[TC_Halogen]

Originally Posted by igotrhythm

On top of there being competitions for it, there /is/ a fair amount of physical conditioning involved, as well as necessitating detailed study and practice of various situations.

However, insofar as you can't actually do much to affect the other player's performance in most tournament formats, it's not a "sport" to some. However, gymnastics and other "performance" sports (diving, etc.) break this rule wide open.

So yeah, I'd say it's a sport if DotA and SC can be considered sports.

Not entirely true in tournaments. Like many games where you analyze your player/competitors in a case by case scenario (poker is a great example of this), you can pick a player's weakness and use it to your advantage. It's not affecting their physical performance in terms of stamina/speed/etc., but you can pick a certain type of thing to wear your opponent down or out perform them.

In any event, there used to be huge tournaments for ITG, and there are STILL huge tournaments for PIU like WPF. PIU is a huge sport down south of the border in places like Chile/Mexico, as well as Korea. It's actually cool to watch footage of tournaments because you see CROWDS of people cheering on the players, rather than a few people sharing a common interest. See what I'm talking about with this video.

Definitely a sport - it's a minor sporting event, but it fits by any stretch of the imagination.