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from the all-competitors-are-disqualified dept.
Der Spiegel [in German], supported by Sky News [in English], report:
[translation mine]Ever since young people started earning money playing computer games, a discussion has arisen within Gamer circles: is E-sport, professional computer game playing, really sport? Is mouse-clicking and button pressing at high tempo easier, more challenging, or just as sophisticated as kicking a ball or swimming faster than others?
To put it plainly, whoever games professionally needs exactly as much training, passion, and talent as professionals in classical sports. And that good gamers compete in front of tens of thousands of spectators makes the world hardly better or worse than a football/soccer world championship or the Tour de France.
In any event Gamers may have to think about the issue more than they'd like. The E-Sports League (ESL), in which players of games like "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive," "Fifa," and "League of Legends" compete, has announced that they will be cooperating with the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA). It is supposed to not only prevent doping, but institute concrete testing. ESL has announced that the Counter-Strike competition on August 22-23 in Cologne's Lanxess Arena that skin tests will be conducted.
Additional reporting here and here.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:12PM
So, pray tell, how are you going to tell those kids with prescriptions for Adderall that they're cheating dope-addicts? Not very politically correctly and the risky of lawsuity, that's for damn sure.
And yes, I agree with the first poster than video gaming should not be considered a sport, unless you throw it in the same tier as pole-dancing and competitive eating. Worldwide competitions and prizes? Sure. But sport video gaming is most definitely not. Not even if they're playing Madden.
(Score: 2) by Francis on Saturday July 25 2015, @10:11PM
First off, nobody should be taking adderall unless they've already gotten Parkinson's Disease, that shit is not safe for anybody else.
Secondly, you tell them the same thing that we tell gymnasts that are caught with pseudoephedrine in their blood stream at the time of the testing, that's a banned substance and you can't have that in your blood when you perform. The half life of the stimulants is really, really short. It they want to compete they just need to refrain from it for a few days and it'll be below detectable levels.
Besides, people taking psycho-stimulants for ADHD hardly need it for competitive play. They need it for the rest of their lives when they aren't already being stimulated. Claiming that taking it away is somehow hurting them is absolutely ridiculous. ADHD is not an attention deficity problem, it's a problem of controlling where the attention goes. I can't recall ever having met somebody with ADHD that couldn't concentrate for a long video game session. At least not in a game that they liked playing