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: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:05PM
But then again 'professional gaming' should also not be called a sport...
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:12PM
I had the same reaction. TFS is really a Trojan horse for the real story, which is whether and when video gaming should be accepted as a sport.
How about this hierarchy of sports, based on what I perceive to be current popular acceptance as such from most to least:
- American football, soccer, basketball, boxing
- Tennis
- Baseball, cricket, bicycling
- Golf
- Auto racing
- Volleyball, badminton
- Bowling, billiards
- Pro wrestling
- Texas Hold 'em, video gaming
- Fantasy sports (managing a team)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:15PM
Whether or not we call it a sport, I think we can all agree that it is a competition. The basis for doping being against the rules in sports comes from the pressure to use drugs and the desire to see what humans can accomplish. If we're going to let people dope in SC2 or whatever, then why not allow other cheats as well?
At least with cheats you're not harming yourself, you're just damaging the competition.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:22PM
and the desire to see what humans can accomplish.
I can see why people wouldn't want to be forced to use drugs in order to compete, but even if you're using drugs when doing something, that's still an example of something that humans can accomplish.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:35PM
even if you're using drugs when doing something, that's still an example of something that humans can accomplish.
I think this is maybe the heart of the issue. Does a human on steroids still count as a human for the purposes of a strength-based competition? Does a human with metal legs still count as a human in a 100-yard dash? Does a human on adderoll still count as a human for the purposes of a StarCraft match? How about a human on coffee? How about a human with a Thync [thync.com] on, or a human with a cluster of rats [sciencealert.com] jacked into her brain? Are we going to ban a genetically engineered football player from competing in the major league because of a decision that is parents made for him? What if his grandparents made the decision, but they changed the germ-line? Would the player still be discriminated against if he was the product of a controlled breeding experiment, or natural selection, instead of CRISPR? If so, why? I don't care about sports, but I think it's interesting that society is still unwilling to embrace transhumanist sports leagues.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday July 25 2015, @05:12PM
Specifically, it's that those who dope are putting at a disadvantage all those who don't dope, so if any athlete dopes, it then forces all would-be athletes to dope in order to compete. And since doping has significant side-effects, that's a major problem.
The good news is that in sports that are more skill than brawn, doping doesn't help you all that much. For example, there's been relatively little doping in basketball (the genetic advantage of being tall seems to matter more than being strong or quick), association football / soccer (skilled footwork, creative thinking, and teamwork matter more), or golf (because good aim with a putter matters more).
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:11PM
For example, there's been relatively little doping in basketball (the genetic advantage of being tall seems to matter more than being strong or quick)
If it is genetics; is it really still a competition?
This sounds similar to me to the 'competition' of "being born in the best country".
Good job, you on the left won the competition... You on right on the other hand, you lost, but just try harder next time and maybe you'll win.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:27PM
Yes, because there are other aspects of the game that can overcome being tall.
I pay some attention to basketball because I played basketball fairly seriously until it became clear I was going to be a 5'9" center (which simply doesn't work). The folks who do some fairly sophisticated statistical analysis on it (worth checking out just for the math nerddom) have worked out that, for example, the 6'11" DeAndre Jordan is about as effective as the 6'3" Stephen Curry: DeAndre Jordan's height advantage which absolutely helps him, but Curry has compensated by learning to shoot exceptionally accurately. Now, if DeAndre Jordan learned to shoot as well as Curry has, he'd be a much better player than Curry, but he hasn't needed to because he's so big.
There are even a few NBA players (e.g. Isiah Thomas) under 6 feet tall. They're a rarity, but they do exist.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(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
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:27PM
Video Game Streaming as Big as Major Sporting Event Viewership [soylentnews.org]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:14PM
Even if it's called a sport, it's incredibly boring like all other sports. Watching other people play something makes me fall asleep. But watching others play video games is still better than watching or even playing more 'normal' sports because at least games don't have all the boring limitations of real life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:02PM
Right - why submit to the boring limitations of real life, when we can be bound by arbitrary simulations of aspects of real life digitally, instead of in analog?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:40PM
There are in-game limitations, but many games make things convincing enough that they can be ignored. Magic, superheroes, FTL travel (currently), etc. don't exist in real life. Yet they do in many stories and games. Furthermore, as technology advances, the arbitrary limitations will slowly vanish.
Real life is boring garbage.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RobotMonster on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:31PM
Why not two leagues -- one with testing; unmodified humans only; not even caffeine -- second league where anything goes; drugs, brain implants, artificial limbs?
I've often thought this for the Olympics, Tour De France, etc.
But, I've also thought that football, cricket, etc, would be more fun to watch if they included land-mines, so I'm probably not the best person to ask :-)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:35PM
Because all the sponsors would want to be associated with the PED-free league, so the cat-and-mouse game between the athletes and the drug testers would continue.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RobotMonster on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:43PM
PED manufacturers would be happy to sponsor the PED league, methinks.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @05:06PM
Maybe not: what if, in lieu of a secular PED-free league, you had an explicitly Mormon league? Sponsors would be wary.
The Mormons would probably welcome it. They've made huge forays into music via YouTube; many of the "viral" stars (Lindsey Stirling, The Piano Guys, etc) are well-funded Mormons. The LDS church is making a push to demonstrate that its members are talented and relevant individuals rather than puppets of some cult. A Mormon video game league wouldn't be out of the question. On the other hand, advertisers might not flock to them because of the culty-side of things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @05:09PM
Do you have any information about the LDS church bankrolling those acts?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Saturday July 25 2015, @05:21PM
Possibly, but if there were two leagues, it would be possible to be much harsher with doping. If you are competing in the naturalist league, and are caught doping, then you have doped, and can be immediately and permanently moved to the "modified" league.
This would be much fairer than the current system. Currently, the judges are often reluctant to be really harsh, because it can be career ending. When someone has build up a super musculature (using, say, HGH), it's really unfair to ever let them back into competition, because continued training can preserve the advantage that they achieved through doping. Which means that everyone else must dope, in order to have a chance. It's only a question of who has been caught, and who hasn't.
Giving dopers a place to go, and sending them there, would open a real chance for drug-free sports. Really, an excellent idea.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:37PM
Meanwhile the body count continues to rise in the drug using camp, but hot damn they can play while so long as they still notice they are in a chair and that thing in front of them is a monitor.
You can almost see it now, some CS match with half the team looking at the patterns in the walls while the other slightly more sober team goes on a knife only kill spree.
I think, and this would be a first, that I'd love to here the commentators talk about such a game with the same zeal they normally have for other games with balls.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:41PM
Replying to myself... I say all that as someone who knows that the Ballmer Peak [xkcd.com] also applies to things like gaming, and not just with the use of booze.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:27PM
Anything goes? In gaming all that means is "assisted gamers" i.e. bots competing against other bots.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Saturday July 25 2015, @07:29PM
that takes the human element out of it though. i don't care for any sports, but the appeal in split leagues would be "to see just how far the human body can be pushed naturally" and "to see just how far the human body can be pushed, period". brain-computer implants would basically put it into a bot vs bot situation which would be pretty boring so there would probably be limits against that, but artificial muscles, artificial limbs, doping, etc, should all be fine. increasing focus with stimulants is nowhere near the same league as increasing number of calculations and operations done per second via computer implants. so maybe 3 leagues then, normal, doping, and computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Sunday July 26 2015, @12:03PM
maybe 3 leagues then, normal, doping, and computer.
For an instructive display of how that's likely to pan out, at least in terms of popularity, you could look to competitive lumberjacking.
You can never totally kill off a sport, look at those youtube videos of guys putting 80 horsepower snowmobile engines on chainsaws, but you can marginalize it to the point of it existing solely as youtube videos and staged and scripted county fair demonstration stage shows and maybe one meet nationwide in the back woods of Minnesota per year attended by dozens possibly hundreds.
Or TLDR is you can make a league but that doesn't mean anyone will watch.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Sunday July 26 2015, @06:17PM
they'd show it on ESPN/ESPN2 for sure. i've seen competitive lumberjacking on ESPN. i've seen competitive jump-roping on ESPN, not to mention cheerleading, strong-man competitions, and all kinds of shit. ESPN will show just about anything.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by penguinoid on Sunday July 26 2015, @06:46PM
Anything goes? In gaming all that means is "assisted gamers" i.e. bots competing against other bots.
It means the winner will be the one with the better coding skills -- which, I'd point out, is more valuable to encourage than mere reflexes.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by Francis on Saturday July 25 2015, @10:15PM
The pay would probably always be better for the PED league. Just look at basketball, women's basketball versus men's basketball. The pay differential there is rather sizable and a large part of that comes from the thing the men are doing that the women can't do, or can't do as well. There've been a small number of dunks in women's basketball, but you see it at least a few times in men's games. For better or for worse, the men have a splashier style of play at the present and people are willing to pay more for it.
I would expect the same thing would happen here. The PED league would get all the money and attention and the PED-free league would wind up the backwaters where people barely scrape by, assuming it's ever popular enough to pay.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday July 26 2015, @11:55AM
We have tons of artificially enhanced humans playing sports, think of shoes, football safety gear like helmets, eyeglasses... What gets interesting is whole new competitions open up when you allow artificial enhancements like those poles for pole vaulters or automobiles for race car drivers.
Likewise sports can "fail" if they can't handle modernity. Look at dying baseball for an example. It may be that 100 years from now people look at dead doper sports and wonder wtf anyone ever cared about them, not understanding that pre-doper they were pretty interesting sports. The most likely outcome of a sport that can't spontaneously internally automatically handle dopers is it'll die. You can have fascistic officials try to act like some kinda immune system, but lets face it, they're dead dead dead and just don't know it yet.
Really all you need for a sport is a set of commonly agreed to rules, a set of skills that can be practiced, a ranking "winning" system. Thats how you end up with chess as a sport or ham radio contests as a sport or synchronized swimming or obviously all the common sports too.
So... If doping gets socially acceptable, because new technology results in new sports, its going to result in new sports forming that don't currently exist. Meanwhile, as long as doping remains effective, regardless of if its acceptable or enforceable, it'll destroy existing sports that don't have a natural inherent immunity. Given that, the most likely outcome in neoPuritan areas is non-doper-immune sports will die out, and we'll get x-game tier "sports" that a microscopic minority of the population cares about that are dominated by dopers.
My guess is if boring FPS sequels are dope-able, then something non-dope-able will actually succeed in videos. They might be really butt hurt about it, but their sport is dead man walking. For an example of something that will get both the jocks and the FPS clickers all wound up, Direwolf20's minecraft videos on youtube have more viewers than my local major league baseball team has on TV, and the age of the average baseball viewer is 55 and going up more than one year per year for a couple decades now. The last professional baseball game is likely to be played within my lifetime.
(Score: 1) by jmoschner on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:38PM
I'm of the opinion that so long as whatever they are doing is legal, athletes (of legal age) should be allowed to pump whatever they want into their bodies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:13PM
There's no law against injecting yourself with liquid oxygen... here try this, kid...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:42PM
Inject yourself with whatever you want. If you inject yourself with something that will likely kill you, you're just an idiot. Good riddance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:04PM
- "Hey kid... if you want to live your dream, you should try some of this liquid oxygen... Just inject it directly into your vains"
- "Who do you think brought you here to play ball? I did... And I'm telling you that you will inject this intravenously whether you do it yourself or I have Big Jones here do it."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tathra on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:38PM
all drug testing should be illegal as a violation of privacy and a violation of 5th amendment rights. this prohibition nonsense needs to end.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:15PM
"All requirements to wear a shirt in public in order to get service should should be illegal, this prohibition nonsense needs to end"
Clearly you don't live in a place with many other people around you...
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday July 25 2015, @07:01PM
nice strawman, but it has nothing to do with what i said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:06PM
My point is this: you're confusing things that the government can't do to you (because you have no choice but to deal with the government) with things that private organizations can do to you. As a player, you can decide not to participate in leagues that do drug testing.
My argument was a parallel, not a strawman.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:35PM
except drug possession/use is a crime and proof of it still constitutes a crime regardless of where the evidence comes from. as for the comment about not living in a population-dense area, prohibition is more harmful [aclu.org] to everyone, especially people that never had anything to do with drugs (loss of rights and civil liberties, police militarization, ever-increasing numbers of prisons, getting your dog/baby murdered at 5am from a no-knock warrant to the wrong house, etcetc), while not wearing a shirt isn't even close to a parallel. you might be in favor of having private businesses/industries work on behalf of the police in gathering evidence, but anyone who cares about freedom finds that idea disgusting.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:24PM
Unless it was the government operating sports and eSports, why would it violate the 5th Amendment?
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(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday July 25 2015, @07:03PM
because a failed drug test is evidence that a crime has been committed. honestly i'm surprised that police don't go out and arrest people for failing drug tests, given the ridiculousness of the drug war, but if you think it can't or won't ever happen, you're fooling yourself. evidence of a crime is evidence of a crime, regardless of if the crime is prosecuted or not.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday July 25 2015, @07:11PM
You want to participate in a sporting event, you agree to the terms. You aren't forced to compete.
At least when employers do it, it is hurting the employees' rights to do what they want outside of work and make a living.
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(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday July 25 2015, @07:15PM
oh, and i should mention that "internal possession" (ie, a failed drug test) is prosecuted [howarddefense.com] as a crime [stopthedrugwar.org] in some places. the really ridiculous part is that literally everyone [naturalnews.com] is guilty of this crime (internal possession of dmt, a schedule 1 substance) at every moment of their life.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday July 26 2015, @07:54AM
It's a private org testing for legal drugs — not the US government and not for illegal drugs. Testing positive for a legal prescription drug will mean the person can't play (and thus can't create a situation where people that wish to play would feel pressured to also use the same substances), not that they'd go to jail.
Also, while drugs with proven medical uses will be legalized for that purpose (and in some rare cases like marijuana, legalized in general for over-18s) there's no way any of the Western nations are going to enact blanket legalization of all substances.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Sunday July 26 2015, @06:42PM
that nobody has been arrested for it yet doesn't mean it won't ever happen. after all, thats one of the biggest counter-points to laws that can be potentially oppressing - the current administration may not use it as oppressively as possible, but that doesn't mean the next guy won't, its better to never let them have the capability in the first place. every year the US becomes more and more open about being a police state, there's nothing stopping them from arresting people for failing drug tests (some states already do arrest and convict people for "internal possession") because no matter how you look at it, its evidence that a crime has been committed. anyone who administers drug tests is working on the behalf of the police to gather evidence of crimes. unless you're really going to argue that, because its not the government itself doing it, that because they have private industries doing it for them, that its not a violation of rights - if that's the case, how are you enjoying the NSA and DEA bypassing the laws and constitution by having the telcos and other industries collect everything for them? since its not the government itself doing it its fair game, right?
one of the biggest problems, aside from the constitutional and legal issues, is that drug tests and the people administering them don't differentiate between current intoxication and past intoxication, as all they look for is metabolites, not the drug itself. for stuff like doping (anabolic steroids, HGH, etc), where its a long-term thing that lasts long after the substance is used, thats fine, but for the subject of this article you'd be disqualified for stuff you did up to a week ago (or month, depending on the substance) rather than just for being currently high; hell, you can pass drug tests if you get high right before taking them because theres no time for the substance to metabolize, and the metabolites are all they look for (GC/MS tests can find anything you tell it to, but they're expensive so nobody is going to pay for that, just the shitty little dip-stick tests that give plenty of false positives on all kinds of stuff; there's usually a long wait for GC/MS testing too).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by penguinoid on Saturday July 25 2015, @05:05PM
All high level competitive sports should be banned, because the nature of the competition encourages participants to follow extreme training regimens that are harmful to their health. Therefore, if you care for other people's health you should encourage banning such competition, or at least boycott them.
However, if you're willing to let people harm themselves just to see them run really fast or kick a ball or whatever, I'd like to point out that they'd actually be doing the world a much more important public service by testing the performance effects of drugs and steroids and other enhancements than just running really fast. So unless you're boycotting or pushing to ban professional sports, your ethics are worse than those who want to allow them to use drugs (harm yourself for my amusement, vs harm yourself to improve our knowledge of medicine).
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Saturday July 25 2015, @05:25PM
So coding should be banned because Adderall-Fueled is snorting his pills and a little cocaine?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:28PM
The word "brogrammers" comes to mind.
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(Score: 1) by jamestrexx on Saturday July 25 2015, @05:32PM
It's not the sports that should be banned, but the huge salaries and prizes being payed. It's not for fun anymore but to get as much money as possible.
Without the financial incentive it goes back to being something about prestige and challenge again.
Nowadays it's nothing more than human trafficking and it starts with teenagers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by No Respect on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:49PM
No, they should not. But then my opinion is that nobody should be submitted to drug testing without probable cause.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @10:04PM
Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports... all the others are games. Ernest Hemingway
Drug busts are rare in auto racing (some pit crew violations have been public, this can be a very physical job).
No idea about bull fighting -- anyone know about performance enhancing drugs in this context?
Mountain climbing has long been done with oxygen, although a few hardy climbers specialize in walking around punch drunk at high altitudes.
Side note -- for games, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned chess.
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/616765 [azquotes.com]
http://www.quotes.net/quote/787 [quotes.net]
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Sunday July 26 2015, @12:00PM
Some friends and I once had a discussion on whether racing and cheerleading were sports. We came to this conclusion: If racing is a sport, the vehicle is the athlete. As for cheerleading, we concluded that any "sport" where winning and losing is determined solely on scoring by judges is an exhibition and not a sport. But what about boxing and MMA you ask? We concluded they are sports because you have the opportunity to knock out your opponent.
Ever had a belch so satisfying you have to blow your nose afterward?