What to call it?

[Rattja]

So.. For those who don't know, a guy from Norway just won the world championship in chess, and in the wake of that people here are arguing back and forth wether it's a sport or not.

This made me think about it, and not only chess, but all the games and things that do not involve much physical activity, but rather rely on brainpower so to speak.
This includes things known as E-sports.

Now, I don't want to have an argument about this, as it's not the point, so for this thread I declare that all these are NOT a sport.
That means that you cannot use the word sport when describing these activities.

With that out of the way, here is my question:
What do we call things like chess or starcraft if we can't call them sports?

I feel we need a word for it, something that sepperates it from football or tennis.
So what do you guys think? Some sort of acronym perhaps?

What I would like is a single word, that sounds and feels as good as sports do. Something easy and short.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Most dictionary definitions I've seen specifically say that its an 'athletic' activity or one involving physical exertion, so if you want to be technical about it then no, chess/starcraft are not sports.

Chess and starcraft already have their own names similar to 'sport', they are a board game and video game respectively, that's all the word sport is really, just a category of games.

I think its pretty stupid to try and call chess a sport or something like starcraft an E-sport because it contradicts what the word sport actually means. The social stigma attached to the phrase 'video games' as a trivial pastime can't be bypassed by calling it a sport, the medium is maturing and gaining respect for itself whether or not it is called a sport.

 

[FalloutJack]

Football and such-like are sports games, physical challenge. Chess is a strategy game, mental challenge.

 

[Floppertje]

Who cares? Call it chess. Does it really matter if you call it a sport or not? Doesn't alter the game itself does it? The only thing that changes is that chess players will be able to say they they play sports and they'd be completely missing the point anyway because the point of that question is usually to find some common ground in the enjoyment of physical activities.

 

[thesilentman]

Just call it a competition then. People usually are quite competitive in these types of things, so there's a commonality.

 

[Akytalusia]

the key word here is competition. physical competition, psychological competition, athletic and strategic competitions... they're all "fields of competition" "vying for [recognition] as the best [in their respective field]". you can segregate these competitions into sports, e-sports, tournaments, battles, war, etc if you want, but that's the bottom line. so i'll just continue to consider them all fields of competition.

 

[Queen Michael]

I've always been fond of the phrase "games."

 

[Weaver]

With that out of the way, here is my question:
What do we call things like chess or starcraft if we can't call them sports?

You call them e-sports or games... which is what we already call them.

 

[verdant monkai]

Its not a sport its a game.

Games are mental, sports are physical excersion.

 

[Saelune]

Why not just use the word competition? Who the fuck cares if its a sport? Id rather avoid the association myself, since I don't think being considered a "sport" really legitimizes it. Its a competition just like football is, but of mind not body. Does body armor really need to be involved?

 

[krazykidd]

Its not a sport its a game.

Games are mental, sports are physical excersion.

Would rythm games a la DDR , then fall unto the sport category?

OT: i vote for competition , since there is only one victor.

 

[Yopaz]

The international Olympics committee calls it a sport so I can't really argue against that. However why should we care? It's defined as a sport, but why do we care if games are done so? We're not going to get any respect, the US supreme court has already defined it as an art and nothing happened. They're games, they're entertaining. Isn't that what truly matters?

 

[Rattja]

Okey, this kinda failed it looks like...
The point was to come up with a new word, you know.. for fun. People keep finding funny words for things so I thought someone would come up with something good. I guess I was wrong.

I don't care what the Olympic whatever says, or anything else. The point was to forget all that and put you in a "what if?" situation. Not debate wether things are a sport or not.

If you really want to do that, by all means, but it was not what I had in mind.

As for who cares? Well I care, as I like to have different names for different things.

With that out of the way, here is my question:
What do we call things like chess or starcraft if we can't call them sports?

You call them e-sports or games... which is what we already call them.

I know we call them that, and that's still using the word sports...

I don't really have a problem with calling it e-sports, but would nice if it had it's own word, that's all.

 

[TWRule]

Call them whatever you want.

I'd call all of those 'games', but some 'games' are also 'sports' - usually because they are specifically competitive types of games and have some institution and/or rules for formal competition built around them.

That's just a heuristic though - there's no objective standard for how words are to be used.

 

[Griffolion]

Many traditional definitions of sport have the activities as exclusively athletic ones, since it was out of athletic games that "sports" evolved and came to be.

Nowadays, the types of definitions for a sport take a more pragmatic approach. Rather than define one single thing, they give a category of adherences that a potential activity can fit into in order to be a sport.

A sport can be primarily physical, mind, motorised, co-ordinated or animal based. It has to have an element of competition, not have "luck" deliberately integrated into the activity, usually needs to have more than one equipment supplier (so as to not encourage monopolies), not encourages danger to its participants (or any other living creature).

It's also usually required to have an overarching governing body and an official set of rules to play by that is also administered by said governing body.

So long as an activity meets these requirements, I'm fine with something being a sport.

I'd quite like to see eSports make an entry into the Olympics, it would be pretty cool. Granted, South Korea would just clean house with gold medals, but that's beside the point.