tired: esports aren't sports because they're video games
wired: esports aren't sports because they're proprietary artifacts tied to one specific manufacturer, rather than a set of rules anyone can make equipment for
I think this post genuinely hits upon a big reason why games-as-sports will never be as ubquitous as physical sports, and also the only reason why game publishers pour so much money into trying to make it happen; Game companies want a sport that they have a monopoly on, and players don't. Monopolistic practices are antithetical to the kind of accessible universality that makes a sport something anyone can pick up at any time or start their own organization for. Game companies will never allow that, and so we'll never have it.
it is genuinely dire to think about what the intersection of computers and IP law has done to culture
"games" used to be things you could adapt, could play in the dirt with rocks and sticks if you had to. now they're vastly more interactive, sure, but the vast majority of them only work on one platform, degrade over time, and come in an inscrutable format that's illegal to tamper with. because that's the default state of software
i was riffing on this idea earlier this year, the difference between games and video games.
i suppose in the non-video gaming space we've in recent years seen the debacle where D&D tried to IP-enclose a game about using your imagination with your friends.
but a decade ago, around when "eSports" started to become a topic of greater interest, we saw (for example) Nintendo abuse their copyright to block Melee tournaments, since players continuing to popularize an older, less-lucrative-to-Nintendo ruleset for the game "Smash Bros." wasn't in their interest.
imagine if Major League Baseball banned cleats, and minor leagues and various local kids' athletics leagues were like "that's asinine, we don't want our players randomly slipping and falling on their asses" and didn't follow suit, and then MLB sent their lawyers after them all?
if elected, i will require that all games wishing to be promoted to the public as sport must be Free and Open-Source Software. tune in next week for Tux Racer top 8
