Cyberwomen athletes?

The realm of computer gaming (electronic sports), with its murky history in arcade gaming followed by its development to early consoles and later PCs, has always been a male dominated arena. In all of the international PC-orientated tournaments, only two of them feature events for women-only, and in both cases women entrance is limited entirely by access to sponsorships that can support them travelling to and participating in these events.

One would think that in modern times, on a level playing field such as an electronic sport provides, women would do equally well in these non-physical challenges. This would result in the sport being much more popular with the fairer sex. Sadly, this is not the case with very few women outside of Korea (see below) breaking into international limelight and only the top few becoming as well known as their male counterparts.

One of most notable exceptions to this rule is the "SK.Ladies" team. SK is a German gaming franchise, one of the largest and most recognized in the world. Since 1997 they have revolutionized the gaming world, contracting players from all over to represent them. They were one of the first franchises to include a female team as well as individuals, and after several mergers and iterations, they became the single most powerful female team by winning or coming second in every tournament during their time together.

In South Korea, women seem to be a lot better represented. In their unofficial national sport, Starcraft: Brood Wars, women have their own league where they compete, with some very competitive interaction between the more prestigious male leagues, but with extensive television coverage, sponsorships from large companies and with fanboys and girls supporting their matches.

Looking locally one sadly cannot say the same thing. In the recent 'Affinity' Counter-Strike tournament, only one girl going by the alias of "ShzzChck" participated (this time in a male team), her team coming tied 5th overall in a very competitive event.

Bringing this all back to a more business orientated perspective, one has to wonder why large companies like Intel, Nvidia, Steelseries, Gigabyte and Sennheiser continue to sponsor both players and events, despite the somewhat limited exposure in the past. Since the launch of Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty in 2010, (a very popular sequel in a strategy game series) prize pools and participation have skyrocketed, pushing online streams of events to new limits (25 000 people simultaneously watching some of the online streams of games) providing great exposure for both their brand name and their product. Let’s hope that as these electronic sport grows in size, that the number of women representing increases also!