Video Games are Too Violent to be in the Olympics

There’s been some toying with the idea of popular eSports like League of Legends, DOTA 2, and Overwatch one day becoming official Olympic sports. In fact, earlier this year, the Olympic committee even hosted an eSports forum so that the world of proper, real sports could better understand this rising global phenomenon. But if you thought this was the start of some new golden age for eSports acceptance, I’m afraid you’re mistaken, because speaking with the Associated Press, IOC president Thomas Bach made it clear that he still has absolutely no intention of accepting video games into the pantheon of Olympic Sports.

Because they’re too violent.

"We cannot have in the Olympic program a game which is promoting violence or discrimination. So-called killer games. They, from our point of view, are contradictory to the Olympic values and cannot therefore be accepted."

Of course, this doesn’t exactly jive with the fact that the Olympics is no stranger to violent, contact sports: things like Judo, Boxing, Wrestling, and of course Hockey… but Thomas Bach insists they’re different because reasons.

“Of course every combat sport has its origins in a real fight among people, but sport is the civilized expression about this. If you have egames where it’s about killing somebody, this cannot be brought into line with our Olympic values."

I think someone needs to tell him that when the magical centaur or giant spider dies in DOTA 2, the person playing them is still alive, and they respawn after a couple of seconds. All the same, his point isn’t completely without merit. The point of the Olympics has always been to show off the idea of unity and oneness, and if there’s one thing video games promote, it’s not that, as our culture is so divided and toxic there are whole teams of people dedicated to helping us chill out when we game.

Still, it’s disappointing to hear.