Thursday, January 20, 2011

Rant: Nerf- Just a 'game'?

Was a particularly 'emo' meet that day:)
Now as you probably already know Urban Taggers isn't really about outdoor wars, but there's a significant proportion of our readership who do like to do more with their blasters than fire at our partners and commando roll over a couch. Sooo, in what we hope will be a regular thing is we've asked our good friend Neil, from the Canberra + Southern NSW Dart Tag crew to occasionally contribute to UT his thoughts and opinions from the world of Nerf-OUTSIDE the apartment:)

Today's post is about the interesting perspective of Nerf wars being more than just "dudes playing with toys" (a perspective no doubt we all share). Interesting reading after the jump.


Hi guys, Neil here from the Canberra + Southern NSW Dart Tag crew. When people ask me these days what sport I play I look them in the eye and say in all seriousness: “dart tag”. And I use that term to cover everything from Humans vs Zombies to 30-a-side Nerf Wars. I mean let’s get real here, if something like ‘Ultimate Frisbee’ can be a recognised sport………….why not ‘dart tag’? Try and tell an Ultimate Frisbee player their chosen sport is just a bit lame (as I have done – many times) and you’ll find they take it VERY seriously.

So let’s look at this objectively. Any kind of ‘tag’ game requires a good measure of physical effort. It requires hand-eye coordination, not to mention teamwork, strategy, tactics and good organisational skills. Anyone who has spent the best part of the day as a zombie chasing down humans certainly knows they’ve been active when they get home and crash on the couch. I remember after my very first game I had trouble even getting up the stairs I was so sore and tired!
There's a lot of running. shooting sure, but still. a LOT of running.
Lets stop for a moment and look at the Wikipedia definition of sport: “…A sport is an organizied, competitive, entertaining, and skillful activity requiring commitment, strategy, and fair play, in which a winner can be defined by objective means. It is governed by a set of rules or customs….”. Now that sounds like a pretty good definition of a game of ‘Capture the Flag’ to me. Two teams with a set objective to win the game, playing area is defined, legal tags have been discussed pre-game (blaster hits count) etc, etc.

Not convinced? Think about the last Nerf War or HvZ game you went to. You spent the best of an entire day outside. You were hot, sweaty and sunburnt. You drank your bodyweight in fizzy drinks or mineral replacement sports drinks. You had to have a bit of sit down between events/missions due to the fatigue you felt (No? Just me then). You and your team mates/friends spent a good amount of time working out your tactics and ‘plays’. You tasted the sweetness of victory or the bitterness of defeat. Now as a guy who spent every summer for years playing cricket, that all sounds pretty familiar. Though of course you could also be talking about a musical festival and working out how to get to the bar, but let’s go with the sports analogy OK?

Fair enough I might be stretching the point. To the casual observer a large game of HvZ seems like a chaotic mass of people running backwards and forwards……..but have you ever watched an entire game of Australian Rules Football?
Action. It's Nerf's middle name. Ok not really. But there's jumping, dammit!:)
And let’s not forget that Nerf market Dart Tag - and indeed the National Dart Tag League – as “Nerf’s newest action sport”. And this is a company that makes footballs and various other outdoor equipment.

So thats my thoughts on the matter. What do you think? Should we be petitioning the IOC to have Dart Tag classified as an Olympic sport? Or am I talking bollocks and should get out more?

Neil *out*

26 comments:

  1. I like this : "petitioning the IOC to have Dart Tag classified as an Olympic sport."

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  2. I would really like to see it in the Olympics! Imagine big, muscular men running around a court with toy guns the size of their hand! :)

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  3. i agree is COULD be call a sport, but its like when poker is shown on ESPN. its not like football, soccer, basketball ect…
    don’t get me wrong im 18 and i STILL love nerf (its nerf or nuthin”) but its not a sport per say
    urban taggers rock!

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  4. yeah man, dart tag for the olympics! would be epic :P

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  5. I know this is a little off topic but doe the Quick 16 have slam fire?

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  6. ^if you take the time to read other posts on this blog regarding the Quick 16, you'd know the answer is a big fat YES.

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  7. Dart Tag would make the Olympics finally worth watching. I would also have to join the Olympic Dart Tag team.

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  8. dart tag could be called a sport when i walk to the oval some kids call me and me friends nerf nerds and then me friend shoot them in the eyes =P

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  9. dart tag is about as much of a sport as paintball. yea they can be technically called sports, but they are really just games, in my opinion. though so are alot of olympic sports, and nerf would be way more fun to watch than table tennis or curling.

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  10. It is why personally I like the way Nerf are positioning the "Dart Tag: Nerf's newest action sport"; it's less on the milsim tactical plate stuff and more as a fast and furious sport with time limits and points.

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  11. Olympic Dart Tag: For those who wouldn't get into any other sports :P (like me)

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  12. Uniforms would go a long way to making nerf look more legit in the public's eyes.

    Sure the new dart tag stuff + jerseys will be one way to make this happen, but I'd love to see uniforms adopted in some of the more serious nerfing too - ie the +80ft range wars that are the norm down here in Adelaide

    Aj

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  13. yeah you've said it, I chose Nerf over paintball
    because it's cheaper, less painful,and cleaner.
    and you can't modify paintball guns.

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  14. That guy Neil is a dude!

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  15. I have gotten into arguments with people who believe that paintball should be an Olympic sport, and I tell them that if paintball is admitted, then NASCAR should also be admitted under the reasoning that there are similar multiple, heavy, and complex mechanical elements involved that can be changed, either intentionally, or unintentionally to produce a favorable or unfavorable outcome that is potentially out of the control of the player. I've then been told that I was wrong and that they are two different things. I still don't see the difference. Olympic sports seem to be based around either a pure human element, or a very minimal and uniform equipment extension of the human element that cannot be easily modified. So, therefore, just like paintball, auto racing, or yes, even Dart Tag, I think that they shouldn't be admitted.

    However that's not to say that Nerf or Dart Tag itself is not a sport. I think it very much is. And I think its only fair that it be classified as such. It fulfills the criteria involved, and it has the capability to have a very strict ruleset, whether "official" or not, that allows it to qualify. The Dart Tag Championships even give it that competition and non-competing viewer factor that other sports enjoy. And, with a little bit of bias on my part, if we can get it classified as a sport, maybe those of us in the United States can stop being hassled by law enforcement for playing with "guns".

    But it should also be able to be played without the organization, like the old days of Nerf where it was just a all-out war between kids. There was no hit count, no blaster restrictions, no restrictions period. So just like playing catch, I think Nerf should and can qualify as both a sport and a recreation.

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  16. Olympics would make it terrible, I mean compare Olympic Tae Kwon Do to real Tae Kwon Do:
    Olympic: Hit them once then run around for the remaining 4minutes 57seconds.
    Real: Hit them as many times as possible.

    See how this would transfer over to Nerf?

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  17. Wow, I'm surprised by how much people would over react over foam dart shooters. Everyone should just chillax, it's only concept. Even if dart tag isn't considered an Olympic sport, it's still fun. Besides, Nerf hosts it's own competitions remember? and to the guy above, you don't how much skill and training it takes to be at the olympic level in taekwondo. seriously. :|

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  18. Shoot, the movement's started!

    http://foamfromabove.blogspot.com/2009/10/make-it-happen.html

    @AlliSports is the company here in the US who provides the Mt. Dew Action Sport Tour where the NDTL is staged during their BMX/Skateboarding/other action sports.

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  19. Nerf is such a sport I'm trying to start a team up here in colorado, we have a great park near my house.

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  20. I feel the same way about boffer fighting. Between my growing arsenal of dart blasters and my already pretty impressive armory of foam melee weapons, I'm running out of room in the garage to park the car. I put them both under the banner of "foamfighting" and have spent a considerable amount of time and money investing in them. Hobby? Yes. Sport? Why the hell not?

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  21. hobby? yes. sport? grow up dude

    but not too much cuz nerf is just to dang fun!

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  22. Guy above me ^^ lay off. If its so fun, why cant it be a sport?

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  23. Most people seem to define sports by organization. Not organization of individual games, but of organization on a large scale. Nerf has no championships/tournaments so no one considers it a sport.

    However, if we take out all of that organization/recognition crap, a lot of things become sports. Laser tag, water warfare, Airsoft, and of course, Nerf. Each one requires slightly different skill sets and have objective ways of determining winners, though water warfare is the most difficult to apply objectivity to for obvious reasons. On the other hand, every sport (that's recognized as a sport) has had its share of cheaters and refs who make bad calls. There are subjective rules on what players are or aren't allowed to do. (i.e. foul play.)

    The large scale organization of sports in fact, cannot be made to be a requirement for defining a sport. It hasn't occured to some people that defining a sport by such organization makes competitive gaming more of a sport than Nerf. In fact, the only aspect that competitive gaming lacks which prevents it from becoming a sport is athletic/physical skills.

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  24. @ Ladz cuz no one gets payed to play it!
    and all im saying is it is a game for kids, that has been turned into something better by kidults like me
    Alfamorrow out-

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  25. I love nerf. I live for nerf. I also live for modding nerf. I modded a nitefinder this morning. Now it's like a pistol. I took of the laser pointer. Very light.

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