The negative stigmatization of gamers
Scholars Kyle Faust, Joseph Meyers, and Mark Griffiths examined a study, conducted by Kowert, Griffiths & Oldmeadow in 2012, that analyzed the opposition of competitive gaming. According to the scientists, “many individuals label gaming as a waste of time, played most frequently by individuals who are socially inept, childish, unpopular, and/or unsuccessful”. If critics perceive gamers in this way, it's unlikely that they will consider it a sport. Along with the misconception of a competitive gamer’s physical capabilities, these inaccurate characteristics prevent critics from understanding the stress that competitive gamers are subject to, while negative stereotypes that critics have of gamers only intensify their stress. Moreover, critics are inaccurately associating “game play with negative outcomes, such as poor attention, low school performance, and increased risk of physical aggression”, which develops the negative stereotypes.
There's a bigger picture
Faust et al. have shown that games actually improve a gamer’s behavior, and “recent studies have not found consistent or strong associations between hours of game play and poor functioning”. Therefore, scientific evidence is consistently countering misconceptions that critics perceive of gamers. However, critics aren’t entirely at fault for assuming gamers follow these stereotypes. Faust et al. further explain that the media distorts the image of a gamer, falsely claiming that video games lead to “psychopathology and even outright antisocial and criminal behavior”. The media misleads critics about the characteristics and behaviors of a gamer, which leads them to form misguided opinions about them. Thus, critics aren’t completely to blame for assuming that gamers are no more than low-functioning members of society. Therefore, it is important for critics to perform research about gamers. This allows them to truly understand how much work and commitment gamers actually put into their careers from their own discoveries, instead of being lied to by the media.