'This isn't e-sports'. Inaugural Olympic event raises eyebrows in Singapore gaming community

(Image: Refract Technologies)

Singapore is playing host to the inaugural Olympic e-sports week but the line-up of games that have been chosen to represent e-sports has left a lot of gamers confused.

The line-up consists of mostly virtual recreations of actual physical sports featuring simulated versions of archery, baseball, chess, cycling, dance, sailing, tennis, taekwondo and motorsport.

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Nowhere to be seen are actual game titles that have headline major e-sports events, titles like Dota, League of Legends, CS : GO, Tekken, Street Fighter and more.

The Singapore gaming community started to raise eyebrows when the country's Community and Youth Minister, Edwin Tong, announced on Facebook in late 2022 that "e-sports is not just about gaming".

As reported by Channel News Asia (CNA), Marcus Tan, a two-time World Cyber Games champion in Warcraft 3, responded to Tong's post, saying, "E-sports have primarily always been about gaming in the past 15 plus years".

“To say that ‘e-sports is not just gaming’ and not include actual e-sports programmes seems to be overlooking the efforts of all the people in our nation who are immensely passionate about actual e-sports,” added Tan.

Tan told CNA that the line-up of games seems "tone-deaf" and is "not an accurate representation" of the sport. His sentiments were echoed by e-sports competitors globally.

Earlier in the year, in response to media questions about the line-up, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said their primary agenda was to develop virtual sports.

The IOC said that the games selected should align with Olympic values such as inclusivity and should not contain, "any personal violence".

Even more astonishingly, none of the titles showcased make the list of the top 25 most popular games in Asia.

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“Instead of working with existing game publishers or well-established tournaments, it seems that the Olympic committee has instead decided to use this event as a marketing vehicle for brand-new, poorly thought out, unlicensed mobile games,” Matt Woods, co-founder of AFK told CNA.

Popular e-sports commentator Eugene Eu said that it was, "a very questionable decision to use these games and call it the Olympic Esports Series".

"This isn't e-sports", added Eu.