Good Luck Have Fun by Roland Li

Author:Roland Li
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2016-04-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

UNBALANCED

WOMEN, RACE, AND GAMING

When Anna Prosser Robinson moved in to manage Evil Genius’ team house in Arizona, she had to deal with the perception that she was the tag-along girlfriend of team captain Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson, who is now her husband, rather than someone who was interested in eSports herself.

This impression wasn’t coming from the largely male fan base, she said, but from the team’s own male management. Despite growing up building computers and playing at LANs, she was female and had to battle the suspicion of faking enthusiasm for gaming.

Robinson, a former Miss Oregon, had sharp on-camera skills and began volunteering and interviewing players on camera starting in 2009. She was a polished, professional figure in a sea of amateurs. “Players generally don’t receive much media training,” she said. “They get a trial by fire.”

She became a prominent host, but was troubled when other women tried to follow the same career path. She became tired of watching young women seek to work in gaming and eSports only to have their enthusiasm fade in the face of criticism and sexist remarks.

“Online negativity and bullying is pervasive, but the side that’s directed to women—it can be scarring,” said Prosser Robinson. She had to tune it out and seclude herself from it, but she wanted to do more. So she cofounded a group called Misscliks, which provides a supportive environment for female gaming content creators and players. In 2015, they were invited by the White House to give a presentation on eSports and women in gaming.

Gaming’s portrayal of female characters and its marketing largely targeted at boys has led to accusations of sexism, and the Internet has only intensified the friction. The gamer stereotype consists of teenage boys screaming homophobic slurs and shooting virtual bullets, growing up into nerdy, isolated men.

In contrast, women are largely represented in games as digital eye candy. Lara Croft, the early buxom protagonist of the Tomb Raider series, was a digital novelty as graphics were sophisticated enough to give her crude, pixelated breasts. Around half of US gamers are women, and Lara Croft’s more recent design is starting to reflect reality. Croft has become remade into a gritty adventurer, with realistic anatomy.

The 2014 controversy known as Gamergate epitomized the video game community’s struggles over gender, and the vicious mysogyny of some gamers. Eron Gjoni, a vengeful ex-boyfriend of the independent game developer Zoe Quinn, posted an enormous blog post that detailed their relationship and accused Quinn of sleeping with gaming journalists to get positive coverage of her game, Depression Quest. The post ignited thousands of hateful comments and death threats directed at Quinn. Private details like her home address and telephone number were leaked, and she went into hiding. The movement eventually spread to other women developers like Brianna Wu and the critic Anita Sarkeesian, who created a series of videos that detailed examples of misogyny in gaming.

Supporters of Gamergate allege that their movement is about “ethics in games journalism” and that gamers are being depicted unfairly by media.

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