Should competitive gaming be considered a sport?

It is debate time! A while back, I ran into a Wikipedia article, while doing some smash related research, that had some very interesting contents. The article was dedicated to the well known and well respected Melee Smasher, Ken. The article, most interestingly, stated that he was a participant in the "electronic sports", playing Smash Brothers Melee. Now there is an interesting thought—"electronic sports".

Now that has been said, we return to the title of this discussion. Should competitive gaming be considered a sport?

DarkMarth's take: By definition, a sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others. Competitive gaming, while having repetitive motion, would not really be considered a sport because it does not involve energy exertion.

As defined above, a sport is an activity involve energy exertion. When you think of competitive gaming, we don't really see much energy being exerted. We typically just sit on a chair or couch and press buttons on our controller—repetitive motion. Some may argue that the fact that a lot of finger motion is involved, it does have energy exertion, making it clasifiable as a sport. But if we followed that logic, should we also consider typing a sport?

With that argument, I believe that competitive gaming should not be considered a sport.

No. As you said, a sport is something that involves physical energy, and video games involve very little physical energy. It won't get you physically active at all, which is one of the most important aspects of any sport.

Lugia2453 wrote:No. As you said, a sport is something that involves physical energy, and video games involve very little physical energy. It won't get you physically active at all, which is one of the most important aspects of any sport.

Chess is a sport, but it's way different. There's a border somewhere. If card games can be considered sports, can Pokémon be, too?

In my mind the distinction is that tend to be primarily raw physical tests, with only a little bit a mental strategy on the side, whereas games are any other competitive test. Gaming would be the latter.