 |
 What do the following things have in common?
Golf
Bridge
Chess
Life Saving
Korfball
Shooting
I'll tell you what they have in common... They are all recognized as sports by the Olympic committee. I'm not even kidding here. Bridge. Yeah, the card game.
Obviously someone looked at that list and thought, "What the fuck? Video games are WAY more exciting than bridge, require just as much skill, and are played by people under the age of one hundred and seven!"
And with that statement decided to make a bid to have video games included as an Olympic sport. It makes sense to me. Lets take, for example, shooting. Shooting is an Olympic sport, it requires a steady hand, good reflexes, and it doesn't hurt to have spent some time chasing young whippersnappers off your lawn every Halloween. However, Olympic shooting lacks the visceral qualities required to draw in today's audiences.
 Now, let's get a little bit of Olympic background before we go any further. The first thirteen or so Olympic games, way back in ancient Greece, were just a big foot race. It started to catch on, and suddenly they realized that they could sell way more Olympic themed pottery if they would just branch out a bit.
So they looked around and tried to figure out what the kids were into. In that day and age it turns out that people were into watching maimings. Thus, Pankration was allowed into the Olympics. Now Pankration was basically boxing, except you were also allowed to kick your opponent anywhere you wanted. Like the nuts, I assume. I mean, listen to the name! Pankration!!! Hello! Anything that ends with "ation" is something to watch out for. Castration, decapitation, masturbation... Okay, the last one isn't so terrible, but it certainly isn't something worthy of becoming an Olympic sport.
Thankfully they divided the competitions up into two categories, men and boys. As with many things they probably tried to have it as just one big contest first, but even the young and bloodthirsty crowds were a little turned off after watching grown men deliver crushing blows to the genetalia of ten year old boys. Of course, these days that would probably make a fairly profitable web site.
The ancient Olympic committee then started accepting all sorts of other sports in, chariot racing, discus, javelin... They grew, they adopted the popular activities of the time. Back then if you couldn't throw a javelin you didn't get to pillage, and if you weren't pillaging you didn't get invited to any good parties.
Fast forward to today. Gaming has become a multi-billion dollar industry that features televised matches in some countries and has pro-gaming celebrities all its own. Some pro gamers spend eight to ten hours a day training, honing their reflexes and finding new ways to crush their opponents while chugging caffienated beverages and coming up with clever ways to insult your opponent using only five keys on your keyboard.
I seriously hope they DO get video games accepted as a sport in the Olympics, just to fuck with the companies that make games based on the Olympics. How do you like that, suckers? How funny would that be, you fire up "Olympic Games Beijing 2008" on your Playstation 3 and in the game your character has to fire up "Olympic Games Beiging 2008".
Suddenly the universe is stuck in an infinite loop, with you trying to play a professional gamer who is trying to play a game about pro gamers playing games. Pip! Everything we know ceases to exist.
|
|
