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Over the years, there have been a couple of what political pundits would call “grass roots” movements to get video games included in the Olympics. Most recently, WCG Champions Birmingham Salvo has called for it to be added to the Olympic roster.

We here at Nukoda simply don’t agree with the British winners.

It’s not only that we don’t agree, we simply don’t see it happening either. The most obvious obstacle standing in its way is that video gaming in general is not a sport.

Allow us to repeat. It’s not a sport.

No matter how much you enjoy it, no matter how much you practice it, no matter how much you want it to be, video gaming is not a sport. Sport is defined as “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.”

Now, we hear you say, it requires skill. True, video games require skill (or skillz, if you prefer) but there’s a key word there. Athletic, defined as “involving the use of physical skills or capabilities such as strength, agility, or stamina.”

No one in their right mind would say that finger movements qualify as “athletic activity.” Yes, Dance-Dance Revolution requires all of the above, but it’s still difficult to rationalize it as a true sport, which we’ll get to in a bit.

An easy test: If, during your chosen activity, you do not burn the equivalent number of calories in a can of Mountain Dew, your activity is not, nor will it ever be considered, a sport.

Another large problem is the degree of standardization an Olympic even requires. They are governed by standards so high that they really are down to the physical condition of the athlete. Sure you can complain about the Speedo suits in swimming all you like but ultimately if you’re not in shape, the suit isn’t going to do anything for you.

Obviously all controllers are equal, but all games are not.

Swimmers do not complain about the pool, archers don’t bemoan the range, 100-meter sprinters don’t whine about the quality of the track. This is because these infinitely minor variables are equal across all athletes and make only minor differences in the overall performances. Real Olympic athletes do not whine.

Gamers are, to be honest, a whiney bunch and professional gamers aren’t immune from this. “Oh the lag was bad,” “My analog stick is stiff,” are just some of the things people hear. The standardization inherent in an Olympic event would draw a pretty common whine:

“Why did they choose this game?! NO ONE plays this anymore! LAME!” The International Olympic Committee isn’t exactly the swiftest of organizations and the number of games coming out is simply too much for an organization to deal with. It’s likely that if video gaming were an event in Beijing, the “athletes” would be playing Halo 2 at worst or at best, Gears of War.

The IOC has a great, great reputation for making the competitions, on the whole, fair. No one gets surprised and the rules are fairly consistent, with only minor changes.

Video gaming doesn’t work for this. I might be good at SOCOM but only half-decent at Halo. Where’s the fairness if the event is played in a game I’m not that good at? Do we have a separate event for each video game? Even the WCG doesn’t have anywhere close to that.

For the record, Wii Sports is not a sport in the same way Jazzercise is not a sport.

DDR has this bizarre thing. It fulfills the athletic requirement, it can be fairly standardized as all the games are essentially the same thing and it requires skill and a good deal of practice. Check your local Main Event or Bowling Alley for the people who simply don’t leave.

Problem? It’s a gateway. Video games, on the whole, are not Olympic material, for all the reasons detailed above. DDR is a video game and it has the potential to be a gateway.

If DDR is an Olympic sport, why not Guitar Hero? If Guitar Hero is, why not Counterstrike? If Counterstrike, why not Geometry Wars? It’s a slippery slope and one the IOC dealt with for years with the sports normally featured in the X-Games.

Eventually snowboarding was added because its events can be standardized fairly easily, skateboarding still isn’t because there’s such a variety in the courses and events. Surfing isn’t because it’s entirely dependent on the weather and it would limit the cities down to South Africa and the Pacific Rim.

The same limits can’t be placed on video games. What types of games do you have? What games in those categories? Do you have team or individuals? Just what IS a video game?

The scope of an Olympic event in “video games” is simply too wide.

The most popular way to get video games in the biggest sporting event in the world has been to try and get them to consider it as an “exhibition sport.” The most problematic issue with this is that spectator sports are generally seen as a sneaky ways to get it as a real sport at the following.

In Atlanta in 1996 Beach Volleyball was a spectator sport and now we get to see the symbiote on Kerry Walsh’s shoulder attempting to slowly convert her into Venom or Carnage, while she competes for gold. (It’s athletic tape, by the way.)

The IOC doesn’t want that door opened and if we were professional athletes, we wouldn’t either.

Video gaming will never be part of the Olympics. It’s a pastime, a hobby and for some people, a job. Until you see dominoes, faxing or stamp collecting as Olympic events, don’t look for World of Warcraft Arena or Super Smash Bros. in London in 2012.