Excluding Female Gamers From Certain eSports Tournaments
The world of eSports is one of the fastest growing aspects of the video-game industry, and it's no surprise with some of the most popular games in history leading the charge. Chasing up the heels of the MOBA genre is the well established MMOTCG and MMOCCG scene, offering a slower paced eSports event but with far greater focus on strategy and tactics. An upcoming Hearthstone tournament in Finland has been under heavy scrutiny recently following the discovery that female gamers are not permitted to enter the event. Excluding anybody from the world of eSports is shocking enough in itself, but to totally refuse entry to a single gender? It's absurd. The discovery was made following a post on Reddit that included direct links and references to the competition in question:"In accordance with the International e-Sports Federation's tournament regulations, since the main tournament event is open to male players only. This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things." "The decision to divide male and female competitions was made in accordance with international sports authorities, as part of our effort to promote e-Sports as a legitimate sports," the organization stated.Sorry, can you repeat that? As part of your effort to promote eSports as a legitimate sport you're going to exclude a massive portion of the players? I can understand not allowing inter-gender competition in the likes of American Football and Rugby but when a game relies entirely on a players tactical intelligence and ability to adapt, how are female gamers not seen in the same light as males? However, all hope is not lost. Following the universal outrage from the gaming community the tournament organizers are now looking into other potential avenues that could possibly see female Hearthstone players taken into account:
"In the last hours we have received lots of feedback from you regarding the IeSF 6th e-Sports World Championship, particularly regarding the male/female tournament division. "Our top priority is to promote e-Sports in the best ways we can. We believe that listening is important, and we're now collecting your opinions from the social media, and we will update soon."Although it's good to see that there may still be hope, this kind of scenario should not have been allowed to happen in the first place. How can the industry continue to battle for the acceptance of female gamers in the masses, when the very biggest names in that same industry are intentionally excluding them?
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