Will chess ever overpower video games?

It may be a tall order, but think about it. If more people hear about chess and actually play it, they may forget video games completely. That happened to me. Once I was introduced to chess, I was hooked. So, what do you think? Will chess eventually overpower video games. I'll be glad to hear from you. Long live the king of games!

Nope, most people don't have the time and or inclination to do what it takes to be good at chess. Most folks can learn a specific video game in a matter of hours, chess takes months and years to even begin to master, and most folks wont do all that.

Is your premise that chess is unknown and if people find out there is a game called chess, it may become more popular than video games? I thought everyone knew about chess already.

I'll chose chess over anny other game, so for me chess have won 

All of them except Starcraft: Brood War.

james1996, interesting post. however i doubt it. i feel the immediate gratification of video games. is too powerfull to overcome. we must face facts and however difficult it may be to accept. the rush, excitement and speed of video games cannot be matched by chess. our culture today can be described as the couch potato generation. and things that require effort are frowned upon. until someone finds a way to present chess on tv in an interesting, provocative manner it's odds of becoming popular are slim. we need a compelling, charismatic advocate to promote the game. for example look what Ike and Arnold Palmer did for golf in the 60's. Fischer did that for chess for a while, but those circumstances were exraordinary and it's doubtfull to occur again, unless el Qaeda produces a world champion and Kamsky or Nakamura become challengers. look at chess' image now, nerds, geeks and wimps. we need to break out of the box and represent chess as the exciting competetive sport it truly is. aloha,...ppeets

I agree with the gist of other posters that to an extent comparing chess and video games is like apples and oranges.

I've played chess for most of my life and I love it, and having started playing OTB again 18 months ago or so I enjoy the battle and the game. There are many things to enjoy about chess, the complexity, aesthetics, battle of wits etc.

But good video games can also be very complex, and they offer other advantages - in single player mode you can stop or start whenever you like, so if you have 5 mins you can play for 5, if you have 50 you can play for 50, or whatever. Video games are also much more interactive, they respond in real time to your input, there's momentum. It's enjoyable to get lost and absorbed in a video game in a way that's not quite possible with chess. Single-player wise, my favourite ever game is Civilization 2... an amazingly deep game which I've lost a good part of my life too, and gladly :)

Related to this is the adrenaline of playing... you get real rushes of adrenaline playing video games. Playing multiplayer there are a plethora of excellent video games, and you can choose/play one that corresponds extremely closely to what you enjoy playing in a video game.

Back in my days as a teenager, I played Age of Empires extensively online. This is a strategy game that combined speed of thought, speed of mouse and keyboard, strategic planning, tactical coordination, and, as a great plus over chess, it was 90% played as a team game where smooth team cooperation was critical to success. It's nice having people to bask in your success with :D

I really enjoyed playing Age of Empires online for a decade. I really enjoy playing chess too. I can't really compare the two.

the masses like shiny things and adrenaline.  it'll never happen :(.

I think not ... humanity in general seems to prefer the effortless "reward"  Children start out in this state and it takes training and discipline to discover that difficult things are even more rewarding when accomplished.  My example to support my argument is:

The only thing I can think of that is even more popular than video games is the slot-machine.  Pull the handle and get a blinky light / cheery sound type of reward (and occasionally money).  Doesn't get much simpler and billions of people are addicted to them.  :-(

Nice post, NiceNix

I am the 16 years old player of Starcraft, chess, Pokemon TCG and little bit Hold em too. I must say that Starcraft is absolutely the most hardest game of these taking months to advance from D to D+ Chess or Warcraft players or years to new players. You have to watch alltime new games from Progamers (from Korea) and adapt to their play or try to invent own strategies. They have to play 12+ hours a day to stay in the highest level. They also earn a lot money (best players 100 000-200 000e in year). It actually took me 2 weeks to advance to another level in Starcraft, but I think I'm pretty gifted to strategy games? ;)

BTW I started playing chess month ago in school and recently found this awesome site. My aim for now is reach 2000+ rank. Wish me luck!

Is there any chess online tournaments, where you can win money?

There are chess video games. Therefore chess rots your brain. 

Not to mention that this statement is so wrong in itself. Anything is fine in moderation. 

For me video games almost overpowered chess, now they are in a sort of precarious equilibrium.

Whoever thinks all video games are about mindless instant gratification have no idea what they are talking about. There are a lot of very complex/hard to master games, in order to play competitive multiplayer games such as Starcraft, Dota, Counter Strike at a high level require years of practice.

There are also quite a few very intelligent single player games, give the Myst series a try if you think games don't require thinking.

Yeah, video games had a nice run, but come on. They're fun, easy, and you can always take up a new one when the old one bores you. But this new game that just came out called Chess, I tell you, once a few people hear about this, it's going to take off! Don't judge it too harshly just because it's not as popular right now, eventually, once the word gets out about it, it will dominate everything.

You have to love Chess for it to overpower the video game.  My first console was the Atari 2600, I think I was about 8yo at the time.  I've always played video games since then.  Encountered Chess a few times but there was nobody for me to play it with. 

I was 18 when I decided I wanted to learn how to play it properly so I got an electronic Kasparov board.  Lord Of The Rings inspired me to want to learn.

At that time there were only around 4 people in my life who could play, they all loved the game but I fell in love with it.  Eventually they stopped playing altogether.  Now, I have one human Chess opponent who isn't very good, he's the only one who will play me OTB. 

For a long time I had no internet connection so I got my Chess thrills playing various programs over the years.  Now I play online and win about 80% of my games.  I'm not and never will be the greatest but I feel that I learned more about Chess playing the computer than I ever did playing humans. 

For me it's the greatest of all games. Always different, but the same old reliable Chess.

Having said that, my PS3 is basically my live-in lover. 

 I hate that about GT, can't figure out how to fine tune the cars. I don't even drive so how the hell am I supposed to know?

Chess is popular and always will be, it's just it's a household game that people play without putting in a lot of effort and are happy to continue doing so. To take it to the next level requires a lot of effort and time, most won't bother.  It's a common misconception that the ability to take it to the next level requires major intelligence but this is not true.  Chess is not about intelligence it's about Chess playing ability.  

I think it could use some boostavazoo. Something in the movies for instance to try and inspire a whole new generation.  Doesn't have to be a whole movie, imagine Neo and Morpheous playing Chess in The Matrix for a 2 minute scene.  A light dusting of Hollywood magic could go a long way.

Video games are here to stay. They will only get better. 

Those experiences with video games were scarily similar to mine. I have dropped a good deal of my life over civ 2 & AOE too (to be precise I played the empires for a short time, but palyed kings for several years), the only difference being I'm not so glad about it.

The games that I have spent most time on were Civ 2, PES and WE series, AOK, Thief and DOOM. Oh my god, DOOM was so crazy!

about the rush of adrenalin, for me, chess beats the video games on that part. Honestly the only game that was comparable to a serious & intense online live game was Thief II, and I can't even imagine the excitement of a thrilling OTB game, which unfortunately I didn't experience even once. (Well, only once against a complete beginner, but there wasn't a fight and it ended before we reached a result because my opponent had to go).

I think chess can never overpower video games in terms of popularity because video games "play on" so many different aspects of human interest and have the ability to combine them in interesting ways (sounds, visuals, life itself, etc).

Interesting post:

I think video games are popular because of most of them (at all) are fairly easy to finish. I mean people are completing the new GTA V within days if not a week. For me I find chess more appealing than video games. I know people spend 60.00 for game that last only days or month then the online portion only last a year because the new version will be out. A chess program like arena is free and you can play for ever or cheaper version of fritz (7,8, etc) can at least and do not need to upgrade. IMO think video are popular because losing at a video games does not have the same affect as losing a game of chess. You can lose 100 or 1,000 first person games and not feel anything  but losing one game of chess will not leave your memory.