By
September 2, 2022, 3:15 PM EDTUpdated on
Woman versus game
I reached Carlos Rodríguez, the founder and chief executive officer of the esports organization G2, while he was driving down a Berlin highway on the way to a McDonald’s. It was just a couple of hours after G2 said it had signed an all-women’s team, called G2 Hel, for the competitive game League of Legends, published by Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Riot Games. Rodríguez, behind the wheel of his BMW M8, said Riot is working on a women’s League of Legends circuit, something the company hasn’t acknowledged publicly.
“We don’t give a f— about brownie points. We don’t give a f— about people looking up to us as a changer of worlds. That’s not what we do. G2 entertains. And G2 wins,” he said into his phone camera (again, while driving). “We got this team because there is a female circuit, and we will be the winners of that female circuit.”
Plans to roll out the women’s circuit could still change or fall through. Riot hasn’t confirmed the project’s existence, and a spokesman declined to comment on it. “Riot Games values diversity in the esports ecosystem,” the spokesman wrote in an email. “We plan to continue to build and test more programs next year with aspirations to expand to more globally integrated systems in the future. We applaud G2’s recent move into this space, which shows their dedication and commitment to their esports program and the League community, and look forward to continuing to partner with them on their initiatives.”
The current esports landscape offers notably few opportunities for women. The G2 Hel news on Thursday made waves because it appeared to be a full-throated endorsement of women’s esports initiatives–something that in the past has proven controversial, particularly for League of Legends, which women have long described as a hostile playing environment.
In traditional sports, analysts often point to differences in bodies as a reason for competitions separated by gender. In esports, that’s essentially irrelevant. Everyone is sitting at a computer clicking a mouse. Still, women have not seen the same success as men.
Top female players have attributed that to a lack of opportunity. “In the past, women were constantly rejected, even when they had the same skill as a male counterpart,” says Caity, who goes by Ily Suitehart and does not share her last name publicly. Caity played on Team Siren, a pro women’s League of Legends outfit, until it disbanded in 2013. Team Siren was subject to ridicule from gamers who argued that if the players had been good enough to compete, they’d be signed to co-ed teams.
It’s not that simple. Top women have faced rejection both from esports organizations and other gamers. Even though nobody could see her face in the game, Caity’s girly League of Legends user name elicited sneers from her teammates. Once she changed her user name, she scaled the ranks much faster and her games were more pleasant, she has said. On top of that, said Caity, pro players typically live in houses together, which, according to esports executives including Rodríguez, can present issues. (Caity has described that as an “excuse.”) Women who feel unwelcome in the upper echelons of competitive gaming are cut off from access to exactly the sort of training they need to become professionals.
Yet female competitors helped shape esports from early on, said T.L. Taylor, a sociology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of several books on esports. “Women have been there since the beginning,” she said. The problem: “Esports has not fully grappled with how to create inclusive participation for everyone.”
The needle is moving, though. There are lots more women gaming celebrities on Twitch, Amazon.com Inc.’s game live-streaming website. Sexism in Caity’s daily ranked games has improved, she said. And while competing is still by no means easy, there are more opportunities to do so today.
Since 2021, Riot Games has operated a Game Changers program for both League of Legends and the first-person shooter Valorant. The goal is to help talented women join amateur and professional leagues through training and coaching opportunities. Another first-person shooter, Valve Corp.’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, introduced a women’s circuit this year with a $500,000 prize pool.
The website Esports News UK first reported this week on the development of the women’s circuit for League of Legends. Rodríguez, whose G2 also has an all-women Valorant team, said he’s not making a political statement and believes every game should have a female circuit. “For women to experience competition, the thrill of winning, they are helped by being encouraged.”
Hel is running off the momentum of winning the GirlGamer World Championships qualifier in Romania. The potential for a women’s circuit has attracted a lot of attention. “Other girls see it, and maybe they’ll be encouraged. I think it’s very important that this exists for females,” said Agnė “Karina” Ivaškevičiūtė, a member of Hel. “I don’t see myself as a woman in esports. I just think I’m a player.”