Esports In The Olympics Unlikely Until ‘Violence’ Removed

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Esports In The Olympics Unlikely Until ‘Violence’ Removed

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President, Thomas Bach, has not yet decided if or when esports will be integrated into the Olympic Games.

During an interview with The Associated Press at the Asian Games this past weekend, he discussed conditional requirements that are needed before approval.

“We cannot have in the Olympic program a game which is promoting violence or discrimination,” he told the AP. “So-called killer games. They, from our point of view, are contradictory to the Olympic values and cannot therefore be accepted.”

“Of course every combat sport has its origins in a real fight among people,” Bach said. “But sport is the civilized expression about this. If you have egames where it’s about killing somebody, this cannot be brought into line with our Olympic values.”


Reddit user ahac jokes:

Shooting a virtual gun: too violent.

Shooting a real gun: Olympic sport.

This guy won an Olympic medal in fencing… which was literally invented to kill people.


Reddit user samacora says:

Boxing, taekwondo, fencing and judo?

But an animation getting hit with a pink ball is too much violence.


Asian Games

Esports is being played for the first time at the Asian Games, and is hoping to be a medaled event in time for the Hangzhou, China Olympic Games in 2022.

The Asian Games lineup of esports includes: League of Legends, Hearthstone, Starcraft II, Pro Evolution Soccer 2018, Arena of Valor and Clash Royale. As seen by this selection of games, none of them are overly ‘violent'. The IOC requirements do not bode well for First-Person-Shooter (FPS) games such as Call of Duty, Counter-Strike or even much less gory Overwatch. FPS games may require special graphical changes before being played on the worlds biggest stages.


Olympics

Additionally the IOC has chosen Tokyo for 2020, Paris for 2024, and Los Angeles for 2028.

Rio spent an estimated $20 billion USD to organize its Olympics. Tokyo is estimated to spend about the same to host the games and further develop their city.


Source: AP News

Corey Pollack
Corey is a team member of one of the world's largest esports organizations. Corey is also the founder of Wave Digital Media, one of Canada's 60 fastest growing companies. You can learn more about Corey via our About page.