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*