Esports and the Olympic Games may not sound like a perfect pairing on par with chocolate and peanut butter or cookies and milk, but there are people and organizations working to bring competitive gaming to the biennial apex of sporting events.

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The International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) is an organization focused on just that. In February this year, IeSF took the first steps to have esports recognized by the International Olympic Committee, the governing body of the Olympic Games.

The organization received a response from the IOC in April, providing them with the necessary steps to get competitive gaming recognized as a sport and eventually, maybe, considered for the Olympic Games.

The image of someone sitting in front of a monitor, mouse and keyboard doesn't really correspond with the image of a gymnast doing flips on a 4-inch balance beam, but there are some Olympic events with similarities to esports. Shooting events, whether with pistol or rifle, require the same kind of precision that professional Counter-Strike players need to compete at the top level.

But esports aren't defined by a single game or a single genre; the breadth of different kinds of games is as wide as the umbrella that encompasses all sports. There are first-person shooters like Counter-Strike, MOBAs like Dota 2, fighting games like Street Fighter and more.

Jace Hall, CEO of esports team Echo Fox, told Mashable the video games that would likely be selected for the Olympics would have to be easy to understand.

"The life cycle of game is short when compared with traditional sports"

"Whatever the game is or games are, they have to be straight forward enough for the average person to pick up in the first minute of watching," he said. "You can't just be entertaining to people who know what they're looking at."

And as new games come out and older games are put down by competitive players, IeSF deputy manager Leo Sa told Mashable the esports we might see in the Olympic Games will change.

"The life cycle of game is short when compared with traditional sports," Sa said.

Legitimizing competitive gaming

While it's not a household name — even in the world of esports — IeSF is not a smalltime organization. IeSF formed in 2008 and has been growing steadily ever since, gathering 47 member countries and hosting yearly esports tournaments.

The e-Sports World Championships are kind of like IeSF's own version of an esports Olympics. The championships are hosted in a different member country every year, and member countries can send teams to compete in different games each time like Starcraft II, League of Legends, Street Fighter and more.

Image: capcom

IeSF has also been working to legitimize esports by making partnerships with titans in the sports world, including the International Association of Athletics Federation and becoming a signatory of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

With IeSF bringing these kind of organizations and regulations to esports, they're stepping closer to their goal, which Sa said is "to recognize esports as true sports constantly and promote it globally."

And pushing to get into the Olympic Games falls right in line with that.

"What IeSF is trying to obtain from being part of sports society is not simply being in the Olympics, but to be shared with the legacy developed within sports society through past decades," Sa said.

"For things like basketball, football or chess, we all have personal stories that we know about the success of someone who spent time doing it... and we don't have that for video games," Hall said. "Suddenly if esports are appearing in the Olympics, that's starting to create more context for the average person to understand the value of playing video games."

How to actually become an Olympic sport

Before an event can be debated for inclusion in the Olympic Games, it first has to be accepted as a sport by the International Olympic Committee. To be accepted, a sport has to have an international governing body, which is what IeSF is for esports.

The federation is applying to be recognized by the IOC and has submitted documentation to be accepted into the union for international sports federations, SportAccord.

"We will keep challenging and put our best efforts for it"

IeSF is expecting to find out if it receives recognition from the IOC in December.

From there, the IeSF can apply to the IOC directly or the organizing committee of the host country to get their desired sports into the Games. The committees involved with selecting sports for the Olympic games vote on which disciplines to include like diving, gymnastics or volleyball.

While Sa and Hall are both confident that esports will make it to the Olympics, no one can be certain when it will happen.

"I think it'll be sooner than people normally anticipate," Hall said. "The rate of growth that you're seeing in competitive gaming is so dramatic compared to other analogs that you might look at."

"It is quite complicated and hard to achieve," Sa told Mashable in an email. "But definitely we will keep challenging and put our best efforts for it."