10 years ago, competitive gaming wasn't even a thing.
What?
Twin Galaxies?
Atari was holding competitions for grands back in the 80's.
Nintendo had the same thing. After that, it went mostly to PC stuff.
Carmack was giving away Ferraris at QuakeCon back in 96'.
Fatal1ty was putting out promodel motherboards.
Billy Mitchell has his own brand of hotsauce.
As for it challenging actual sports, I don't think so. They're two different things.
I'm not sure about what they meant by "popular". I assure you more people played
a game of Madden than played a game of actual football going back since the first one came out.
I'd say it's closer to people playing chess mixed with a touch of Hungry Hungry Hippos behind a veil of
digitally animated action.
Also, the comparison of it to skateboarding, eeeh...
Games are all about rules and objectives.
The professional skate world sets rules and objectives for its "competitors",
but there are guys that don't go by the rules who still make it. Skating, in and of itself,
is more like making a game than playing one. If you don't want to learn anything new,
if you don't want to try something difficult, if you don't want to skate with anyone else,
then you don't.
I dunno, not trying to ramble. Never saw the documentary.
Valve has a lot invested in game culture. They don't just make games, they own
their own digital store and are trying to put out a console. So, sure they want to promote
the lifestyle and honorable struggle as much as possible.