FEED: To shift gears, can we talk about the ‘elephant in the room’ for esports? The lack of women athletes on teams and in tournaments. There are lots of women gamers out there, but there is less female participation in esports than in many physical sports. As technologists, do we have any responsibilities that we should address?
ANNA LOCKWOOD: It’s definitely something we think and talk about at Telstra.There are a lot of women who love games and play games. On the gaming side, it’s not quite 50/50, men to women, but it’s close.There is also parity on the streamer and influencer side of things. But there’s definitely a gender gap at the upper echelon of the esports ecosystem – and it’s not just with the players. It’s the whole environment of CEOs and companies working in front of house and back of house. One group I’m involved in is the EGAA (Esports Games Associaton Australia – egaa.com.au). Like
JON SAMSEL: I’ve done a bit of research into this topic and was kind of shocked at what I found. A lot of female gamers are masking identities or muting mics because they want to fit in and play the game without being called out by male players using toxic names and words. Maybe it’s the immaturity of young males who don’t have the world experience to understand how hurtful and offensive these terms are. But I think it’s also about how the media tends to treat men and women differently. You can even see this in interviews of esports athletes. I was watching one recently and the
many esports groups around the world, it has an active diversity and inclusion group, and it’s not just about women. It’s about making sure that gaming and esports is fun and accessible
interviewer was talking about the female player’s cute outfit and there was some questionable innuendo. But when they talked to a male player, they discussed his mental prowess and the preparation that went into it. They treated the male more as an athlete. I also think revenue is the great democratiser. And perhaps sponsors also need to take a hard look at this and make sure
“A LOT OF FEMALE GAMERS ARE MASKING IDENTITIES BECAUSETHEY WANTTO FIT IN”
for people with different abilities, backgrounds and
socio-economic levels. How can everyone afford and play in a safe environment that allows talent to rise? Esports is one of the few
sports where there isn’t any physical difference that we can attribute to success. But the reality is that most esports champions have been male. For us, it’s about looking at what we can do as a company and community to make sure the top talents in esports rise, no matter their gender or other abilities. CAMERON REED: We need to address this thing from a cultural standpoint as well. There is a great organisation
there’s universal enforcement of anti-harassment rules and things like that. Many tournaments have these in place, but I don’t know if that enforcement is really there. And how do you enforce it? It’s a little bit iffy. So, I think that education and sponsorships sort of saying, hey, these are the rules of gameplay that we want to be proud of, and want to be advocates of, and then I think it will change over time in the right way. LASSE KEMPF: It’s difficult. On one hand, the great thing about esport is that anyone can compete, no matter where they’re from, or their gender or anything else. On the other hand, we also have a community right now where you see this difference in participation. Valorant, for instance, is a newer game with a less entrenched community and is a new opportunity. Evil Geniuses just did a mixed-gender roster led by “potter” (Christine Chi), who was one of our analysts at BLAST. And Cloud9 has just announced an all-womenValorant roster.These things are actively being promoted and actually happening.
called AnyKey (anykey.org) trying to increase visibility and accessibility. We can do better, as gamers. There’s no need for the toxicity. The beautiful thing about gaming is that it started as a home for nerds like me, who weren’t the cool kids in high school. It is supposed to be an inclusive society. So, how did we become that which we sought to destroy?
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