Nick Kyrgios, professional Australian tennis player and Wimbledon finalist, reportedly had a serious video game addiction according to his mother Norlaila Kyrgios.
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The report comes from The Sydney Morning Herald, where Kyrgios’ mother states, “He was happy to sit in his room and play video games all the time. His shoulder would hurt him from how much he would play.”
She continues: “In Beijing we wanted him to walk the Great Wall of China with us. Who wouldn’t, right? But Nick wouldn’t go. He was happy to sit in his room and order in, that’s what worried me.” However, she states that the professional is now “finally appreciating where he is.”
This isn’t the first time a negative correlation between video games and sports has been made. Just last year, Portuguese football manager Jose Mourinho called popular multiplayer shooter Fortnite “a nightmare” for players. He stated in a series of rapid-fire questions that “football players stay up all night playing that shit and the next day, they have a game.”
However, games have also been proven to be useful in professional sports, at least when it comes to coverage. The BBC used Unreal Engine, which is coincidentally the engine Fortnite is built on, to make it appear that live coverage was taking place within Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics (which was delayed until 2021).
“A lot of people assumed we were actually live from Tokyo but because of the pandemic, the obvious travel restrictions and the uncertainty that came with all that, we’ve done things slightly differently,” stated television presenter Dan Walker. He explained that “the set is rendered from the same engine that produces Fortnite.”
In other news, Roblox has hired former Spotify and Meta senior staff to “push the boundaries of creativity”.