“There Are No Women and They All Play Mercy”: Understanding and Explaining (the Lack of) Women’s Presence in Esports and Competitive Gaming

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Ruotsalainen Maria Friman Usva
2018 DiGRA Nordic '18: Proceedings of 2018 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

In this paper, we explore women’s participation in esports and competitive gaming. We will analyze two different types of research material: online questionnaire responses by women explaining their reluctance to participate in esports, and online forum discussions regarding women’s participation in competitive Overwatch. We will examine the ways in which women’s participation – its conditions, limits and possibilities – are constructed in the discussions concerning women gamers, how women are negotiating their participation in their own words, and in what ways gender may affect these processes. Our findings support those made in previous studies concerning esports and competitive gaming as fields dominated by toxic meritocracy and hegemonic (geek) masculinity, and based on our analysis, women’s room for participation in competitive gaming is still extremely limited, both in terms of presence and ways of participation.

 

The Concept and Research of Gendered Game Culture

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Friman Usva
2015 DiGRA '15 - Proceedings of the 2015 DiGRA International Conference

Despite gender having become a central topic in the game cultural discussion of today, there does not seem to be clear understanding of the concept of gendered game culture or general theoretical framework that would define and support the study of gendered game culture within the field of academic game studies. This paper argues that there are two starting points for understanding the concept of gendered game culture and for its research: the first being how the concept of gender is understood in the context of games, and the second being defining the central gender questions in game studies and locating them in the field of game culture. The paper also presents a preliminary model for the concept and research field of gendered game culture. The model consists of the central research questions on the topic of gender and games, presented in selected leading level game studies journals and conferences and located in the various sectors of game culture. At the same time, the model reveals some of the gender questions not yet presented in these central publications as well as some of the areas of game culture not yet widely studied from gender perspective.