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On September 06 2013 01:52 ZenithM wrote:
Now we're talking haha. We want girls in gaming because we like girls, that I can agree with. Imo OP is trying to make it sound more complicated than it really is. I don't think it's really a "help the minority" issue. In the end, we just want girls to be interested in the same game we're interested in :D
No, it's really about broadening the interest of eSports in all areas. I could make arguments that there should be more tournaments in Australia to broaden interest as well.
The detailing of that post would be, of course, different
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On September 06 2013 01:56 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2013 01:52 ZenithM wrote:
Now we're talking haha. We want girls in gaming because we like girls, that I can agree with. Imo OP is trying to make it sound more complicated than it really is. I don't think it's really a "help the minority" issue. In the end, we just want girls to be interested in the same game we're interested in :D
No, it's really about broadening the interest of eSports in all areas. I could make arguments that there should be more tournaments in Australia to broaden interest as well. The detailing of that post would be, of course, different
There's actually a pretty decent number of tournaments in Australia and SEA, they just don't really get coverage/attention outside their own scene. 
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Meh, I forgot about eSports.
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On September 06 2013 01:59 MasterOfPuppets wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2013 01:56 Torte de Lini wrote:On September 06 2013 01:52 ZenithM wrote:
Now we're talking haha. We want girls in gaming because we like girls, that I can agree with. Imo OP is trying to make it sound more complicated than it really is. I don't think it's really a "help the minority" issue. In the end, we just want girls to be interested in the same game we're interested in :D
No, it's really about broadening the interest of eSports in all areas. I could make arguments that there should be more tournaments in Australia to broaden interest as well. The detailing of that post would be, of course, different There's actually a pretty decent number of tournaments in Australia and SEA, they just don't really get coverage/attention outside their own scene.
Why no WCS for SEA?
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On September 06 2013 02:13 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2013 01:59 MasterOfPuppets wrote:On September 06 2013 01:56 Torte de Lini wrote:On September 06 2013 01:52 ZenithM wrote:
Now we're talking haha. We want girls in gaming because we like girls, that I can agree with. Imo OP is trying to make it sound more complicated than it really is. I don't think it's really a "help the minority" issue. In the end, we just want girls to be interested in the same game we're interested in :D
No, it's really about broadening the interest of eSports in all areas. I could make arguments that there should be more tournaments in Australia to broaden interest as well. The detailing of that post would be, of course, different There's actually a pretty decent number of tournaments in Australia and SEA, they just don't really get coverage/attention outside their own scene. Why no WCS for SEA?
To many countries, to much ocean and no single production company to get it done. Its like WCS EU, but with way more expensive flights for the players. Maybe 2014.
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Until the female interest base is increased, naturally there won't be a lot of girls playing. Proportionality.
Female tournaments are fine, but that means that we'll actually need to have female gamers for that tourney --> unless we assume every girl is rich, we'll need girls on teams that aren't on the level of Innovation.
Open tournaments and anything involving qualifying competition between both sexes will need to be completely fair though for obv. reasons. For invites, there's probably a tradeoff somewhere between publicity/interest base increase and qualifying people with actual skill but that'll be up to tourney hosts right, if they want to handle the consequences that comes from entering some no-names because they're girls, go for it.
tbqh not sure why we're re-hashing the same goddamn issues every time. Ffs, the issues presented aren't exactly rocket science and will never be, it's just that not a lot of finger-lifting is going on.
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On September 06 2013 02:59 ymir233 wrote:
Until the female interest base is increased, naturally there won't be a lot of girls playing. Proportionality.
Female tournaments are fine, but that means that we'll actually need to have female gamers for that tourney --> unless we assume every girl is rich, we'll need girls on teams that aren't on the level of Innovation.
Open tournaments and anything involving qualifying competition between both sexes will need to be completely fair though for obv. reasons. For invites, there's probably a tradeoff somewhere between publicity/interest base increase and qualifying people with actual skill but that'll be up to tourney hosts right, if they want to handle the consequences that comes from entering some no-names because they're girls, go for it.
tbqh not sure why we're re-hashing the same goddamn issues every time. Ffs, the issues presented aren't exactly rocket science and will never be, it's just that not a lot of finger-lifting is going on.
Not really rehashing an issue, this was written in 2012
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On September 06 2013 02:17 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2013 02:13 Torte de Lini wrote:On September 06 2013 01:59 MasterOfPuppets wrote:On September 06 2013 01:56 Torte de Lini wrote:On September 06 2013 01:52 ZenithM wrote:
Now we're talking haha. We want girls in gaming because we like girls, that I can agree with. Imo OP is trying to make it sound more complicated than it really is. I don't think it's really a "help the minority" issue. In the end, we just want girls to be interested in the same game we're interested in :D
No, it's really about broadening the interest of eSports in all areas. I could make arguments that there should be more tournaments in Australia to broaden interest as well. The detailing of that post would be, of course, different There's actually a pretty decent number of tournaments in Australia and SEA, they just don't really get coverage/attention outside their own scene. Why no WCS for SEA? To many countries, to much ocean and no single production company to get it done. Its like WCS EU, but with way more expensive flights for the players. Maybe 2014.
I'd say there's other issues factoring into it as well, most notably lack of interest. I'm not sure exactly how large the SC2 scene over there is, it's probably not tiny (as evidenced by the active tournaments and lots of players) but it's not huge either. As for the community in general, well, they just don't seem to give a damn about SEA players and the tournaments they compete in, which is a damn shame considering how many talented players they've got. But at the same time they aren't doing the best job of providing exposure to themselves and their team either, they're not competing abroad as much as they used to (remember when mOOnGLaDe used to come to a lot of major foreign events and play some really sick games?) and it definitely shows.
Same goes for the Chinese scene, although I imagine recent visa drama and the hype surrounding Jim and MacSed helped a bit there.
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On September 06 2013 03:05 MasterOfPuppets wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2013 02:17 Plansix wrote:On September 06 2013 02:13 Torte de Lini wrote:On September 06 2013 01:59 MasterOfPuppets wrote:On September 06 2013 01:56 Torte de Lini wrote:On September 06 2013 01:52 ZenithM wrote:
Now we're talking haha. We want girls in gaming because we like girls, that I can agree with. Imo OP is trying to make it sound more complicated than it really is. I don't think it's really a "help the minority" issue. In the end, we just want girls to be interested in the same game we're interested in :D
No, it's really about broadening the interest of eSports in all areas. I could make arguments that there should be more tournaments in Australia to broaden interest as well. The detailing of that post would be, of course, different There's actually a pretty decent number of tournaments in Australia and SEA, they just don't really get coverage/attention outside their own scene. Why no WCS for SEA? To many countries, to much ocean and no single production company to get it done. Its like WCS EU, but with way more expensive flights for the players. Maybe 2014. I'd say there's other issues factoring into it as well, most notably lack of interest. I'm not sure exactly how large the SC2 scene over there is, it's probably not tiny (as evidenced by the active tournaments and lots of players) but it's not huge either. As for the community in general, well, they just don't seem to give a damn about SEA players and the tournaments they compete in, which is a damn shame considering how many talented players they've got. But at the same time they aren't doing the best job of providing exposure to themselves and their team either, they're not competing abroad as much as they used to (remember when mOOnGLaDe used to come to a lot of major foreign events and play some really sick games?) and it definitely shows. Same goes for the Chinese scene, although I imagine recent visa drama and the hype surrounding Jim and MacSed helped a bit there.
To be fair, we have a pretty hard time getting the scene to care about NA players too, unless they are already established. SC2 is just a rough scene for anyone who is new and has not come up through the Korean system. You have a lot of proving to do and not a lot of venues to do it in.
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I really do not understand this entire topic at all. If a player, male or female, is good (in ingame skill, fan-interactions, interviews or whatever): awesome, deserves recognition. If a player, male or female is bad at these things then they probably do not "deserve" recognition.
I seriously fail so hard at understanding why this is a hot-topic. It boggles my mind, actually.
Or an example of what I mean: Male/Female player wins a tournament against other male/female players, the level of play was ridiculously low -> Why should that get recognition? If the case is: Male/Female player wins a tournament against other male/female players, the level of play was high, then you should obviously give respect because this player played well. This gender issue doesn't make sense at all...
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On September 06 2013 04:12 Azelja wrote:
I really do not understand this entire topic at all. If a player, male or female, is good (in ingame skill, fan-interactions, interviews or whatever): awesome, deserves recognition. If a player, male or female is bad at these things then they probably do not "deserve" recognition.
I seriously fail so hard at understanding why this is a hot-topic. It boggles my mind, actually.
Or an example of what I mean: Male/Female player wins a tournament against other male/female players, the level of play was ridiculously low -> Why should that get recognition? If the case is: Male/Female player wins a tournament against other male/female players, the level of play was high, then you should obviously give respect because this player played well. This gender issue doesn't make sense at all...
That entire discussion was just hashed out in the last two pages. You can read it if you want. The short version is as follow:
1: Girl are awesome and more girls in the scene would be great
2: There are not a lot of female pros out there
3: Female only leagues and other events might be a way to get more women involved with the scene. Which is good for everyone.
4: Girls are dope.
Expanding the audience is a good thing and getting a large part of the other 50% of people on the planet(aka, women) involved would be great.
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On September 06 2013 01:50 RuiBarbO wrote:
I myself don't know if female-only leagues are the best way to open gaming up to women. But I do agree that they may help subvert the masculine, male-dominated environment that has emerged around gaming. Sometimes it can be hard to observe just how male/masculine-oriented gaming culture is, especially if you're a man.
I thought I'd write this post as an answer to cloneThorN, but I didn't have the time while he was still around, so I'll write it as a response to you instead. As an added benefit, it'll come off as less aggressive, so I guess that's a good thing  Besides, he didn't like wall-of-texts and this is going to be one. Alternately, if you don't care about a wall-of-text either, then I'll just post it to whoever's interested, because I think it shouldn't be left unsaid, considering the discussion up to this point.
Anyway, the last few pages there have been a lot of opinions about female-only tournaments and their inefficiency as a means to get more girls into gaming and, this being a serious thread, let's actually be serious and take a look at the actual effects. Are female-only tournaments an efficient means of getting more girls into gaming?
There are very few women that compete in tournaments with men, so let's take four of the most prominent ones as examples: Maddelisk, flo, Aphrodite and finally Scarlett (sorry if I left out any favourites; it's not intended as a complete list, just a set of examples). Maddelisk had never played an RTS before Starcraft and in the beginning, she only played with friends. But then she competed in a female-only tournament and thought it was fun and gradually got more serious about it. Today, she's very close to what guys want girl games to be: She competes in mixed-gender tournaments (Dreamhack) and her goal is to be the best, not just the best woman. And her way into SC2 was through female-only tournaments.
Next, let's consider flo. She used to be a CS player, so she had played professionally before. However, she, too, started her path to Starcraft progaming with female-only tournaments. Of course, it's impossible to know if flo would've turned pro in SC even without the female-only tournaments, but she's said that winning 3000$ in Zowie Divina, a female-only tournament, made things a lot easier with her family. Perhaps, without that money, she would have started college right away instead of dedicating an entire year to progaming. Or maybe, without that money, she wouldn't have gone to all those MLG's, competing against guys just the way guys want girl gamers to do.
Aphrodite got into SC2 by being RainBOw's girlfriend (at least I think that's how it went down). However, her true turn of events came at Zowie Divina, a female-only tournament, where the StarTale coach was so impressed with her playing that she got a spot on the team. Later, she tried to qualify for GSL, just like guys want girl gamers to do.
Lastly, there's Scarlett, who's just so good you'd think she couldn't be compared to the others. However, she can, because just like the previous three, Scarlett, too, started off in female-only tournaments. Of course, it's hard to say exactly how much of a difference the tournaments did, overall, but nonetheless, they were stepping stones for these four women. Moreover, every now and then, you see that these women are told that they're an inspiration to other women who want to become pro, so presumably we get a snowball effect from having them here, which, of course, female-only tournaments contributed to.
The female scene is probably too small to make any meaningful statistical generalizations about, but I think it's safe to say that the burden of proof is on those who say that female-only tournaments don't work because this or that. The general trend sure points in the opposite direction: With female-only tournaments, we get more female gamers.
However, one may ask "But what if there weren't any female-only tournaments? If having this demeaning gender split caused potential women progamers to turn away in disgust, wouldn't we see a better scene without the female-only tournaments?". Well, the interesting thing is that we've tried that as well. From November 2012 until June 2013, there wasn't a single female-only tournament happening (at least that I know of). This includes the launch of HotS right in the middle of the timespan, so old players who came back for the expansion would've noticed that the community had abandoned female-only tournaments. However, this didn't result in a wave of new female faces in mixed tournaments at all, so it would indicate that the answer to the question at the beginning of this paragraph is "No, we wouldn't see a better female scene without female-only tournaments". I hope that there's a regular series of female-only tournaments going on at the launch of LotV, so that we can get a better basis for comparison. At the very least, it seems there's nothing to lose.
Lastly, we should mention social groups such as GoSc and Madmoizerg. Our empirical basis for saying something about their effects is very hard to quantify, especially because the social groups and tournaments can be very intertwined with a few persons being involved in a lot of things, but I'd just like to point out that IeSF is having a female-only SC2 championship this year, that the French female-only social group Madmoizerg pointed it out and that the French qualifiers had 24 competitors, which is actually a lot, all things considering. My guess is that without the involvement of Madmoizerg, there wouldn't have been as many players.
In summary, people are entitled to their own opinions about a gender split and whatever signals that may give, but just looking at the numbers, female-only tournaments, as a means to getting more women interested in SC2 progaming, sure seems to work, especially in combination with social groups.
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I still don't understand the point behind female leagues besides specific viewership. If you think female players need a separate tournament to get recognized for their skill, you should aim to make lower skill req tournaments in general. Not because females are worse than males, but because they aren't showing results worthy of the bigger/tougher tournaments. You could say males overshadow them or something else, but I don't think that's the case. Any female that gets any form of publicity is immediately noticed and remembered, just due to the fact that they are female and that's not a common thing in gaming.
I'm basically saying a female league just gives them a much better chance at being noticed over males, without actually providing anything noteworthy for the female community. That's like saying "Hey, there's not enough cash tournaments for low masters. Let's throw a $10,000 pool to them.". Yes, it helps that specific area, but wtf are you trying to do? If they're good enough to be a GSL/WCS/IEM/Dreamhack champion, they will eventually become one. You need to support everyone, and not grab at shit that isn't relevant or supportive of overall growth.
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On September 06 2013 17:55 FetusThrower wrote:
I still don't understand the point behind female leagues besides specific viewership. If you think female players need a separate tournament to get recognized for their skill, you should aim to make lower skill req tournaments in general. Not because females are worse than males, but because they aren't showing results worthy of the bigger/tougher tournaments. You could say males overshadow them or something else, but I don't think that's the case. Any female that gets any form of publicity is immediately noticed and remembered, just due to the fact that they are female and that's not a common thing in gaming.
I'm basically saying a female league just gives them a much better chance at being noticed over males, without actually providing anything noteworthy for the female community. That's like saying "Hey, there's not enough cash tournaments for low masters. Let's throw a $10,000 pool to them.". Yes, it helps that specific area, but wtf are you trying to do? If they're good enough to be a GSL/WCS/IEM/Dreamhack champion, they will eventually become one. You need to support everyone, and not grab at shit that isn't relevant or supportive of overall growth.
read any post by Plansix
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On September 06 2013 16:34 iMAniaC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2013 01:50 RuiBarbO wrote:
I myself don't know if female-only leagues are the best way to open gaming up to women. But I do agree that they may help subvert the masculine, male-dominated environment that has emerged around gaming. Sometimes it can be hard to observe just how male/masculine-oriented gaming culture is, especially if you're a man. I thought I'd write this post as an answer to cloneThorN, but I didn't have the time while he was still around, so I'll write it as a response to you instead. As an added benefit, it'll come off as less aggressive, so I guess that's a good thing Besides, he didn't like wall-of-texts and this is going to be one. Alternately, if you don't care about a wall-of-text either, then I'll just post it to whoever's interested, because I think it shouldn't be left unsaid, considering the discussion up to this point. Anyway, the last few pages there have been a lot of opinions about female-only tournaments and their inefficiency as a means to get more girls into gaming and, this being a serious thread, let's actually be serious and take a look at the actual effects. Are female-only tournaments an efficient means of getting more girls into gaming? There are very few women that compete in tournaments with men, so let's take four of the most prominent ones as examples: Maddelisk, flo, Aphrodite and finally Scarlett (sorry if I left out any favourites; it's not intended as a complete list, just a set of examples). Maddelisk had never played an RTS before Starcraft and in the beginning, she only played with friends. But then she competed in a female-only tournament and thought it was fun and gradually got more serious about it. Today, she's very close to what guys want girl games to be: She competes in mixed-gender tournaments (Dreamhack) and her goal is to be the best, not just the best woman. And her way into SC2 was through female-only tournaments. Next, let's consider flo. She used to be a CS player, so she had played professionally before. However, she, too, started her path to Starcraft progaming with female-only tournaments. Of course, it's impossible to know if flo would've turned pro in SC even without the female-only tournaments, but she's said that winning 3000$ in Zowie Divina, a female-only tournament, made things a lot easier with her family. Perhaps, without that money, she would have started college right away instead of dedicating an entire year to progaming. Or maybe, without that money, she wouldn't have gone to all those MLG's, competing against guys just the way guys want girl gamers to do. Aphrodite got into SC2 by being RainBOw's girlfriend (at least I think that's how it went down). However, her true turn of events came at Zowie Divina, a female-only tournament, where the StarTale coach was so impressed with her playing that she got a spot on the team. Later, she tried to qualify for GSL, just like guys want girl gamers to do. Lastly, there's Scarlett, who's just so good you'd think she couldn't be compared to the others. However, she can, because just like the previous three, Scarlett, too, started off in female-only tournaments. Of course, it's hard to say exactly how much of a difference the tournaments did, overall, but nonetheless, they were stepping stones for these four women. Moreover, every now and then, you see that these women are told that they're an inspiration to other women who want to become pro, so presumably we get a snowball effect from having them here, which, of course, female-only tournaments contributed to. The female scene is probably too small to make any meaningful statistical generalizations about, but I think it's safe to say that the burden of proof is on those who say that female-only tournaments don't work because this or that. The general trend sure points in the opposite direction: With female-only tournaments, we get more female gamers. However, one may ask "But what if there weren't any female-only tournaments? If having this demeaning gender split caused potential women progamers to turn away in disgust, wouldn't we see a better scene without the female-only tournaments?". Well, the interesting thing is that we've tried that as well. From November 2012 until June 2013, there wasn't a single female-only tournament happening (at least that I know of). This includes the launch of HotS right in the middle of the timespan, so old players who came back for the expansion would've noticed that the community had abandoned female-only tournaments. However, this didn't result in a wave of new female faces in mixed tournaments at all, so it would indicate that the answer to the question at the beginning of this paragraph is "No, we wouldn't see a better female scene without female-only tournaments". I hope that there's a regular series of female-only tournaments going on at the launch of LotV, so that we can get a better basis for comparison. At the very least, it seems there's nothing to lose. Lastly, we should mention social groups such as GoSc and Madmoizerg. Our empirical basis for saying something about their effects is very hard to quantify, especially because the social groups and tournaments can be very intertwined with a few persons being involved in a lot of things, but I'd just like to point out that IeSF is having a female-only SC2 championship this year, that the French female-only social group Madmoizerg pointed it out and that the French qualifiers had 24 competitors, which is actually a lot, all things considering. My guess is that without the involvement of Madmoizerg, there wouldn't have been as many players. In summary, people are entitled to their own opinions about a gender split and whatever signals that may give, but just looking at the numbers, female-only tournaments, as a means to getting more women interested in SC2 progaming, sure seems to work, especially in combination with social groups.
1. I never said I don't like walls of text. I said no one besides me and other super interrested people are gonna read it, because people normally hate when the point is not made clear fast.
2. What do you mean by less agressive?
3. Political correctness or not, no new female player, and especially their parents, will reconigze Scarlett as a women from the get-go. Maybe with time, i very highly doubt that you can use her as a promo or ideal for new female players.
4. We actually see a few new females at each LAN, however they mostly suck like the rest of us, so they won't get to the rounds thats getting broadcasted.
5. I have yet to watch people comment on the possibility of splitting the sc2 scene in two(male and female), like it have happende in sports.
6. I will give you that female only tournaments have yielded the best results, however the ammount of pro female players we got was so insignificant, that they had no influence whatsoever.
Keep in mind this game does not last forever.
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On September 06 2013 18:25 cloneThorN wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2013 16:34 iMAniaC wrote:On September 06 2013 01:50 RuiBarbO wrote:
I myself don't know if female-only leagues are the best way to open gaming up to women. But I do agree that they may help subvert the masculine, male-dominated environment that has emerged around gaming. Sometimes it can be hard to observe just how male/masculine-oriented gaming culture is, especially if you're a man. I thought I'd write this post as an answer to cloneThorN, but I didn't have the time while he was still around, so I'll write it as a response to you instead. As an added benefit, it'll come off as less aggressive, so I guess that's a good thing Besides, he didn't like wall-of-texts and this is going to be one. Alternately, if you don't care about a wall-of-text either, then I'll just post it to whoever's interested, because I think it shouldn't be left unsaid, considering the discussion up to this point. Anyway, the last few pages there have been a lot of opinions about female-only tournaments and their inefficiency as a means to get more girls into gaming and, this being a serious thread, let's actually be serious and take a look at the actual effects. Are female-only tournaments an efficient means of getting more girls into gaming? There are very few women that compete in tournaments with men, so let's take four of the most prominent ones as examples: Maddelisk, flo, Aphrodite and finally Scarlett (sorry if I left out any favourites; it's not intended as a complete list, just a set of examples). Maddelisk had never played an RTS before Starcraft and in the beginning, she only played with friends. But then she competed in a female-only tournament and thought it was fun and gradually got more serious about it. Today, she's very close to what guys want girl games to be: She competes in mixed-gender tournaments (Dreamhack) and her goal is to be the best, not just the best woman. And her way into SC2 was through female-only tournaments. Next, let's consider flo. She used to be a CS player, so she had played professionally before. However, she, too, started her path to Starcraft progaming with female-only tournaments. Of course, it's impossible to know if flo would've turned pro in SC even without the female-only tournaments, but she's said that winning 3000$ in Zowie Divina, a female-only tournament, made things a lot easier with her family. Perhaps, without that money, she would have started college right away instead of dedicating an entire year to progaming. Or maybe, without that money, she wouldn't have gone to all those MLG's, competing against guys just the way guys want girl gamers to do. Aphrodite got into SC2 by being RainBOw's girlfriend (at least I think that's how it went down). However, her true turn of events came at Zowie Divina, a female-only tournament, where the StarTale coach was so impressed with her playing that she got a spot on the team. Later, she tried to qualify for GSL, just like guys want girl gamers to do. Lastly, there's Scarlett, who's just so good you'd think she couldn't be compared to the others. However, she can, because just like the previous three, Scarlett, too, started off in female-only tournaments. Of course, it's hard to say exactly how much of a difference the tournaments did, overall, but nonetheless, they were stepping stones for these four women. Moreover, every now and then, you see that these women are told that they're an inspiration to other women who want to become pro, so presumably we get a snowball effect from having them here, which, of course, female-only tournaments contributed to. The female scene is probably too small to make any meaningful statistical generalizations about, but I think it's safe to say that the burden of proof is on those who say that female-only tournaments don't work because this or that. The general trend sure points in the opposite direction: With female-only tournaments, we get more female gamers. However, one may ask "But what if there weren't any female-only tournaments? If having this demeaning gender split caused potential women progamers to turn away in disgust, wouldn't we see a better scene without the female-only tournaments?". Well, the interesting thing is that we've tried that as well. From November 2012 until June 2013, there wasn't a single female-only tournament happening (at least that I know of). This includes the launch of HotS right in the middle of the timespan, so old players who came back for the expansion would've noticed that the community had abandoned female-only tournaments. However, this didn't result in a wave of new female faces in mixed tournaments at all, so it would indicate that the answer to the question at the beginning of this paragraph is "No, we wouldn't see a better female scene without female-only tournaments". I hope that there's a regular series of female-only tournaments going on at the launch of LotV, so that we can get a better basis for comparison. At the very least, it seems there's nothing to lose. Lastly, we should mention social groups such as GoSc and Madmoizerg. Our empirical basis for saying something about their effects is very hard to quantify, especially because the social groups and tournaments can be very intertwined with a few persons being involved in a lot of things, but I'd just like to point out that IeSF is having a female-only SC2 championship this year, that the French female-only social group Madmoizerg pointed it out and that the French qualifiers had 24 competitors, which is actually a lot, all things considering. My guess is that without the involvement of Madmoizerg, there wouldn't have been as many players. In summary, people are entitled to their own opinions about a gender split and whatever signals that may give, but just looking at the numbers, female-only tournaments, as a means to getting more women interested in SC2 progaming, sure seems to work, especially in combination with social groups. 1. I never said I don't like walls of text. I said no one besides me and other super interrested people are gonna read it, because people normally hate when the point is not made clear fast.
Oh, right. My bad.
2. What do you mean by less agressive?
I was going to reply directly to your statements and it's very easy to adopt a more aggressive tone when disagreeing with a direct statement, rather than just chipping in with my two cents. So it was a comment on my own writing
3. Political correctness or not, no new female player, and especially their parents, will reconigze Scarlett as a women from the get-go. Maybe with time, i very highly doubt that you can use her as a promo or ideal for new female players.
She was one of my four examples, so there's three others even if you don't accept Scarlett as a proper example. However, it would be much worse to leave her out of the examples than to include her. You can't talk about prominent female progamers without mentioning Scarlett.
4. We actually see a few new females at each LAN, however they mostly suck like the rest of us, so they won't get to the rounds thats getting broadcasted.
But how many of these new faces would we see even if there were female-only tournaments and would we see more or less new faces if there were? That's the question. But I don't think we can find an answer to that because there's only been one expansion so far, so we can't really compare the situation to any other situation.
5. I have yet to watch people comment on the possibility of splitting the sc2 scene in two(male and female), like it have happende in sports.
Personally, I don't think we need to worry about that. One thing is making a special tournament for a minority group, it's a whole other matter to exclude a minority group from an established line of tournaments, because you can't claim that it's positive discrimination if you're catering to the strongest group. I don't think we're ever going to see gender restrictions on GSL or Dreamhack, for example, so women who want to compete with men will always have that opportunity.
We might see a gender split if the female-only side of the scene became so lucrative that there simply isn't any point for women to compete against men any longer, because they'd rather win easy money in the female tournaments. However, with the amount of female-only tournaments so far this year there doesn't seem to be a danger of that happening anytime soon. But you're right, it could happen through extraordinary circumstances. And even if it did, I think it would be easier to merge the two established scenes later than it would be to get women into SC2 without doing anything that might cause a splitting of the scene, given extraordinary circumstances.
6. I will give you that female only tournaments have yielded the best results, however the ammount of pro female players we got was so insignificant, that they had no influence whatsoever.
Keep in mind this game does not last forever.
I'm not quite sure where that argument is going. "Yes, female-only tournaments have yielded the best results, but the results were so insignificant that..." ... that we should do what? We should have stopped people from doing them on a volunteer basis? We should pretend they never existed because the results were not good enough? Did they somehow harm the scene by having "no influence whatsoever"?
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 06 2013 16:34 iMAniaC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2013 01:50 RuiBarbO wrote:
I myself don't know if female-only leagues are the best way to open gaming up to women. But I do agree that they may help subvert the masculine, male-dominated environment that has emerged around gaming. Sometimes it can be hard to observe just how male/masculine-oriented gaming culture is, especially if you're a man. I thought I'd write this post as an answer to cloneThorN, but I didn't have the time while he was still around, so I'll write it as a response to you instead. As an added benefit, it'll come off as less aggressive, so I guess that's a good thing Besides, he didn't like wall-of-texts and this is going to be one. Alternately, if you don't care about a wall-of-text either, then I'll just post it to whoever's interested, because I think it shouldn't be left unsaid, considering the discussion up to this point. Anyway, the last few pages there have been a lot of opinions about female-only tournaments and their inefficiency as a means to get more girls into gaming and, this being a serious thread, let's actually be serious and take a look at the actual effects. Are female-only tournaments an efficient means of getting more girls into gaming? There are very few women that compete in tournaments with men, so let's take four of the most prominent ones as examples: Maddelisk, flo, Aphrodite and finally Scarlett (sorry if I left out any favourites; it's not intended as a complete list, just a set of examples). Maddelisk had never played an RTS before Starcraft and in the beginning, she only played with friends. But then she competed in a female-only tournament and thought it was fun and gradually got more serious about it. Today, she's very close to what guys want girl games to be: She competes in mixed-gender tournaments (Dreamhack) and her goal is to be the best, not just the best woman. And her way into SC2 was through female-only tournaments. Next, let's consider flo. She used to be a CS player, so she had played professionally before. However, she, too, started her path to Starcraft progaming with female-only tournaments. Of course, it's impossible to know if flo would've turned pro in SC even without the female-only tournaments, but she's said that winning 3000$ in Zowie Divina, a female-only tournament, made things a lot easier with her family. Perhaps, without that money, she would have started college right away instead of dedicating an entire year to progaming. Or maybe, without that money, she wouldn't have gone to all those MLG's, competing against guys just the way guys want girl gamers to do. Aphrodite got into SC2 by being RainBOw's girlfriend (at least I think that's how it went down). However, her true turn of events came at Zowie Divina, a female-only tournament, where the StarTale coach was so impressed with her playing that she got a spot on the team. Later, she tried to qualify for GSL, just like guys want girl gamers to do. Lastly, there's Scarlett, who's just so good you'd think she couldn't be compared to the others. However, she can, because just like the previous three, Scarlett, too, started off in female-only tournaments. Of course, it's hard to say exactly how much of a difference the tournaments did, overall, but nonetheless, they were stepping stones for these four women. Moreover, every now and then, you see that these women are told that they're an inspiration to other women who want to become pro, so presumably we get a snowball effect from having them here, which, of course, female-only tournaments contributed to. The female scene is probably too small to make any meaningful statistical generalizations about, but I think it's safe to say that the burden of proof is on those who say that female-only tournaments don't work because this or that. The general trend sure points in the opposite direction: With female-only tournaments, we get more female gamers. However, one may ask "But what if there weren't any female-only tournaments? If having this demeaning gender split caused potential women progamers to turn away in disgust, wouldn't we see a better scene without the female-only tournaments?". Well, the interesting thing is that we've tried that as well. From November 2012 until June 2013, there wasn't a single female-only tournament happening (at least that I know of). This includes the launch of HotS right in the middle of the timespan, so old players who came back for the expansion would've noticed that the community had abandoned female-only tournaments. However, this didn't result in a wave of new female faces in mixed tournaments at all, so it would indicate that the answer to the question at the beginning of this paragraph is "No, we wouldn't see a better female scene without female-only tournaments". I hope that there's a regular series of female-only tournaments going on at the launch of LotV, so that we can get a better basis for comparison. At the very least, it seems there's nothing to lose. Lastly, we should mention social groups such as GoSc and Madmoizerg. Our empirical basis for saying something about their effects is very hard to quantify, especially because the social groups and tournaments can be very intertwined with a few persons being involved in a lot of things, but I'd just like to point out that IeSF is having a female-only SC2 championship this year, that the French female-only social group Madmoizerg pointed it out and that the French qualifiers had 24 competitors, which is actually a lot, all things considering. My guess is that without the involvement of Madmoizerg, there wouldn't have been as many players. In summary, people are entitled to their own opinions about a gender split and whatever signals that may give, but just looking at the numbers, female-only tournaments, as a means to getting more women interested in SC2 progaming, sure seems to work, especially in combination with social groups.
Well, that definitely answered my question. Also, I must say that's some solid research.
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EPT
