Former Blizzard Exec Talks About Adding Video Games To The Olympics

Professional gamers reflexes are "lightning quick and they're having to make very quick decisions on the fly."

According to former Blizzard chief creative officer Rob Pardo there is a good argument in adding eSports in the Olympics.

"There's a very good argument for e-sports being in the Olympics," Pardo said. "I think the way that you look at eSports is that it's a very competitive skillset and you look at these professional gamers and the reflexes are lightning quick and they're having to make very quick decisions on the fly."

There is a long-running debate over whether playing video games professionally is a sport.

Earlier this year, the president of ESPN said that  eSports aren't sports.

"It's not a sport — it's a competition," ESPN president John Skipper said in an interview. "Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition."

Pardo noted that doing something like trying to get eSports into the Olympics would require a lot of work, especially in how sport is defined.

"If you want to define sport as something that takes a lot of physical exertion, then it's hard to argue that video games should be a sport, but at the same time, when I'm looking at things that are already in the Olympics, I start questioning the definition," he said.