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[Eolz]

Really interesting article from Kotaku (their "Compete" section).
It touches up on gender issues in gaming.
Select quotes, article is way, way longer:

Vanessa Arteaga had been playing fighting games since she was a child, long before she became one of the highest-paid women in competitive gaming history—but her tens of thousands in winnings still pale in comparison to the millions that her male peers have made in competitive gaming in the years since.

Her older brother started her off, because he needed someone to play fighting games with and she was nearby. In 2000, when she was 12 years old, he brought home Dead or Alive 2. She was skeptical. She hadn't ever played a 3D fighting game before.

Right away, she enjoyed everything about Dead or Alive 2: the characters, the style of play, the moves, the stages and what would become the game's signature emphasis on counter-attacks.

She also noticed that, unlike other fighting games she had played the ‘90s, Dead or Alive 2 had a majority-women roster of fighters. As a young girl, she liked having the option to play as a woman: ”I did gravitate towards the females – you look at them, even if they are video game characters, and think: ‘They're so cool! I wanna be like them!' Especially when I was young, I would always gravitate towards cool female characters."

By 2006, at 18 years old, she could dominate opponents online. The following year, she went pro playing Dead or Alive 4 for the short-lived Championship Gaming Series, playing at events where men were pitted against women in a battle of sexes and, later, in a tournament called the Competitive Gaming Series where the women's roster existed thanks to a gender quota. She played in the CGS scouting combine at the Playboy Mansion, and she'd play on a game, DoA4, whose buxom fighters were marketed with a commercial featuring two gamer dudes agog over them. She did all this in stride, reigning undefeated in the CGS DoA4 women's bracket in 2007. In the 2008 CGS season, she only lost against one other player out of 15.

For her efforts, she won $20,000 in the CGS. According to esportsrankings, a site that tracks pro gamers, that makes her the 2028th best-paid esports competitor of all time. It also makes her the ninth best-paid woman, up there in the top 16 with three other women who played in the same tournament series. That's because, in competitive gaming, women are hardly present. And they hardly get the chance to make real money like they did in this one strange league that gave them the shot a decade ago.

There's no indication that on a skill level women can't compete or have any physical disadvantages relative to their male counterparts.

In 2016, the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication published this study of over 10,000 male and female players to track the speed of their advancement in Everquest II and Chevaliers' Romance III. The results showed gender parity. In 2015, a similar study of League of Legends players also found that women advanced at the same rate as male players, but that women had less confidence in their abilities. Specifically, women who played the game with a male partner felt less sure of themselves, and they also tended towards playing assistive and cooperative roles in the game.

(...)Championship Gaming's organizers ”were definitely interested in women players and they were definitely interested in a women's event. I actually advised not to do a women's event because if they wanted women representation, they could choose a couple of games that had women top players... I recommended choosing a game that we would see females rise to the top."

Microsoft was the event sponsor, so it had to be an Xbox 360 game. Dalton asked her peers in PMS Clan about which Xbox game would serve as the best way to feature top women players, and she soon learned that a handful of women had begun to rise to the ranks in DoA4 scenes, including Vanessa Arteaga.

Arteaga backed up the choice, since she had been running into female opponents in the game online ever since she first started playing: ”I wasn't used to finding any females who played fighting games. Or any games at all. But some females were more open to try Dead or Alive. I'm not sure what it was about the game that appealed to females. But more of them were willing to give that a chance than, say, Street Fighter."

The series has a controversial reputation. Some fans love the sexualization of the majority female cast of the game (and the spin-off beach volleyball series). Others don't see it as that far outside of how other games depict women. Arteaga theorized that the game's poor reputation among fighting game fans, even to this day, is because the game used to have a three-point counter system that was considered to be too simplistic. But, Arteaga adds, ”the female characters didn't help. It got categorized as an easy button masher, with big boobs."

The decision to separate the male and female DoA4 competitors did unfortunately suggest that women wouldn't be able to hold their own in a co-ed competition, which some fans criticized at the time. But that gender division guaranteed a slot on every single gaming team for a female pro gamer, so long as she could play Dead or Alive 4.

The gender quota also helped prevent the matches that women were in from being treated like a sideshow. This team-based tournament structure required that all DoA matches get taken seriously, regardless of how organizers, participants, or audiences may have felt about the game or the players. Every single member of a CGS team needed to do well in order to secure the top prize at the tournament.

The gender division also changed the way that female competitors got described before and after their matches. In the 2007 and 2008 CGS team tournaments, there were no more segments that positioned the female players as romantic interests for the men around them. Instead, commentators defaulted towards describing the women competitors in the same way as their male peers.

For example, an introductory segment for the 2007 CGS event describes Vanessa Arteaga as ”one of the greatest Dead or Alive pros in the world [and] the best female player." The interviewer makes no comments about her looks, nor does he ask questions about her past relationships.

Interview example

The event was a high point for women pro gamers in terms of salary, visibility, and opportunity. Yet this supposed high point is a drop in the bucket compared to the plethora of opportunities offered to men in esports—opportunities that don't revolve around looks, and opportunities that pay far more.

Amber Dalton believes the modern-day esports industry should look back on the CGS missteps and improve on the format, rather than abandoning it. ”Women are a very small minority in the esports scene, so having an event where they can compete and get that sense of drive helps them get to the next level," she said. ”[Women-only events] are an entry level to get that experience in live competitions that is completely different from the online experience and also just acquire the talent that is needed."

Dalton also emphasized the value of the mixed-gender format of Championship Gaming's initial invitational competitions: ”It can be done. And it can be done well. For instance, invitational events where women can play against guys. That's the only way they get better. There need to be programs and training with the men. That's how you get better."

Vanessa Arteaga remembers that tournament a decade ago fondly. ”I've always enjoyed competing. I never really knew before CGS that there was a gaming world like this," she says. ”It was a great opportunity. It was a professional gaming league."

There had never been an opportunity like the CGS before. And there hasn't been one since.

Like a someone said in the article's comments (second top comment), DOA4 also kind of was the wrong game at the right time.
It'd be nice if something like that happened again, but the FGC (and other esports communities) really have to evolve before that...

edit to clarify: I'm not saying there's no mixed events (which is not the point of the article), just that this division at the time forced players to be treated equally. Let's not act as if the FGC is/was one of the most welcoming communities around (despite being diverse).

 

[perfectchaos007]

The decision to separate the male and female DoA4 competitors did unfortunately suggest that women wouldn't be able to hold their own in a co-ed competition, which some fans criticized at the time

Yeah I don't get this either. athletic sports are segregated by gender due to genetic makeup of men having a higher strength ceiling than women, but that doesn't really come into play with video games. Women and men should be on an even playing field with no need to segregate. I know I know they call it "eSports" which implies athleticism is involved but come on...

 

[Chindogg]

EL is a mixed gender invitational. Gllty and Ricki were part of pools. All majors are mixed gender open events.

Contrary to popular belief, the FGC is arguably the most diverse competitive gaming community around. Everyone has a chance to play and become big.

 

[DKL]

Man, DOA...

I wish I could find that video of Tom Brady talking about the community and all the shady stuff that went on.

It was the greatest thing ever.

One particular incident actually involved Vanessa and how Brady was training someone to play against her on cable TV or whatever and then Vanessa won and then popped off and said "Fuck you Tom Brady" or something.

But then, I can't say I have all the details down since I'm not too familiar with the community/haven't seen the video in years, but I do hope someone knows what I'm talking about and could provide a more accurate summary >_>

 

[Human Trashcan]

EL is a mixed gender invitational. Gllty and Ricki were part of pools. All majors are mixed gender open events.

Contrary to popular belief, the FGC is arguably the most diverse competitive gaming community around. Everyone has a chance to play and become big.

That's probably true but let's not pretend there's no sexism there. It's still a male-dominated field for a reason (and that reason isn't that girls are innately worse at fighting games). Twitch chat (not the best barometer for anything, I'll grant you) is still a fucking shitshow whenever Ricki plays.

 

[DKL]

Man, I'm wondering if people remember Burn Your Bra's stories of beating men in tournament and the salt that would happen after lol

It was so bad.

 

[Suzushiiro]

Yeah I don't get this either. athletic sports are segregated by gender due to genetic makeup of men having a higher strength ceiling than women, but that doesn't really come into play with video games. Women and men should be on an even playing field with no need to segregate. I know I know they call it "eSports" which implies athleticism is involved but come on...

The argument is that it allows groups that are underrepresented within the overall pool of people playing competitively a chance at the spotlight, which in turn helps generate interest in people from those groups in playing/watching the game.

It's the exact same reason why many esports (most notably MOBAs) are segregated by region for the "regular season" and then the top teams of each region play in a global championship. For whatever reason the games tend to be dominated by one or two regions (usually China/Korea) with players/teams from anywhere else winning major international tournaments as a once-in-a-blue-moon occasion. Put them in the same pool and most games will just be region X's team stomping out region Y, which will cause viewers/players in region Y to lose interest and not bother watching.