Of course fencing, especially at the higher levels, is much more a sport than a form of combat. I'm only intimately familiar with saber, but there the rules play a very important role. Having the right of way changes everything, and a lot of blade contact is about getting the right of way rather than actually preventing your opponent from doing something. If you have the right of way, you don't care about being hit as long as you hit your opponent sufficiently quickly after that--I don't think real sword fights work that way :).

All this makes fencing more fun and interesting, but also more of a game. This really affects the tactics people use.

Also, foil works the same way with a very similar set of rules about the right of way. There are some minor variations, but the basic idea is the same--if you have the right of way, you get the point even if you hit after your opponent. Epee is different, with no right of way, but I never really liked it so can't comment much. If anything, it seems epee is less focused on footwork than saber, but it could just be my inner saber biases showing.

Fencing, while awesome, is a poor proxy for actual sword fighting. If you were actually facing something sharp, you would be much more worried about getting hit at all and so would probably parry more.