competitively with you,” she says. “This means you can’t properly train and get better. So it’s more difficult to practise and improve like guys do. “If we educate young players and shift the perception that gaming is just a boys’ hobby, everything will be fine. I personally didn’t grow up thinking of gaming as gender-specific – I didn’t get it from my brother or my dad. My parents gave me a Nintendo for my birthday when I was younger, and I started playing Pokémon. It was only when I was at school when people would comment; ‘oh, you’re playing a game, that’s a boys’ thing’. It was then that I started thinking maybe this isn’t really my space.” Taking initiative However, there are now more initiatives than ever before, and Bucciacchio believes that attitudes towards women’s esports are mostly improving. “More people are talking about the fact that gaming is just a game and that it’s for everyone. Even in professional esports like Valorant , there’s this Game Changers initiative to bring in a competition for women. It’s a circuit for women and marginalised genders, which will help increase opportunities for women. There are now lots of initiatives like the one from Guild.” The Valorant Game Changers initiative is an esports programme created by Riot Games in 2012. Since then, the initiative has created a host of new opportunities for the diverse esports community with a series of global competitions. The programme currently includes a series of tournaments at various levels, training for development of new talent and increased visibility for underrepresented groups. One of » The Women in Esports committee aims to champion the advancement of women and marginalised genders in the gaming industry «
MAXIMUM EXPOSURE Visibility is key for getting more women involved
the other main aims is to establish communities in which players can compete safely. Organisations such as the Women in Esports committee, established in 2020, were also set up to tackle the divide. The committee aims to champion the advancement of women and marginalised genders in the gaming and esports industry, and it consists of members from leading institutions in esports, gaming and education. Ultimately, what’s needed is more visibility – and it was only by pure luck that Bucciacchio came across Guild Esports. “Even though I’m in the gaming and the esports space, it’s still not that visible, even for people who are really interested in the industry,” she explains. “There are lots of events happening, but there’s still a need for more sponsorship and visibility for these events so that women can get into the industry and get started properly. So they can see
that there’s a future in it, whether as a professional player or just as a casual participant in esports.” Despite visibility issues, supporting and growing women in gaming and esports is part of Guild’s DNA. “This is manifesting itself in several ways,” says Jones. “We’re signing female talent to our pro teams, developing female talent in our Academy and giving female streamers and content creators a platform to work with huge brands like Universal Pictures. “It’s about creating opportunities; as we’ve discussed, we created pathways to pro contracts in sim racing and EAFC with the eracers and efootball series. Additionally, we supported and paid for AnnaFUT, the only female player competing, in the lead-up to the EAFC EWC qualifiers at Dreamhack in Sweden. We created the Boost Championship for Rocket League and Rush UK in Valorant : both all-female tournaments.”
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