A Case for Women’s Tournaments
Taking a closer look at a new Valorant tournament and the necessity of women's tournaments
Remember when we said esports is one of the few disciplines in the world that allows men and women to compete side-by-side? Yes, us too. You might ask yourself why there are tournaments only for women when there are no physical disadvantages for any gender - and you are not the only one. It is a complex topic we explore in this week’s newsletter but one thing in advance: Over the course of this newsletter we will talk about “women’s” or “female only” tournaments as these are the most common terms. The term developed over the years as most tournaments did not include marginalized groups such as people identifying as agender or non-binary.
Women in the Gaming and Esports Industry
Newzoo’s gamer sentiment study for the US market published in April 2022, revealed the following insights with a focus of DEI in gaming:
46% of gamers are women
20% are Latinx, 15% are black, and 5% are Asian American
16% are LGBTQIA+
31% have a disability, with mental health being the most reported
To celebrate international women's day in March 2022, Newzoo furthermore revealed that women make up for “a significant (and growing!) share of gamers worldwide”. To quote from Newzoo’s post:
“Nearly half of all gamers are women. And while women represent a similar portion of gamers across many of the largest markets, they often have their own unique set of gaming preferences and behaviors.”
To explore these preferences, Newzoo looked at the top 10 games markets by revenue and provided the following graph, outlining the share of men and women playing on each platform:
For more detailed insights, you can check out Newzoo’s post here.
When looking at data by Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE), 47% of European video game players are women but when taking a closer look at esports titles, a different story emerges. According to Nielsen, only 22% of global esports fans identify as women. Most games that are being played competitively such as FIFA, Counter-Strike or League of Legends have an even lower female-male ratio: FIFA is the most popular game amongst women with 32% of participants playing it at least occasionally while Counter-Strike has the lowest female audience with 10%.
Source: Nielsen
Looking at the data there are three things that become obvious:
There are a lot of women in the gaming industry.
There are only a few women playing esports games.
The more you have to interact with your teammates the lower the female player base.
The question is: Why do the numbers differ so much? Except for the fact that they were taken from different sources, esports often are team-based. And while esports do not have to treat men and women differently, we still have a long way ahead of us.
Women to Receive More Negative Comments in Voice Chats
A 2012 study has shown that women receive three times as many negative comments in video games with voice chats than men - and Counter-Strike happens to be a video game with voice chat.
There are no reliable studies on the retention of female players in connection to harassment in a certain game but when talking to different women in the esports industry you will often hear the same stories: There’s a lot of harassment happening purely based on someone’s gender - and this is where women’s tournaments come in.
A Case for Female Tournaments
Women don’t just experience harassment in online-gaming but also in competitive environments. Former professional Counter-Strike player Stephanie “missharvey” Harvey explained in an interview that when she used to play in mixed teams (featuring both men and women), her teammates did not analyze her games with her. Instead they told her she was bad because she was a woman.
A lot of professional female players explain that most professional teams do not want to sign them because of their gender. A lot of male players would be “uncomfortable” playing with women, making it a lot harder for women to play competitively, leaving them only with female tournaments.
The ultimate goal is to have all genders compete side-by-side but there is still a long way to go until the point has been reached. At the moment, most women’s only tournaments only offer a fraction of the prize money men get. This also leads to the fact that fewer women can compete full-time, which widens the gap.
How Diversity Tournaments Strengthen Diversity in Esports
Over the last years, several diversity initiatives have been established such as #GGForAll by the world’s biggest esports tournament organizer ESL. The Women’s Circuit for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) features a prize pool of over 500,000$. In an interview with Dust2.us professional player Charissa “Senna” Hoang explained how the initiative helps revive the female scene in CS:GO, making it attractive again for bigger organizations.
New EMEA Valorant Tournament for Women and Marginalized Genders
On Wednesday, June 8th more details about the new Valorant tournament “MEDUSA” were revealed by organizer Melanie Hoi-San Man. The event will be held July 6th-8th and features 16 teams from the EMEA region. Registration opens June 15th.
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