Valve bans Razer and Wooting’s new keyboard features in Counter-Strike 2

So guess you can't fathom professional chess players, professional race car drivers, professional footballers, professional boxers, or professional athletes of any sort for that matter?

They're all games.

Chess is an athletic competition?
- It was in the Olympics
  
  I've commented elsewhere on the death of modern Olympics.
  
  you realise the olympics used to include poetry and art, right?
  
  “Used to”. And they also included architecture, chess, and dueling alongside other non-sport activities. They were dropped fairly early on.
I’m going to pretend that we’re not now trying to call button-mashing “athletic.” Such exertion!
- Yep, because professional chess players are well known athletic masterpieces 🙄
  
  Professional, maybe by the definition this thread seems to prefer. Athletes, no.
  
  Captain clueless in the house!
  
  I don’t know what point you’re trying to make?
  
  What's your criteria for sport? what's Golf? Darts? Bowling? Curling? Archery?
  
  Is it that you have to break a sweat? I guess talking to girls makes you an athlete then?
  
  "Sport" is defined as athletic activity, and "athlete/athletic" refers to physical exercise, agility, stamina, and strength. So no, playing a video game doesn't count.
  
  If girls make you sweat, good for you. Sex could arguably be athletic, depending on what you get up to.
  
  so we're just going to skip past all of those examples got it
  
  Except the person in question didn’t call gamers athletes but instead professional.
  
  I would also count athlete a subset of professional as well.
  
  I'm not the one who brought athletics into this. I'm just following the conversation. But no, "esports" do not meet the definition of "sport."
  
  No one in this chain called it a sport that I saw. The root comment was “”professional” gamer”
- The term "professional" has nothing to do with athletics...
  
  As long as you're getting paid to do it you're a professional something. Just means it's your profession.
  
  I get the common usage of the term. It just seems weird that society is so bored that it’s willing to pay people to play games. although It’s probably no different in the abstract than paying any other performer or service provider for entertainment. I guess it’s fun to watch?
  
  I guess it’s fun to watch?
  
  No shit, Captain Obvious
  
  Hundreds of years ago, society was so bored that we all gathered together to watch people kill each other in an arena. If we were lucky we would get to see bloodshed and the emperor will release the lions!
  
  Humans have been playing games far longer than the digital age has been going on for. Why would anyone pay to watch people throw a ball around for hours? I guess it's fun to watch?
  
  Hundreds of years ago, society was so bored
  
  I think "thousands" would be more accurate. We only have written records going back a few thousand years, and what we've gathered from what went on in Göbekli Tepe and other such places, they pretty much did something just for fun as well. I think trying to chase away the feeling of being bored is a quintessential human trait. In other words, our need for novel things is what actually elevated our species to be unlike any other.
  
  I agree that it’s a little weird but it’s no more weird than professional sports.
  
  Agreed
  
  Bread and games.
  Entertainment is a huge market.
  
  Fair point.
  
  You say this like professional sports haven't existed for literally millenia
  
  Not really, they haven't. And videogames are hardly sports.
  
  They existed in ancient Rome, which was... Over 2 thousand years ago
  
  Why do you do anything that bring you pleasure when you could be working every waking moment?
  
  No fun, more work!
  
  People that play games, as you call them, like to see people play a high level of that same game, because they enjoy the said game.
  
  It applies to pretty much everything in life. This is one way we learn.
  
  And how do you make sure that people that are good at whatever game gets to the highest level possible? You pay them to professionally play the said game.
  
  Pretty obvious. You don't wear your nickname well.
- So it's about the amount of physical exertion, not about it being a game?
  
  So you can't wrap your head around the concept of professional chess players? Professional poker players? Darts? Curling?
  
  Hell, in rally, you just literally sit in a car. Such physical exertion! (And I'm Finnish and have been in an actual rally car, before you're going to try and make a point about how physically demanding you think it is.)
  
  Hey hey, you leave curling out of this. You go sweep a rock until it barely crosses the hog line a few times and check your heart rate.
  
  So now it's about heartrate? Playing Mario Kart and Dark Souls can get your heartrate into the 120+ range. And that's casual videogamers, playing simple games.
  
  https://www.esportwissen.de/en/performance-in-esport/
  
  During professional competitive play, heartrates go up to 180+ bpm. That's on the level of racing car drivers. Way more than chess, archery, or shooting of any sort would ever have.
  
  So guess the Turkish shooter doesn't qualify for you either? Archers? Magnus Carlsen isn't a chess professional, he's just a really lucky dude with a lot of money for some random reason?
  
  Curling is at least a legitimate sport.
  
  actually professional motor sports are quite an exertion in a lot of professional contexts because they drive for hours with no rest and they’re doing a lot of movement of the wheel and pedals - it’s not just driving down an interstate for a couple of hours
  
  … i did upvote you, so i mostly agree, but… yknow
  
  Well yeah, they are. Some more exerting than others. They vary from drag races to endurance ones, and some go really fast.
  
  My point is rather that in driving, the physical exertion mostly comes from having to keep up mental focus and a static position — much like when gaming.
- Dude just shut up
  
  Make me? <shrug>

Being a professional just means you get paid for it.

Professional gamers get paid to play games.

It’s mind boggling. That’s all
- Professional Boggler here. You rang?

The future is now old man. What is your take on professional chess player?

More like captain obvious troll. Find better bait, this shit is low quality

That’s cool granddad, you must be such an open minded and pleasant individual

Look up the prize pool for the esports world cup that is going on right now

Which one? There's pretty much world cups on most esports back-to-back from now to November, lol.
- Which one? Besides the one in saudi arabia right now what else is there?
  
  My point is that late-summer to late fall is pretty much the seasons for worlds in most esports. I don't follow literally all of them to know which one is going on currently, so my point is that mentioning which game would probably be helpful, as not everyone is as immersed in the esports scene to outright know which game has Worlds on which weeks.
  
  I’m not talking about a global lan in any specific game. I was referring to the $60+ million esports world cup that has like 20 games going on
  
  Oh. Well pardon my ignorance. I'm over thirty if that helps with my excuse.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Esports_World_Cup
  
  You're totally right, it's just "Esports World Cup"
  
  This makes me even more annoyed I didn't get funding for an esports bar back like almost 10 years ago due to some bullshit credit thing that I had actually paid for. After that and my depression I kinda evaded the whole esports thing out of depression for a couple of years, for this exact reason. It's one of the fastest growing industries and I couldn't get a loan of a few thousand. Sorry for digressing.
  
  Anyway, I apologise, you were 100% in the right. Thanks for informing me. And not even being a dick about it.
  
  All good haha. I only follow 1 game and it happens to be at EWC so that’s why I knew about it.

I refuse to wrap my mind around “professional” ~~video gamer~~ ~~sports athlete~~ ~~musician~~ ~~dancer~~ ~~sculptor~~ ~~painter~~ ~~writer~~ etc.

People are called to create content. The style of content has changed throughout history, but there have been people saying the same as you for as long as art has existed. The fact that creators have found ways to monetize that content is a net boon to society, because it means we’re truly in an age where art and entertainment can be consumed and appreciated, while the artists and creators are able to focus on their content creation full time.

A key defining factor of the renaissance era was that artists were actually properly funded and could focus on their art without being bogged down by a day job. And that’s a large part of why there is so much impactful art from that time period.

Not sure if you’re an artist yourself or if your handle is meant to poke society’s nose. :)

Either way, yes, I know what art is. I also know that it is very much in the eye of the beholder. I just don’t happen to agree that playing video games rises to either an art form or a profession. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
- If playing a game pays the bills, why shouldn't it be a profession?
  
  Nice work if you can get it, I guess.

Man, you really pissed off a bunch of yahoos who scream "hax" while getting teabaged

I did seem to find a soft spot, didn’t I?