Video gaming to be a medal event at 2022 Asian Games

04/19/2017

In a surprise development, the Olympic Council of Asia has decided to introduce video gaming as a medal sport at the 2022 Asian Games. Alisports, a unit of China's Alibaba Group, will partner OCA in the endeavor. The Asian Games has so far featured only traditional sporting disciplines.

eSports are a form of competition in which the input of players and teams, as well as the output of the eSports system, are mediated by human-computer interfaces. Tournaments such as the International, the League of Legends World Championship, the Battle.net World Championship Series, the Evolution Championship Series and the Intel Extreme Masters provide live broadcasts of the competition and prize money to competitors.

“The OCA has always been committed to the inheritance, development, and improvement of Asian sports,” OCA president Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah said in a statement. “And we look forward to the forward-thinking concepts of sports by Alisports, who will be helping us with their strength and experience in eSports,” the Guardian quoted him as saying.

In 2014, more than 40,000 attended the League of Legends World Championship finals in Seoul.