For those in the competitive gaming community, you’ve probably no doubt have noticed that there’s been quite a sh*tstorm floating about the interwebs regarding competitive gaming, and whether they should be classified as “sports.” The events of which can be summed up in a simple image macro.

It all started a couple months back when Kotaku writer Jen Schiller posted what could only be described as a blatant insult to competitive gaming, calling it “a thankless profession that only pays about $30,000 annually before sponsorships,” along with other derogatory sentences. Keep in mind that this isn’t even someone outside of video games working for a publication like the New York Times or Washington Post. This is an actual gamer, working for a video game news website commenting on something they clearly have no knowledge about (though how much of Kotaku’s overall content can even be described as “news” is debatable).

Naturally, sh*t hit the fan, and representatives of competitive gaming quickly tore her a new asshole, prompting a response article concerning the backlash. But that’s not where our story ends.

Scrounging through my google reader for news bits, as is my regular morning routine, I crossed a Destructoid article from a community member named Elsa that, once again, talked about competitive gaming. This time, it was a topic of whether it should be classified as eSports, or even sports in general. Spoiler alert: the author says no. She says that sports require “physical fitness and physical training” and that there is a “very real element of danger.” Something that video games tend to lack.

Basically, according to Elsa, you apparently need to be at some risk of getting yourself killed before your activity can be considered a “sport.” Which just comes off as just plain silly, considering that Chess and Billiards are officially considered as sports, yet such chances of danger are extremely minimal, barring some guy getting extremely pissed off over a loss and deciding to jam his bishop piece into his opponent’s eye.

At this point, I would like to point out that both of the aforementioned articles have been written by women that quite obviously have no actual connection to competitive gaming, other than maybe watching a couple streams. Coincidence?

Anyway, cue the sh*tstorm once more. This time, the backlash was strong enough to prompt an equally silly response article from one of the Destructoid writers, Jim Sterling, just this morning. Basically, his only response as to why competitive gaming couldn’t be considered a sport was because of some bad apples that took extreme offense to Elsa’s words, calling it “childish insecurity and outright viciousness.” That’s essentially like saying Basketball isn’t a sport because a bunch of dumbasses in Los Angeles keep rioting in the streets when the Lakers lose a championship (and even when they win one).

Now, I know the whole deal about opinions, assholes, and people having both of them. However, what makes this even more mind-boggling is that Destructoid isn’t like Kotaku. They post more actual news articles in a single day than Kotaku can in a span of a whole month. So hearing such base comments from one of their own writers makes that aspect a lot more of a “WTF?” moment. It’s really ludicrous.

So, the underlying question that’s being tossed around is this: Should competitive video games be considered a sport? Well, why the hell not? The term eSports was specifically created for video games as a whole. Korea already calls them a sport, and Starcraft players are essentially on the same level of popularity as Hollywood actors.

The thing is about sports, is that there are several different offshoots of them. Baseball and football are considered Athletic Sports, while boxing and MMA fighting are considered Combat Sports. Chess and Poker are being labeled as Mind Sports. And, finally, video games are referred to as Electronic Sports. The point here is that the term “sports” is no longer defined by requiring strictly physical activity. Despite this, they still require a lot of skill to be played at high levels, with competitive gamers being able to pull of some pretty ridiculous tricks. Don’t tell me that it doesn’t take an insane amount of ability to be able to perfectly read what your opponent is going to do in Guilty Gear or Street Fighter, and be able to counter it appropriately with less than a second to react.

Now, I really want to see competitive gaming, or eSports, get really mainstream, and it’s already well on its way. Major League Gaming, while not having the most diverse selection of games (lets just say they need a bit more variety outside of FPS titles), they are doing their part in bringing competitive gaming to the forefront. I myself regularly follow fighting game streams put on by Team Spooky, as well as numerous other stream groups. Our own Ken Serra is even a competitive gamer, and I've seen him pull some cool stuff with a busted controller. Gaming has advanced farther than anyone has ever imagined it could, and each day more and more people are tuning into these events to catch the action.

However, in order to truly expand, people need to understand that, yes, competitive video games are, in fact, considered sports. Not just the uninitiated, the non-gamers, but people within our own gaming circles as well. That is the real obstacle that needs to be conquered. I mean, if being stuck in a car and driving around in circles can be considered a sport, then why shouldn't video games be?