You have not defined “sports games,” actually. Why don’t you clearly define them for us?
To me a sports game isn’t exactly just a game that simulates a sport. In the case of traditional sports video games, they are strategy games with just various non-action packed themes on them, but extreme sports video games play nothing like traditional sports games. Platformer or adventure games are better matches for them. Grind Session, the games based on X Games and quite a few others do have a sporty feel at least
Dude, this is not a definition. If you want to argue that “extreme sports games” are racing games and not sports games, you need to tell us what your definitions are.
Let me help you, since video games and discussing them are something I actually find interesting: I’ll define some video game types. These are just my opinion, but they ARE definitions, even if they’re just mine.
MMORPG: A Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game is a game that is played online, by a large number of people, in a persistent game universe, which has most or all of the essential elements of a classic role playing game; that the player interacts with the persistent world as a single avatar, that the avatar the player uses can be made more capable and powerful by the accomplishment of in game goals, and that the game is largely open ended and can be played with the same avatar for a very long period of time.
Flight simulator: A flight simulator is a game in which the player’s primary goal is control of an aircraft in a context primarily oriented around the realistic depiction and simulation of the technicalities and physics of flight.
Platformer: A platformer or platform game is a game in which the player controls an avatar expected, usually in a two dimensional universe, to navigate a series of obstacles and opponents in an effort to move through the universe in a general direction to gather items or accomplish a goal.
Now, what is a sports game? What is an extreme sports game, and how is that different, and how is it like a racing game?
Why does definition matter? Even this article admits sports games have nothing in common with each other, other than deciphering and portraying a sport
And…? You can have subcategories under sports video games, but they’re all sports video games. Are you saying that everything under one genre must be the same?
**Because you said you “defined” them. But you didn’t. ** This is your thread, try to keep your own thoughts straight.
As long as he keeps them in his own threads, I personally, am happy.
Well not really, but that’s what makes sports games the most interesting and unique of all gaming genres.
Regarding the comparison, like I said maybe not racing games. Platformer games definitely since you’re having to always dodge and avoid various obstacles your way. Even then is debatable still as to whether most extreme sports, particularly skateboarding are considered official sports. A lot has to do with marketing.
Or just maybe have them as niche subgenre of action games. Guitar Hero is about as much of a action game as Tony Hawk.
What makes them not “official sports”? They require physical ability and talent, they’re structured in such a way that you can compete against other participants (though you don’t have to – many people enjoy sports like skateboarding only as a solo / recreational activity, but that’s true of many traditional sports, as well), and there are organizations that sponsor and host competitive series and award championship titles.
True
But they derive from subculture and remember they didn’t start off as official sports. The X Games have only existed for the last 30 years I believe. But honestly if darts can be considered a sport, so can skateboarding.
What’s an “official” sport? Where one might find the Office of Sport that decides which sports do and do not count?
And, at this point, since they clearly are now sports – why does it matter? It seems like a meaningless distinction that a stereotypical older sports fan might make: “That X-Games stuff wasn’t around when I was a kid, so they aren’t real sports! And, get off my lawn!”
The more established sports (which, I think, is what you’re trying to get at with the term “official sports”) all started out far less formally, too – they just did so generations ago.
Edit: I was going to ask Chronos’s question, too. 
Lol I wasn’t even alive in the 90s
And yeah I mean established
But that that’s not what this thread is about.
See my previous post
I know, and that’s why I was amused that you were seeming to make the sort of distinction that someone my age would make. 
What games, specifically, are you thinking are extreme sports games?
Sports games are, to me, ones which try and model how the sport works in real life - instead of using your body to perform the sporting actions, you use controller inputs. So a cycling game would be very different from a hockey game, but since they are both simulating sports, they get called sports games.
Marketing may well not have much to do with what sports get called sports games, but it probably does have more to do with which games get called sports games.
Sumo is probably the oldest sport that has a professional competitive league, but even it developed from a series of rituals that were hardly about competition, much in the same way that many of the extreme games skateboarding, in-line skating, extreme skiing, etc, started out with people just having fun doing those things with a bit more flair. While the major team sports are hard to imagine as being much other than competitions, plenty of sports are derived from non-competitive activities, or at least activities that weren’t nearly as dependent on the competitive aspects. Golf, especially given how poorly I play, is an example. I don’t bother keeping score (or if I do, don’t compare it to anyone else’s) - I just try to get the lowest score I can, and the effort of doing that is interesting in itself. Similarly, people like to drive cars fast just to drive cars fast; at some point they might decide to race each other, but plenty of people might try for the best times over a distance without having a rival.