The Olympics Chief will not allow Esports into the Games because they are too Violent

Esports in the Olympics

There has long been a call for the olympics to involve esports in its roster, but it seems today that many peoples dream may never come to fruition.

“They, from our point of view, are contradictory to the Olympic values and cannot therefore be accepted”

The chief of the olympics committee had this to say about the idea of the addition of esports to the olympics.

This seems a bit odd to me as there are games already in the Olympics that are ‘violent’. Archery and shooting events have long been in the olympics. These events obviously don’t involve ‘shooting’ another person/player so aren’t quite on the same level as esports in that regard. However it could be said that shooting and archery events encourage people to go out and buy bow and arrows and guns to start shooting themselves. Whereas esports encourages people to go out and buy a game and play that. Which of those do you think is more dangerous?

Thomas Bach also had this to say:

“We cannot have in the Olympic program a game which is promoting violence or discrimination,”

I am not entirely sure what he means by esports being discriminatory but I do get where he is coming from with the violence stand point.

This isn’t the firs time that Bach has dismissed the idea of esports in the Olympics. The same happened this time last year but the call for esports to be added to the olympics is still there and only seems to be growing in support.

Can you imagine all of these games being at the Olympics?

  • League of Legends
  • Dota 2
  • Overwatch
  • Counter-Strike: Global offensive
  • Rocket League
  • Starcraft II
  • Fifa/PES
  • Hearthstone
  • Fortnite
  • I can certainly see a few of these games being added sooner than others. Games like Rocket League that don’t involve ‘killing’ people do line up with olympic values and will also pull in a lot of young viewers for the olympics which I am sure the Olympics would love to see.