When is a sport not actually a sport?

[Fangle]

If darts is a sport, then so is chess.

At least golf involves a fair amount of walking and physical strength when teeing off.

Darts requires physical skill, chess doesn't.

Neither require specialist shoes, so neither is a sport.

So cut out swimming then, and barefoot runners.

[Biffer]

Darts requires physical skill, chess doesn't.

Neither require specialist shoes, so neither is a sport.

So cut out swimming then, and barefoot runners.

As I mentioned above, no shoes is included as specialist shoes i.e. you could hardly swim competitively in tackety boots.

Basically you can't just rock up in a random pair of shoes to do it.

[Yeeb]

The ‘you need specialist shoes for it to be a sport ‘ is utter bollocks, you can play football in bare feet, shoes , trainers, boots etc

[Biffer]

The ‘you need specialist shoes for it to be a sport ‘ is utter bollocks, you can play football in bare feet, shoes , trainers, boots etc

Would you turn up for a proper match like that though? No, you'd either wear boots, turf shoes if it's on astro or maybe trainers for five a sides.

[Yeeb]

The ‘you need specialist shoes for it to be a sport ‘ is utter bollocks, you can play football in bare feet, shoes , trainers, boots etc

Would you turn up for a proper match like that though? No, you'd either wear boots, turf shoes if it's on astro or maybe trainers for five a sides.

Proper match ? You mean like professionals playing at Wembley ? Then no

Or proper match like my class versus your class like pretty much every schoolboy every breaktime, then yeah - school shoes or trainers or barefoot in summer on the field is fine.

Are you some weird ass shoe fetishist ?!

[Biffer]

The ‘you need specialist shoes for it to be a sport ‘ is utter bollocks, you can play football in bare feet, shoes , trainers, boots etc

Would you turn up for a proper match like that though? No, you'd either wear boots, turf shoes if it's on astro or maybe trainers for five a sides.

Proper match ? You mean like professionals playing at Wembley ? Then no

Or proper match like my class versus your class like pretty much every schoolboy every breaktime, then yeah - school shoes or trainers or barefoot in summer on the field is fine.

Are you some weird ass shoe fetishist ?!

I mean Saturday league kind of stuff. Any organised game, part of a league or a friendly between clubs.

My class v your class isn't a proper match unless you had 90 minute lunchtimes at your school.

[Yeeb]

Would you turn up for a proper match like that though? No, you'd either wear boots, turf shoes if it's on astro or maybe trainers for five a sides.

Proper match ? You mean like professionals playing at Wembley ? Then no

Or proper match like my class versus your class like pretty much every schoolboy every breaktime, then yeah - school shoes or trainers or barefoot in summer on the field is fine.

Are you some weird ass shoe fetishist ?!

I mean Saturday league kind of stuff. Any organised game, part of a league or a friendly between clubs.

My class v your class isn't a proper match unless you had 90 minute lunchtimes at your school.

But kickabouts still involve physical exertion and you can get out of breath and hurt playing it.
To disparage whether someone is partaking in sport purely because of the equipment they are using , is a bit patronising really - try telling some barefoot teams in Favelas that the football they are playing is ‘not sport because you are not wearing Predators’

Or barefoot dudes in Fiji playing rugby

Or anyone poor playing a game. Give yourself a long hard look in the mirror and realise you are lucky where you live.



You don’t really need equipment to be considered doing something , builders don’t need a hard hat , artists don’t need a full set of oils and an easel, musicians don’t need a Stradivarius etc

[Biffer]

Proper match ? You mean like professionals playing at Wembley ? Then no

Or proper match like my class versus your class like pretty much every schoolboy every breaktime, then yeah - school shoes or trainers or barefoot in summer on the field is fine.

Are you some weird ass shoe fetishist ?!

I mean Saturday league kind of stuff. Any organised game, part of a league or a friendly between clubs.

My class v your class isn't a proper match unless you had 90 minute lunchtimes at your school.

But kickabouts still involve physical exertion and you can get out of breath and hurt playing it.
To disparage whether someone is partaking in sport purely because of the equipment they are using , is a bit patronising really - try telling some barefoot teams in Favelas that the football they are playing is ‘not sport because you are not wearing Predators’

Or barefoot dudes in Fiji playing rugby

Or anyone poor playing a game. Give yourself a long hard look in the mirror and realise you are lucky where you live.



You don’t really need equipment to be considered doing something , builders don’t need a hard hat , artists don’t need a full set of oils and an easel, musicians don’t need a Stradivarius etc

You're getting confused between the micro and the macro. Just because a particular instance of the sport doesn't have the full set of equipment doesn't devalue it. It's that set of equipment is that makes the definition.

[Sandstorm]

E-Sports....Drug use is pretty rife and the scenes are almost entirely unregulated and at the mercy of big money corporations

So just like real sports then.

[Sandstorm]

Swimming is the most dangerous sport. If you've never done it before, you'll be dead in under 2 minutes.

[JM2K6]

E-Sports....Drug use is pretty rife and the scenes are almost entirely unregulated and at the mercy of big money corporations

So just like real sports then.

Real sports have some testing regimes and are regulated beyond that. e-sports are essentially making it up as they go.

[Woddy]

I'm struggling to think of any sport or leisure activity that does not require some particular form of footwear at a serious, not just-with-your-mates level.

[Chrysoprase]

Re the footware thing, does that then make scuba diving a sport?

It's what I spend a lot of my time and money on, I've done a huge amount of specialist training to allow me to participate in it to the level I'd like and there's a strong team element and ethos. But it's not a sport.

[Biffer]

Re the footware thing, does that then make scuba diving a sport?

It's what I spend a lot of my time and money on, I've done a huge amount of specialist training to allow me to participate in it to the level I'd like and there's a strong team element and ethos. But it's not a sport.

I think that goes back to whether or not there’s competition involved.

[Biffer]

I'm struggling to think of any sport or leisure activity that does not require some particular form of footwear at a serious, not just-with-your-mates level.

Well, I wouldn’t say there are particular darts shoes, or chess shoes, or snooker shoes. People will have what they are comfortable in, but there’s not something specifically for that purpose.

[Woddy]

E-Sports....Drug use is pretty rife and the scenes are almost entirely unregulated and at the mercy of big money corporations

So just like real sports then.

Real sports have some testing regimes and are regulated beyond that. e-sports are essentially making it up as they go.

Presumably, in e-sports you only need test for the 1 drug. Or do they test more for baking powder etc?

[Chrysoprase]

Re the footware thing, does that then make scuba diving a sport?

It's what I spend a lot of my time and money on, I've done a huge amount of specialist training to allow me to participate in it to the level I'd like and there's a strong team element and ethos. But it's not a sport.

I think that goes back to whether or not there’s competition involved.

We sometimes organise underwater treasure hunts, does that count?

[Woddy]

I'm struggling to think of any sport or leisure activity that does not require some particular form of footwear at a serious, not just-with-your-mates level.

Well, I wouldn’t say there are particular darts shoes, or chess shoes, or snooker shoes. People will have what they are comfortable in, but there’s not something specifically for that purpose.

Never seen anyone competing at the Crucible in trainers (you know: normal, everyday shoes). They wear specialist smart, leather things, quite shiny.

[Fangle]

I would like to think that my running a marathon in under four hours in flip-flops sort of counts as a sport. But not being competitive in that I was nowhere close to the leaders, to the definition used it doesn't.

[Biffer]

I'm struggling to think of any sport or leisure activity that does not require some particular form of footwear at a serious, not just-with-your-mates level.

Well, I wouldn’t say there are particular darts shoes, or chess shoes, or snooker shoes. People will have what they are comfortable in, but there’s not something specifically for that purpose.

Never seen anyone competing at the Crucible in trainers (you know: normal, everyday shoes). They wear specialist smart, leather things, quite shiny.

They’re just shoes though, not specialist snooker shoes.

[Woddy]

They're specialist in that they wouldn't be allowed to play in anything else.

You can play squash in whatever you want, so long as they don't mark the court.

[Biffer]

They're specialist in that they wouldn't be allowed to play in anything else.

You can play squash in whatever you want, so long as they don't mark the court.

Nah they’re not. You don’t get anything marketed as snooker shoes.

[JM2K6]

So just like real sports then.

Real sports have some testing regimes and are regulated beyond that. e-sports are essentially making it up as they go.

Presumably, in e-sports you only need test for the 1 drug. Or do they test more for baking powder etc?

ADHD meds, speed, etc - anything that can be abused for 'alertness' and reaction times are all the rage. There's no coherent testing or (as far as I know) any effort put into it. But when I say unregulated I mean in terms of competition rules, anti-corruption stuff, etc etc. The guys running these things are mostly out of their depth.

[.OverThere]

Who fcken cares and when on earth does it matter? Just go out and do it.
There are a lot of strange people who seem totally incapable of cycling unless they are wearing garish tops, and shorts. Does that make it sport when they are doing their daily commute?.
Are kids doing sport when they kick a ball in a park using their jerseys as goalpost?
Who cares? Oh, look, it's that internet idiot who never leaves his room.

[Punter15]

You have to wear shorts = sport
You can wear trousers = game

Sorted.

Cricket, though.

You’ve proved my point. They even stop for tea!

[FullbackAce]

I love competitive e-sports. Very easy to get hooked if you enjoy those kind of games already (I love strategy games like Starcraft 2). It’s fascinating to see the combination of skill and strategy at the top.

I realise this makes me an epic geek but I don’t really care.

There was a good thread on this lost to the mists of time. Whether e-sports are "sports" is kinda irrelevant to me, but they are absolutely fascinating. Things in e-sports favour:

A genuinely level playing field. Everyone has access to exactly the same things the pros have bar super expensive hardware that doesn't matter
A changing "meta" - i.e. the tactics and strategy that permeate e-sports. Teams will adapt and evolve much faster than in regular sports.
Huge amateur player bases thanks to there being no athletic boundaries
While it probably excludes the very poor (no access to consoles/PC) it is quite egalitarian otherwise, no matter race or creed (gender's still a problem)
Varying levels of complexity to suit whatever the viewer/player prefers
"In-game" tie-ins with competitions so amateur players feel a closer connection to the pro scene and can receive digital rewards
Very few "terrible" matches - we've all seen bad rugby matches, but a bad esports game is much rarer (this is hugely subjective and probably deserves a longer explanation, but no-one cares so I won't)
Very personality based making it easy to root for individual players or teams regardless of your attachment to the game
For MOBAs like DOTA2, the whole pick/ban draft phase is an entire level of strategy and counter-strategy that main sports just don't have


It's far from perfect, though. Leaving aside the fact that plenty of people just don't like video games:

Many e-sports are almost incomprehensible to new viewers/players, making cricket look like chequers
Many e-sports commentary teams ape the USian "ESPN" style of having a bunch of blokes in suits yell stats or try their hardest to sound deep; the few that have a more relaxed style are far easier to watch/listen to IMO, but they're outliers
The scenes can be pretty toxic, much less welcoming than "real" sports to new players, and established names can be genuine arseholes
Players switch teams constantly and there's no real identity to teams beyond the sponsors names
Drug use is pretty rife and the scenes are almost entirely unregulated and at the mercy of big money corporations
The rapid pace of changes to the "meta" via game updates and patches and new releases makes it really hard to keep up with a scene if you're not a regular - football is football with minor tweaks maybe every decade, DOTA2 changes massively year on year
There's no real local attachment to teams, they're all international mercenaries without even a city to nominally tie them to (so even worse than pro football) and almost no international setup
Games are fairly transient due to the need to keep making more money with new games so there's no real sense of history in many of these genres


They'll never replace sports but they have their place. There's been occasions where I'd much rather watch a DOTA series than another Worcs v Newcastle slugfest...

Yea I play Counter-Strike. It's fun with a high skill ceiling and very competitive. I think of E-sports as an evolution of ancient competetive board games like Chess. Most of them (like MOBAs) look weird to me but Age Of Empires, CSGO and a few others are actually pretty fun. I do still prefer a good game of Rugby tho, physical excercise really takes it to a new level imo.

[Sandstorm]

You have to wear shorts = sport
You can wear trousers = game

Sorted.

Cricket, though.

You’ve proved my point. They even stop for tea!

Judo

[Biffer]

You have to wear shorts = sport
You can wear trousers = game

Sorted.

Cricket, though.

You’ve proved my point. They even stop for tea!

American football
Baseball
Ice Hockey
Skiing

All sports, all trousers. Special shoes.

[CrazyIslander]

A sport is just a challenge.

[LandOTurk]

I'm struggling to think of any sport or leisure activity that does not require some particular form of footwear at a serious, not just-with-your-mates level.

Swimming and gymnastics.

[LandOTurk]

Re the footware thing, does that then make scuba diving a sport?

It's what I spend a lot of my time and money on, I've done a huge amount of specialist training to allow me to participate in it to the level I'd like and there's a strong team element and ethos. But it's not a sport.

I think that goes back to whether or not there’s competition involved.

We sometimes organise underwater treasure hunts, does that count?

Is it proper treasure or just chocolate coins in a gold coloured tin wrapper?

[Yeeb]

I love competitive e-sports. Very easy to get hooked if you enjoy those kind of games already (I love strategy games like Starcraft 2). It’s fascinating to see the combination of skill and strategy at the top.

I realise this makes me an epic geek but I don’t really care.

There was a good thread on this lost to the mists of time. Whether e-sports are "sports" is kinda irrelevant to me, but they are absolutely fascinating. Things in e-sports favour:

A genuinely level playing field. Everyone has access to exactly the same things the pros have bar super expensive hardware that doesn't matter
A changing "meta" - i.e. the tactics and strategy that permeate e-sports. Teams will adapt and evolve much faster than in regular sports.
Huge amateur player bases thanks to there being no athletic boundaries
While it probably excludes the very poor (no access to consoles/PC) it is quite egalitarian otherwise, no matter race or creed (gender's still a problem)
Varying levels of complexity to suit whatever the viewer/player prefers
"In-game" tie-ins with competitions so amateur players feel a closer connection to the pro scene and can receive digital rewards
Very few "terrible" matches - we've all seen bad rugby matches, but a bad esports game is much rarer (this is hugely subjective and probably deserves a longer explanation, but no-one cares so I won't)
Very personality based making it easy to root for individual players or teams regardless of your attachment to the game
For MOBAs like DOTA2, the whole pick/ban draft phase is an entire level of strategy and counter-strategy that main sports just don't have


It's far from perfect, though. Leaving aside the fact that plenty of people just don't like video games:

Many e-sports are almost incomprehensible to new viewers/players, making cricket look like chequers
Many e-sports commentary teams ape the USian "ESPN" style of having a bunch of blokes in suits yell stats or try their hardest to sound deep; the few that have a more relaxed style are far easier to watch/listen to IMO, but they're outliers
The scenes can be pretty toxic, much less welcoming than "real" sports to new players, and established names can be genuine arseholes
Players switch teams constantly and there's no real identity to teams beyond the sponsors names
Drug use is pretty rife and the scenes are almost entirely unregulated and at the mercy of big money corporations
The rapid pace of changes to the "meta" via game updates and patches and new releases makes it really hard to keep up with a scene if you're not a regular - football is football with minor tweaks maybe every decade, DOTA2 changes massively year on year
There's no real local attachment to teams, they're all international mercenaries without even a city to nominally tie them to (so even worse than pro football) and almost no international setup
Games are fairly transient due to the need to keep making more money with new games so there's no real sense of history in many of these genres


They'll never replace sports but they have their place. There's been occasions where I'd much rather watch a DOTA series than another Worcs v Newcastle slugfest...

Yea I play Counter-Strike. It's fun with a high skill ceiling and very competitive. I think of E-sports as an evolution of ancient competetive board games like Chess. Most of them (like MOBAs) look weird to me but Age Of Empires, CSGO and a few others are actually pretty fun. I do still prefer a good game of Rugby tho, physical excercise really takes it to a new level imo.

So, I’m a casual gamer and get freebie invites to events - went to some gaming exhibition where half the area was given over to some world championships E gaming thing. My pal and I looked into this hall and saw the people / pro teams playing a few games, and the crowd whooping and hollering and cheering as keenly as any football or rugby match.
We were utterly bemused and couldn’t see any real fun in watching people play, even on the games we played and enjoyed ourselves.

The demographic was 98% male, minorities overly represented, half were teen spotty virgin types, and half were spotty fat balding virgin men in their 30’s and over (think simpsons comic book guy)

On the FPS they had (one of the precious COD’s) the skill level was bewilderingly good, so much so that was hard to follow on the big screens what was going on. Plenty of simultaneous blind jumping around a corner, aiming and quick scoping for a kill before I’d even realised a baddie was there. Plenty of ‘blind Firing ‘ knowing that somebody would be there at the right time to eat a grenade or get hit by the rocket you fired up into the sky 30 seconds previously - you only get that kind of knowledge having sunk in many hours onto the level

Edit - should also mention that some of the aforementioned nerd crowd enjoyed immensely the model hired in full leia slave gear, and even for a purve like me I felt extremely uncomfortable at all of these nerds going apeshit around her with the photos and selfie sticks. Was a real ‘what am I doing here’ moment, I didn’t even get a photo myself.

[Plato’sCave]

A fat guy can’t do it without getting out of breath quickly

Your opponent or the environment can affect your performance

You have to change or remove your shoes

—————————-

Meet any 2 of the 3 rules above and you have a sport in the absence of accompanying music.

That’s it. There’s your algorithm.

[Biffer]

A fat guy can’t do it without getting out of breath quickly

Your opponent or the environment can affect your performance

You have to change or remove your shoes

—————————-

Meet any 2 of the 3 rules above and you have a sport in the absence of accompanying music.

That’s it. There’s your algorithm.

Another shoe convert. Welcome brother.

[FullbackAce]

There was a good thread on this lost to the mists of time. Whether e-sports are "sports" is kinda irrelevant to me, but they are absolutely fascinating. Things in e-sports favour:

A genuinely level playing field. Everyone has access to exactly the same things the pros have bar super expensive hardware that doesn't matter
A changing "meta" - i.e. the tactics and strategy that permeate e-sports. Teams will adapt and evolve much faster than in regular sports.
Huge amateur player bases thanks to there being no athletic boundaries
While it probably excludes the very poor (no access to consoles/PC) it is quite egalitarian otherwise, no matter race or creed (gender's still a problem)
Varying levels of complexity to suit whatever the viewer/player prefers
"In-game" tie-ins with competitions so amateur players feel a closer connection to the pro scene and can receive digital rewards
Very few "terrible" matches - we've all seen bad rugby matches, but a bad esports game is much rarer (this is hugely subjective and probably deserves a longer explanation, but no-one cares so I won't)
Very personality based making it easy to root for individual players or teams regardless of your attachment to the game
For MOBAs like DOTA2, the whole pick/ban draft phase is an entire level of strategy and counter-strategy that main sports just don't have


It's far from perfect, though. Leaving aside the fact that plenty of people just don't like video games:

Many e-sports are almost incomprehensible to new viewers/players, making cricket look like chequers
Many e-sports commentary teams ape the USian "ESPN" style of having a bunch of blokes in suits yell stats or try their hardest to sound deep; the few that have a more relaxed style are far easier to watch/listen to IMO, but they're outliers
The scenes can be pretty toxic, much less welcoming than "real" sports to new players, and established names can be genuine arseholes
Players switch teams constantly and there's no real identity to teams beyond the sponsors names
Drug use is pretty rife and the scenes are almost entirely unregulated and at the mercy of big money corporations
The rapid pace of changes to the "meta" via game updates and patches and new releases makes it really hard to keep up with a scene if you're not a regular - football is football with minor tweaks maybe every decade, DOTA2 changes massively year on year
There's no real local attachment to teams, they're all international mercenaries without even a city to nominally tie them to (so even worse than pro football) and almost no international setup
Games are fairly transient due to the need to keep making more money with new games so there's no real sense of history in many of these genres


They'll never replace sports but they have their place. There's been occasions where I'd much rather watch a DOTA series than another Worcs v Newcastle slugfest...

Yea I play Counter-Strike. It's fun with a high skill ceiling and very competitive. I think of E-sports as an evolution of ancient competetive board games like Chess. Most of them (like MOBAs) look weird to me but Age Of Empires, CSGO and a few others are actually pretty fun. I do still prefer a good game of Rugby tho, physical excercise really takes it to a new level imo.

So, I’m a casual gamer and get freebie invites to events - went to some gaming exhibition where half the area was given over to some world championships E gaming thing. My pal and I looked into this hall and saw the people / pro teams playing a few games, and the crowd whooping and hollering and cheering as keenly as any football or rugby match.
We were utterly bemused and couldn’t see any real fun in watching people play, even on the games we played and enjoyed ourselves.

The demographic was 98% male, minorities overly represented, half were teen spotty virgin types, and half were spotty fat balding virgin men in their 30’s and over (think simpsons comic book guy)

On the FPS they had (one of the precious COD’s) the skill level was bewilderingly good, so much so that was hard to follow on the big screens what was going on. Plenty of simultaneous blind jumping around a corner, aiming and quick scoping for a kill before I’d even realised a baddie was there. Plenty of ‘blind Firing ‘ knowing that somebody would be there at the right time to eat a grenade or get hit by the rocket you fired up into the sky 30 seconds previously - you only get that kind of knowledge having sunk in many hours onto the level

Edit - should also mention that some of the aforementioned nerd crowd enjoyed immensely the model hired in full leia slave gear, and even for a purve like me I felt extremely uncomfortable at all of these nerds going apeshit around her with the photos and selfie sticks. Was a real ‘what am I doing here’ moment, I didn’t even get a photo myself.

God, COD crowd would be a disgusting sight indeed

My perspective was more of a someone who plays the game with his mates. As for watching the thing, I don't even go to Twitter or Facebook because of the very people you describe. That event you saw sounds like my worst nightmare.

[Yeeb]

Yea I play Counter-Strike. It's fun with a high skill ceiling and very competitive. I think of E-sports as an evolution of ancient competetive board games like Chess. Most of them (like MOBAs) look weird to me but Age Of Empires, CSGO and a few others are actually pretty fun. I do still prefer a good game of Rugby tho, physical excercise really takes it to a new level imo.

So, I’m a casual gamer and get freebie invites to events - went to some gaming exhibition where half the area was given over to some world championships E gaming thing. My pal and I looked into this hall and saw the people / pro teams playing a few games, and the crowd whooping and hollering and cheering as keenly as any football or rugby match.
We were utterly bemused and couldn’t see any real fun in watching people play, even on the games we played and enjoyed ourselves.

The demographic was 98% male, minorities overly represented, half were teen spotty virgin types, and half were spotty fat balding virgin men in their 30’s and over (think simpsons comic book guy)

On the FPS they had (one of the precious COD’s) the skill level was bewilderingly good, so much so that was hard to follow on the big screens what was going on. Plenty of simultaneous blind jumping around a corner, aiming and quick scoping for a kill before I’d even realised a baddie was there. Plenty of ‘blind Firing ‘ knowing that somebody would be there at the right time to eat a grenade or get hit by the rocket you fired up into the sky 30 seconds previously - you only get that kind of knowledge having sunk in many hours onto the level

Edit - should also mention that some of the aforementioned nerd crowd enjoyed immensely the model hired in full leia slave gear, and even for a purve like me I felt extremely uncomfortable at all of these nerds going apeshit around her with the photos and selfie sticks. Was a real ‘what am I doing here’ moment, I didn’t even get a photo myself.

God, COD crowd would be a disgusting sight indeed

My perspective was more of a someone who plays the game with his mates. As for watching the thing, I don't even go to Twitter or Facebook because of the very people you describe. That event you saw sounds like my worst nightmare.

The event as a whole was enjoyable, but the e-sports hall I thought was very Wtf and left after a few mins only. The good stuff was:
New games
Retro games
Extreme vintage retro games - my pal and I played the original TV pong game for half an hour !
Board games
Lots of 80’s arcade and pinballs on free play

But the cosplay, esports , company stands like EA showing rolling demos only, Uber rip-off ‘trading’area exploiting kids who badger their folks for a £70 Pokemon T-shirt - just rubbish.
Event was called ‘insomnia’ at the NEC

[FullbackAce]

So, I’m a casual gamer and get freebie invites to events - went to some gaming exhibition where half the area was given over to some world championships E gaming thing. My pal and I looked into this hall and saw the people / pro teams playing a few games, and the crowd whooping and hollering and cheering as keenly as any football or rugby match.
We were utterly bemused and couldn’t see any real fun in watching people play, even on the games we played and enjoyed ourselves.

The demographic was 98% male, minorities overly represented, half were teen spotty virgin types, and half were spotty fat balding virgin men in their 30’s and over (think simpsons comic book guy)

On the FPS they had (one of the precious COD’s) the skill level was bewilderingly good, so much so that was hard to follow on the big screens what was going on. Plenty of simultaneous blind jumping around a corner, aiming and quick scoping for a kill before I’d even realised a baddie was there. Plenty of ‘blind Firing ‘ knowing that somebody would be there at the right time to eat a grenade or get hit by the rocket you fired up into the sky 30 seconds previously - you only get that kind of knowledge having sunk in many hours onto the level

Edit - should also mention that some of the aforementioned nerd crowd enjoyed immensely the model hired in full leia slave gear, and even for a purve like me I felt extremely uncomfortable at all of these nerds going apeshit around her with the photos and selfie sticks. Was a real ‘what am I doing here’ moment, I didn’t even get a photo myself.

God, COD crowd would be a disgusting sight indeed

My perspective was more of a someone who plays the game with his mates. As for watching the thing, I don't even go to Twitter or Facebook because of the very people you describe. That event you saw sounds like my worst nightmare.

The event as a whole was enjoyable, but the e-sports hall I thought was very Wtf and left after a few mins only. The good stuff was:
New games
Retro games
Extreme vintage retro games - my pal and I played the original TV pong game for half an hour !
Board games
Lots of 80’s arcade and pinballs on free play

But the cosplay, esports , company stands like EA showing rolling demos only, Uber rip-off ‘trading’area exploiting kids who badger their folks for a £70 Pokemon T-shirt - just rubbish.
Event was called ‘insomnia’ at the NEC

The only gamer crowd I follow is r/patientgamers those are my kind of people.

[Chrysoprase]

Is it proper treasure or just chocolate coins in a gold coloured tin wrapper?

That's crazy talk, submersion would ruin the chocolate!

It's usually something that is neutrally or negatively bouyant with little or no intrinsic or sentimental value (potatoes or painted rocks work well). There's prizes for whoever finds the most in a set period of time.

[Zig]

Is shearing sheep for wool OK?

Shearing good, shagging bad.

Of course. Nobody would call making sweet love to your soulmate a "sport". What a disgusting thought.

https://youtu.be/6QddnPoxwQc

[FujiKiwi]

Shearing good, shagging bad.

Of course. Nobody would call making sweet love to your soulmate a "sport". What a disgusting thought.

https://youtu.be/6QddnPoxwQc

I did literally laugh out loud.