to the game, game operators use the psychology of comparison to create competitive rankings based on the performance of players, such as "server rankings", "city rankings", "provincial rankings", " This is the predecessor of e-sports, but the scale was small, the standard was single, and it was not a system.

It was South Korea that systemized e-sports for the first time.

In 2000, South Korea’s Samsung sponsored the WCG (World Cyber ​​Games), which was the first ever e-sports competition held in the "Olympic mode". The first WCG included StarCraft, Age of Empires II, For FIFA2000 and Thor's Hammer, 49 players from 17 countries participated in the interstellar project, with a total prize of 50,000 US dollars. Chinese player Kulou.csa won the seventh place.

Soon, two years later, in 2002, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China took the lead in organizing the "China E-Sports Conference", which put forward the concept of rectifying the name of electronic games, and advocated "using e-sports beyond games to interpret new concepts and lead fashionable and healthy electronic entertainment for all. Cultural trends". One year later, in 2003, the National Sports Administration listed e-sports as a sports competition.

This decision eighteen years ago seemed "violating", but in fact it was a matter of course. There is no other reason. Which country is at the forefront of the Internet, and which country is at the forefront of the world. From this perspective, it is not surprising that it was decided to include e-sports as a sports competition.

To fall from the "Altar", all you need is a fire

According to data from the China Internet Information Center, as of the end of 2001, there were 12.54 million computers connected to the Internet in China, an increase of 40.6% over the previous year; the number of Internet users was 33.7 million, an increase of 49.8%, of which 4.18 million were online game subscribers. In 2001, China's online game market will reach nearly RMB 1 billion.

Internationally and domestically recognized, e-sports has been smooth sailing ever since?

No, because people are gradually discovering that video games have caused many social problems.

Some people stay up all night and play games all night, with yellowish faces and thin skin, like "ghosts"; some people use Internet cafes as their homes, and their bodies "rotten and smelly", and they die suddenly in the seats of the Internet cafes; some people want to go online. Fei, he did not hesitate to threaten his parents with a knife, and finally caused a murder; some people quarreled with the network administrator, burned the Internet cafe, and killed 25 people…

In those years, video games have become the object of criticism from all walks of life. Some people even describe it as "electronic heroin," which destroys people's body and mind like drugs. It is an addictive behavior that is harmful to no benefit .

In 2003, CCTV 5 launched the "E-Sports World" column. For the first time, an e-sports program appeared on a national TV station and aroused great repercussions. It was called "a must-see program for game lovers", but the voice of criticism in society was extremely high. Big. In the end, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued the " Notice on Prohibition of Broadcasting of Computer Network Game Programs " in 2004, and the broadcast of "E-Sports World" was suspended, and it was only 10 months from the start to the suspension .

Popularization of smart phones, e-sports

The criticism of video games has lasted for many years, and e-sports has also entered a relatively low period. After several years of silence, with the popularization of smart phones, electronic games have become popular, and e-sports have returned to the public eye.

At the same time, criticism of video games is gradually decreasing. The reason is simple-the number of mobile game users in China has reached 640 million. Except for the elderly, children and those who are not equipped with smartphones, it can be said that almost every smartphone user has played video games, and the stance of criticizing games is no longer so. Strong, and a bit less sharp.

The number of users has surged, and the market has expanded wildly.

Data compiled by gamma data shows that the Chinese game market has grown from 18.5 billion yuan in 2008 to 233 billion yuan in 2019, an increase of more than 12 times. The mobile game market has soared from 150 million yuan in 2008 to 151.3 billion yuan, an increase of 1008 times.

This is a big cake, both in terms of growth rate and total volume are very eye-catching, and the data has not yet included the market for game derivatives and surrounding industries.

However, as the market matures, the ceiling of electronic games has become more apparent. The annual growth rate of the game market has dropped from the highest point of 60% to 7%, and the annual growth rate of the mobile game market has dropped from the highest point of 72% to 5%.

Countless cases have proved that to make the competition cake bigger, systematization, formalization and industrialization are the best choices. As a result, the gaming industry has set its sights on the Olympics. As long as the "Olympics" is successful, the commercialization of e-sports after the rectification is bound to be smooth sailing.

On May 17, 2013, 17173 initiated a petition to players around the world to apply for the inclusion of e-sports competitions in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.

In 2018, the International e-Sports Federation (IeSF, International e-Sports Federation) applied to the International Olympic Committee for Olympic events. However, the International Olympic Committee believes that e-sports has always been inconsistent with the elimination of discrimination, elimination of violence, and the spread of peace in the Olympic philosophy due to the violent component of the game, and it has refused to allow e-sports to join the Olympic family.

Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach made it clear in an interview at the time: "Olympic events cannot promote violence and prejudice…those killing games, from our point of view, are contrary to Olympic values ​​and therefore cannot be accepted. "

"Crossing the Olympics" was unsuccessful, and the e-sports industry turned its attention to the Asian Games. Starting in 2019, news that e-sports will become one of the sports events of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games was reported, which triggered small-scale discussions on the Internet.

The news of "E-sports as a competition event for the Asian Games", after rumors, speculations, and controversies, was finally confirmed on December 16, 2020: According to the official Weibo news of Tencent E-sports, the Asian Olympic Council General Assembly was held in Mas, Sultanate of Oman. Carter City was held to approve e-sports as an official event to be selected for the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.

Pros and cons clash, e-sports name is overshadowed

Knowing the origin of e-sports, the key point of the dispute between the pros and cons is obvious-does e-sports have more advantages or disadvantages than advantages?

Opponents believe that sports pursue higher, faster and stronger, and guide the maturity of the "mental, mental and physical", as well as the purpose of abandoning violence and advocating peace, which brings a positive attitude to the entire society. No matter how you look at it, it runs counter to the spirit of sports. "Look at those so-called e-sports people. Do you think they are healthy? They sit and play games every day. Most of them don’t study well before doing this. Children learn from them. It's scrapped."

At the Fifth "China Sports Industry Carnival", Shengli Family’s founder and CEO Li Sheng said that sports require physical exercise. Sports is the last line of defense for mankind. Morality, intelligence, and physical fitness need to be fully developed and cannot be replaced by finger and brain exercise. . Sports have competition, but competition is not all sports.

In order to eliminate these negative impressions, on September 10 , 2019, KPL Alliance Chairman Zhang Yijia announced that in the future, a group of professional players will return to school to receive re-education in cooperation with Guangzhou Sports College.

Approvers believe that since the purpose of competition is to be higher, faster and stronger, then why the competition between intelligence and technology is not regarded as competition . "In ancient times, there was no electronic competition. Intellectual things were compared with physical strength. Now electronic sports can be said from technology , Mentality, cooperation, and strategy are all in a comprehensive competition that is higher, faster and stronger, which is fully in line with the spirit of sports."

Zhou Jie, COO of KA Women’s E-sports Club, said at an event: “(E-sports) has a higher degree of social recognition. E-sports has been valued by policies, the value of the e-sports industry has been discovered, and e-sports people have been recognized and respected… …Parents who sent their children to sign the club know what e-sports are, and have a certain understanding of policies, the industry, and their children’s future career development."

It is reported that as early as 2017, Shanghai put forward the slogan of building a "global e-sports capital". By 2020, the promotion of the development of the e-sports industry has been written into the "Shanghai Action Plan for Promoting the Development of New Online Economy (2020-2022)".

All disputes are interests

Yu Lingxiao, CEO of iQiyi Sports, firmly opposes the change of e-sports to sports. Below, there is a comment written like this:

E-sports is bad, it is not in the live iQiyi sports program.

This comment goes straight to the core. All reasons for demonstrating whether things are reasonable must be driven by interests, both pros and cons. The countries and cities that are willing to build e-sports as an industry are also right and wrong. , Are serving their own interests .

Just like me, I agree that e-sports is a kind of sports, its social and economic value is immeasurable, and the benefits to society outweigh the disadvantages, but I don’t think it belongs to sports. If e-sports and sports are equal, it will be difficult for me in the future Children have a clearer understanding of sports activities and e-sports. In the future, when I ask children to "play more and less video games", they may be replied, "e-sports are all Olympic events, why can't they play?", indirectly improve The cost of education is not conducive to the healthy development of children. If another parent sends their children to the e-sports group, they must hold completely opposite views.

In response to this, Zhihu user Chen Yuzhan commented like this:

The real contradiction between traditional sports and e-sports, in fact, does not lie in the spirit and concept, but in the power struggle between all the interest groups between the two around the "sports control."

The same applies to manufacturers, industry organizations, sports organizations, and the International Olympic Committee.

It is nothing more than a rising trend, trying to enter a recognized authority organization, trying to cannibalize the influence of the other party, but fell on the high threshold of the authority organization.

As time progresses, and combined with the current situation to analyze, if one day the head of world sports dares to pat his chest and say, "E-sports is all under control," perhaps e-sports can really enter the Olympics.

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