WEBVTT - Where are all the women in eSports? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.480 Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric, and welcome to Next Question. 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:08.760 Today we're diving into the massive, frenetic, and very lucrative 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:17.640 world of e sports. Last fall, I have the opportunity 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.520 to go to a live sports event. It was my 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:27.480 first and let me tell you, it was nuts crazy. 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.920 There's a little worldwide brest League kind of feel about 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.760 the whole thing too. It was the Grand Finals of 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:39.879 the two thousand nineteen Overwatch League, Overwatch being a popular 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.040 first person shooter game that can be played by lots 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:49.440 of people at the same time incoming high school. It 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.400 was held at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, which 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.160 is remarkable because that's usually where the city's major traditional 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:00.560 sports teams play the Flyers the seventies Sixers, but on 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:10.040 this day presented pots instead of shootouts and buzzer beaters. 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.800 The Pact Arena was riveted by two teams of six 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:18.640 sitting in chairs staring at computer screens. Now the game 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.399 they were playing was being projected on a big screen 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:23.960 above them, and I guess it didn't hurt that at 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:28.800 stake was a prize pool of one point seven million dollars. 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.000 The rise of e sports is a really fascinating space 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.399 right now because people are coming together in the same 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.680 way that traditional sports brings people together. This is Anita Sarkasian, 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.400 a feminist media and gaming critic. It's a camaraderie, it's 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:50.120 an excitement, it's a it's you know, in real time, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.560 you are rooting for your teams and you're excited and 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:54.960 you learn all the stats and everything. So I think 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.600 there's a lot of value there. We'll return to Nita 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.240 a little bit later to take a critical look at 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.760 the competitive gaming industry, but with e sports poised to 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.240 break the billion dollar mark this year, that's billion with 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.359 a B. My first question is how did it get 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.400 so huge. To answer that, we have to go back 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:20.320 to the arcade. In the seventies and eighties, video games 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.480 were something you did by yourself. Remember, Yeah, at the arcade, 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.040 or a little bit later in front of the family 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.760 TV in the basement. Maybe you crowded around a really 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.560 good player, or maybe you'd have some friends over to 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.480 watch and see who could get to the highest level. 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.000 But that's really as social as video games got. So 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.680 the games, remember, they weren't multiplayer. This is Bobby Kotick, 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.840 the CEO of Activision one of the industry's biggest video 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.920 game companies. So the only multiplayer experience you have was 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.520 I had a controller, You had a controller. The two 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.520 of us played with one TV against each other, and 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.600 so they weren't these social experiences where you could play 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.280 with anyone from around the world. But that all changed 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:09.280 in the nineties with the advent of the World Wide Web. 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.600 With techno set you go and surfing on the Internet, 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:19.960 the Internet made online competitive gaming possible, even though it 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:24.400 was years before home connections were powerful enough to accommodate it. 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.919 The Web also gave rise to the popularity of computer 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:36.200 games and more sophisticated virtual three D worlds. The nineties 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.640 also ushered in a new genre of video game, the 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:44.000 first person shooter, and these games players essentially become a 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:49.080 gun or some other sophisticated weapon, patrolling a suspenseful maze 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.000 on the hunt for people or things to kill. In 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.760 games like Doom, which came out, you could play as 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.360 a team fighting a common enemy, or you could seek 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.800 other player years out and kill them before they killed you. 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.640 As Internet connections improved over the decade, it got easier 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.440 and easier to find people to play with at any time. 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:16.080 Of day from all over the world. You take point, 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.359 knock at that Hart and Brooks go get the truck, 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:24.080 meet us in the front of the chateau. When Activision 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.040 released Call of Duty in the early two thousands, it 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.400 up the anti of first person shooter games with real 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:35.560 world war settings, incredibly realistic graphics, and a more interactive 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.919 group experience. Again here's Bobby Codeck. You could talk to 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.640 people with a headset, you could text them and chat 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.840 with them, and the games became much more social, much 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.360 more multiplayer. And that's really what created like games as 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:54.000 a spectator experience. So when did this whole thing blow 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:58.120 up in terms of having stadiums full of people to 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:04.799 watch people these games on a giant screen. So twenty 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.680 years ago, we released this game called StarCraft and it 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.520 was a popular game. But something happened in South Korea 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:16.760 that was not through our own um initiatives. But there 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:21.800 were roughly five million people that signed up to play 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.240 this game. Now there's a country where the population is 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:29.440 sixty million people, five million of them were playing StarCraft. 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.320 What happened is they started playing professionally. Sponsors started signing 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.680 them up, arenas started hosting matches. Three cable channels popped 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.120 up flenty four hour, seven day week cable channels tavizing 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.960 StarCraft matches, and we were watching all of this and 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.839 saying this is incredible, like you know what well, and 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.559 what is the German nation of it? Why were people 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.160 doing this? Well, one, they were invested players, but two 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.840 people got a sense of belonging purpose, meaning the same 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.719 things that used on traditional sport, the camaraderie of sport 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.760 for people who weren't necessarily athletes. South Korea may have 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.479 been ahead of the curve with dedicated gaming events and 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.080 cable channels, but by the end of the nineties, American 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:17.680 gamers wooed by the prospect of making big money off 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.200 their pastime. We're stepping out of the basement and into 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:27.359 live events to show off their skills in public. After 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.719 the turn of the millennium, the level of participation, number 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:35.200 of tournaments, and prize money exploded, and once streaming was 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.120 introduced in the twenty tens, gamers found themselves with career 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.839 options go on world tours or get paid to play 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.839 online at your own house. According to Bobby Kodak, a 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:51.400 really good professional gamer today can pull in some serious bank. 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.240 How much can of professional gamer make in a year 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.640 tens of millions of dollars because they can make money 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.200 from being professionals, So they get the prizes and the 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.680 salaries and the compensation comes from a team. But they're 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.680 also streamers and so these are some of the most 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:12.800 Like if you look at the Internet streamers who are 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:16.080 the most successful. These people are making millions and millions 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:21.720 of dollars a year, how through endorsements, combinations, endorsed prescriptions, 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:27.560 their share of advertising dollars um, their sponsorship, their appearance fees. 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.240 But endorsements, endorsements, they are no different than professional athletes. 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:36.320 So is there, for example, the Lebron James of video games? 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:45.480 Um not yet um not stars like like a Lebron 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:49.520 where he like transcends popular culture. But I think like 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.960 within the community. You know, Overwatch has players who are 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.840 very well recognized within the community of Overwatch players. Somebody 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.000 said to me the other day that until a famous 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.720 Overwatch player is dating a Kardashian, we won't get to 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.000 that level of popular cultural awareness. But that may not 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.480 be too far away, right, it's happening. I think we're seeing, like, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:16.480 you know, these people are stars and they're becoming more 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.040 impactful and popular culture. I think popular culture is embracing 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.119 video games in a way that it never has before, 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:27.520 so it will happen. The players I saw at the 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:32.000 Overwatch tournament definitely seemed as revered as any pro athlete. 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.400 They were serious about their game and people took them 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.800 seriously too. But what really stood out to me about 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.280 the players was that there were no women, which seemed 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.680 odd considering that something like forty of us gamers are female. 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.600 How is it possible that none are making it to 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.200 the big leagues. When we come back, we'll get to 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.960 the bottom of my next question. And a sport that 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:59.199 has absolutely nothing to do with physical prowess, why can't 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:16.880 more women get in on the action. To find out 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:23.040 where all the female gamers are, I called one up. Hello, Kristen, Hi, 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.320 how are you? Hi? Kristen, Thank you so much for 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.680 doing this. Is Kristin Valnichek, a twenty eight year old 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.160 professional gamer living in l A. She plays under the 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:38.160 moniker Kitty plays Hello, My Beautiful Friends, and welcome to 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.199 Kristen has actually competed at live tournaments like the one 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.199 I went to in Philly, so some women do make 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.800 it to the big leagues. In fact, at a tournament 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:52.040 in Korean two thousand eighteen, Kristen one, but she's since 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:56.319 retired from the tournament circuit. I have done really successfully 0:09:56.320 --> 0:10:01.240 in tournaments, UM, but my main focus has always been around, uh, 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:06.000 daily content creation. Daily content creation means she plays video 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.640 games on a streaming service called Twitch, and people all 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:13.560 over the world log in and watch. So Twitch is 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:18.600 a live streaming platform. UM. People come in and they 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.800 watch you play your game essentially, and you've got a 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.120 webcam that's like a picture and picture on the TV, 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.480 so it's showing all of your reactions to the game 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.200 you're playing. And while you play, you may commentary, you 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:37.520 interact with a live chat, UM, and just build a 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.679 community through that connection that you have with this live community. 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.040 And what a community. Kristen has more than one million 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:47.920 followers on Twitch, which makes sort of the third most 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:52.280 followed female streamer. In a world where Kristen's skills and 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:57.040 stats come with a big gender asterisk, she's a big success. 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.880 I've been a gamer pretty much my entire life. I mean, 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.560 my oldest memory, they say, is around three, and I 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.040 remember sitting in my dad's lap, and you know, pressing 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.000 keys and playing with the mouse when he would be 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:14.080 playing Doom and Quake, which were definitely not appropriate games 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.360 for a three year old to be playing. But I 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.319 mean it led to this, so it's all okay, Um, 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:21.480 But no, he was a huge influence in my life 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:23.920 with gaming, and so is my brother. So just my 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:28.320 entire life anytime friends had like little game consoles around. Um, 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.120 and then eventually I got my own, and then computer 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.920 gaming really rose in popularity. Uh so I there was 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.480 never a time in my life when gaming was separate. 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.840 By the time she was nine, she was so good 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.120 she was beating her dad. But stepping out into the 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.880 gaming world as a teen, she realized there wasn't really 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.120 anyone else out there like her. When I think back to, 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:57.079 you know, my gaming prime years when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, Um, 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:01.320 I did not have a single role model of a 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.280 woman in gaming professionally. Um, there wasn't a single one, 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.760 not even one, And there wasn't twitch to see that 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:13.360 there was um other female gamers like me. Christian soon 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.440 realized that her gender also made her a target for 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:21.200 some unwanted attention. I've been in online communities ever since 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:25.160 I was thirteen playing Halo two and called for Modern 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.640 Warfare two and these online console lobbys which as soon 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:31.720 as you talked as a girl, you were either getting 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.839 hit on or hated on. Um. For those early early 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:38.719 days and being a thirteen year old being full of hormones, 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:41.280 it was like a lot to learn how to deal with. 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.360 Would they throw obscenities your way? I mean, how did 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:53.199 it get times? I mean that it can definitely get rough, um, 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.679 And back then I thought that for me that was 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.960 a really important time and growth in my life because 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.360 I so quickly got to learn about, you know, why 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:08.080 people are unkind um and kind of the psychology behind 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.640 it and how a lot of it has nothing to 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.200 do with me. But when I pressed Kristen for details 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.439 about the kind of harassment she faced then and faces 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:21.040 now as a professional, she pushed back, talking about, uh, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.520 the ways that people can harass people on the internet 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:26.960 really ends up harming the people that are on the 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:31.200 internet even more when people see how they're able to 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.520 target and like I can live, I've been targeted by 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:39.040 every type of harassment on the internet, but I've never 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.280 spoken about it unless it's privately to you know, people 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.280 in my community to mentor them through it, or to 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:49.439 learn how to block the holes that's creating that attack. Um. 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.559 But it when people recognize that they can gain attention 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.400 and can actually affect your life through the computer screen 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.079 and are shown how to do it, um, it just 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.200 makes it worse for everybody. So I really try not 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.320 to have that discuss just to protect not only myself 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.360 but my peers. To understand Christian's position here, I decided 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.720 to get outside of the industry, which is where Anita 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:19.520 Sarkisian comes in. Anita is the founder of Feminist Frequency, 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:24.760 an educational nonprofit that critiques the media. So what do 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.480 you think about the philosophy that talking about harassment only 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:34.920 encourages more people to harass? It absolutely does, um. If 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:39.560 you it's this vicious circle where if you talk about 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.200 the harassment you're receiving to try to get support or 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.000 awareness of of the harassment, you will get harassed worse. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.960 And it just it happens every single time. And so 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.080 I will never judge someone for not speaking up about 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.600 being harassed or being afraid to speak up about the 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.800 harm and abuse that they're facing. But I also know 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:04.440 that that having people speak up allows other folks to 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.360 see that they're not in it alone and that they're 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.560 not the only ones. So it's a bit of a 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:14.200 catch twenty two, isn't it. Yeah, you know, it can 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.760 be really hard for folks who are trying to maintain 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.320 a career to speak up about harassment, or to speak 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.480 up about abuse in the industry or or things that 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.960 they're facing because they're afraid they're going to lose their 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.880 audience or or worse, that they're going to get her 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.920 asked for having these kinds of opinions. Anita can really 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:37.760 speak to this because she experienced it firsthand. In two 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.840 thousand fourteen, she was a central figure in the large 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.320 scale harassment campaign against women known as gamer Gate, but 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:49.160 her relationship to gaming goes way back. I think gaming 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:51.960 since I was a kid. I started on the n S. 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.080 I didn't actually have a system at home. I would 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.120 go to my neighbor's house to be able to play games. 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.960 It took a really long time for me to convince 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.000 my immigrant parents that gaming would not rop my brain. 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.040 So I've been getting Yeah, I've been gaming for quite 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:09.840 a while, kind of on and off. Right. I think 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:14.360 the games and games communities, you know, tend to be 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.560 a little alienating to young women and girls, and especially 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.960 when I was growing up, and so, you know, popping 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.280 in and out of it over the years. But then 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.000 when I started doing my work with feminist frequency around 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.240 pop culture and feminist analysis of pop culture, gaming was 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.840 such a natural fit for that. And two thousand twelve, 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.320 Anita announced a Kickstarter project to fund a series of 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.800 videos looking at how women are portrayed in video games, 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.680 and that announcement alone made her the target of an 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.720 overwhelming level of online hate and abuse. So we're talking 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:52.040 about the UM hundreds of thousands of death threats and 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.240 rape threats flooding all of my social media, UM, flooding 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.400 all of my emails anyway that they could communicate with me. 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:02.120 They were sending me these threats. UM. They would be written, 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:06.720 or they would be visual. So pornography is often used 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:12.520 as a weapon to uh, to victimize and to um 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:17.120 humiliate women. So my face would be superimposed on pornographic images, 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.040 or there would be very lifelike drawings of me being 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.880 raped by video game characters. And this goes on and on. 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:27.879 It got very extreme. UM. There's also efforts to docks me, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.240 which is to collect and publicly distribute my personal information 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.439 and those of my family and the people that I 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.400 work with. You know, it can get very serious, very quickly, 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:42.000 and it can be very terrifying. Despite that, Anita completed 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.879 the project Welcome to our Multipart video series exploring the 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.280 roles and representations of women in video games. It ended 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:53.000 up being sixteen videos made over the course of five years. 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.919 Hosted by Anita, they examined the many, many sexiest ways 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.720 women are often presented in video games, such as The 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.720 Damsel in Distress. How many times are women in games 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:10.320 the object for the male protagonist to rescue, or the 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.000 the object in which a woman is is stolen so 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:17.520 that the male protagonist has some um reason for you know, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:21.800 killing five hundred aliens or whatever. The game is um 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:28.280 down to extremely violent expressions of violence against women, either 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.480 in the game world or that the player is required 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.480 to or is given the opportunity to do in the games. 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.040 And so, you know, those are just a couple examples. 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:41.360 They're not all that extreme. You know, there are examples 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.840 such as women, um who are a reward right, so 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:47.840 they're not necessarily important in the game. But maybe if 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.040 you do really well you'll see a picture of a 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.600 woman scantily dressed, or you'll get a kiss at the end, 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.439 or you know, different types of things like that. The 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:00.800 video has made the claim that the effect of these 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.880 persistent stereotypes extended far beyond the reach of the virtual 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:09.520 world of gaming, reinforcing harmful attitudes about women and our 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:16.399 culture at large. Nobody really wants to acknowledge that media 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.520 does have an impact on us, and it's not necessarily 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.240 a one to one correlation. It's not like you know 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.080 you're going to see violence against women in the media, 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.480 and therefore you will then commit violence against women. But 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.400 there is the There is research that shows that long 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:36.280 term exposure to hyper sexualized images tend to make people 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:40.520 of all genders more tolerant to sexual harassment, more believe 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.760 easily accepting rape myths, for example, and that has a 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:49.000 huge impact in what is already a patriarchal, misogynist world. 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.040 Uh the way it has a huge impact on the 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:56.400 way that people perceive women around them, their partners, their mothers, 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.400 that you know, their coworkers and that sort of thing. 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:04.520 So is it is unsurprising to me that when women 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.960 started making themselves visible in the game space that there 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:21.239 was some pushback. It's a daily experience. They hear are 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:25.080 women's voice and you will be mocked. This is Chase Prairie, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.680 a game where we met at the Overwatch tournament, who 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.119 didn't want to give her real name for fear of 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.760 retaliation online. She says, when it comes to competitive team play, 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.359 it's really hard to advance within the game because of 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.719 the harassment she faces. You play a game, there are 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.720 six people on your team, and everyone is expected to 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.520 be on voice chat and to treat each other as 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.840 respectable peers and you know, don't get angry at each 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:56.240 other and be patient, and so those emotional responses if 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:58.280 men perceive a woman on their team is like not 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.520 holding her own because oh, she a girl. But the 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.600 games don't become about playing the game level. The game 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.480 becomes the argument you're having in voice chat instead of 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:12.280 the game. And this happens really, really frequently all the time. 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:17.400 And so you can choose to the act of hitting 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.960 the higher tiers of the game requires like you win 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.199 this game because you work well with your team, and 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:25.200 if your team won't take you seriously, you can't win. 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:30.320 And so that's part of what's driven um both my 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.080 friends and just like general groups of women and l 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.760 g B t Q people to create their own communities, 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:39.960 so we only ever group up with people we trust 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.919 and people we know, and you know it it. There 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.040 are people who say that means you're not a real 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.240 Overwatch player because you don't engage with the wider community, 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:50.400 and like women don't make it up to the higher 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.760 tiers for this reason, but it's like we have a 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.640 valuable experience of the game despite that, because we fought 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:02.960 for our own space. Coming up, How can e sports 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.400 and the gaming industry do better for its female players 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:28.160 given the fact that harassment is still a regular occurrence 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:32.680 in gaming, is some level of gender segregation one solution. 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.040 Kristin Bounichik thinks it may be a good start. I 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:39.840 think there's still a huge barrier of entry for women 0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:42.679 getting into the pro scene and getting into the lobbies 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.240 to be able to practice against the other pros. So 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:48.480 finding a space for them to compete against each other 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:52.000 to get their feet wet, to gain confidence before entering 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:54.680 into the male leagues was great, But that was done 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.680 in a very casual sense with all women involved. So 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.000 I think if the league's did go and switch to 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:06.720 a female separated male base. Um, that could potentially hurt 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:09.280 women in the long run. So your goal is to 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.879 make it more of a co ed proposition. Yes, definitely, 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:16.240 because I believe that women can compete at the same 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:20.120 level as men in gaming. So my concern is really, like, 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:24.639 what are the opportunities, Anita sarkees and things. Separating the 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:28.200 genders is a cop out. There's lots of discussion around, 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:32.560 like should leagues be gender separated? Can women join teams? 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:35.480 You know, all of those kinds of conversations that I 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:40.280 find incredibly frustrating and remnants of, you know, the this 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.360 idea of like who belongs in games and the gate 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:47.000 keeping that happens in gaming, because it is it would 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:49.200 be ridiculous to say that playing a video game is 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:52.399 a gendered is gendered in any way, right, Like we 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:54.199 can all pick up a controller and play it, and 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:56.480 we can all train and get good, and some people 0:23:56.480 --> 0:23:58.920 will be better than others, but their gender doesn't matter here. 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:02.440 But in terms of how or if the industry has 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:07.600 learned anything from gamer Gate, Anita says, progress is slow. 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:10.359 I think in the time since I started doing my work, 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:14.920 what has shifted is a conversation around what we expect 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:18.800 from games, that the public is much more educated around 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:24.760 issues of racism and homophobia and um sexism. Like there's 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:29.320 a bigger demand that gaming studios do better, and so 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:31.879 we are seeing that in some ways, we are seeing 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:35.040 games that are you know, less sexist, or there's female 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:38.879 protagonists or their non binary characters coming out in more games, 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:42.480 the more trans characters, and that's really exciting, but it's not, 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:46.399 you know, the whole industry. There's still all of the sexism, 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:48.919 all of the male dominated, all of the sort of 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:56.119 macho um you know mechanics and um storylines that we 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:59.640 have been getting in the past. Are you feeling optimistic 0:24:59.760 --> 0:25:05.199 as this trend gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I 0:25:05.200 --> 0:25:07.960 feel like it's a little hard to be optimistic about 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:13.960 anything today, and I don't say that. Here's the thing. 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:18.159 I am, however, optimistic about the fact that whenever I 0:25:18.200 --> 0:25:21.600 go to events, I run into women who come up 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:24.640 to me who are constantly saying, I entered the games 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:26.840 industry because of you. I want to make the games 0:25:26.840 --> 0:25:29.120 industry better. Thank you so much for doing your work. 0:25:29.200 --> 0:25:31.640 It really inspired me. I learned all all of these 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:33.720 new things that I didn't know about before, or I 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:36.280 used to be trying to be a part of the 0:25:36.280 --> 0:25:37.919 boys club, and now I know that I can do 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:39.919 better and and all of the and you know, then 0:25:39.960 --> 0:25:41.600 they tell me about all of the things they're doing 0:25:41.600 --> 0:25:43.520 in their workplace and the games that they're working on, 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:46.479 and so it's I get a lot of inspiration and 0:25:46.520 --> 0:25:49.399