There will soon be another type of Olympic Games that the public can get excited for: the Olympic eSports Games. The Games have officially been announced to be taking place in Saudi Arabia. This event has been years in the making, with talks to add eSports to the Olympic roster beginning in 2017. Prior to the 2018 Olympics in South Korea, Intel with some International Olympic Committee backing hosted Starcraft II and Steep exhibition event. Similarly from May 13 to June 23, 2021 there were a series of five eSports events held as part of the Virtual Olympic Series prior to the 2021 games.
Before anyone gets their hopes up for League of Legends matches to dominate the upcoming Olympic games, the game list is pretty short, or has been in past IOC backed events. During the Olympic Esports Week in Singapore in 2023, the games featured were all related to physical sports: Tic Tac Bow (archery), Chess.com (chess), Just Dance (dance), and Fortnite (sharpshooting) to name a few. None of the usual eSports suspects were present; League of Legends, Dota II, and Call of Duty, and more failed to appear. This is because of the Olympic values. While acknowledging that most Olympic sports come from dangerous or violent acts, they’re current form is (for the most part) quite the opposite. However, most video games commonly in eSports tend to focus around killing an opposing team in order to secure an objective. As such, the most likely games to be featured in the 2025 games will have connections to existing events in the Olympic Games.
The IOC will have the Olympic eSports Games exist as a separate entity to the Olympic Games, and with the separation will adopt a new mode of “financing and organizing… these Games.” This new organization might mean that the Olympic eSports Games will look very different from the games that audiences are used to watching, beyond just the difference of events. As the inaugural games take shape over the coming year, gamers will have something to keep an eye on.