It's weird that esports is segregated by gender

Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday (Or, I dunno, Thursday), broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who’s covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget.

Please enjoy — and I’ll see you next week.

Earlier this week, FlyQuest top laner Bwipo (Gabriël Rau) was suspended for one series of the League of Legends LTA playoffs after saying some wild stuff during a livestream about women and their ability to play esports. Here’s a sampling of what he said:

“I think there’s just not enough support for female pro players… women’s anatomy and their monthly cycles are just extremely different from males, and there’s no proper support system for women to go through what they’re going through.”
“Even men just tilt out of their fucking minds when they’re playing League of Legends. So, when a woman is on the wrong part of the month and playing competitively, there is a time of the month where you should not be fucking playing competitive games as a woman, in my opinion.”

OK, Bwipo. His comments received an appropriate amount of ridicule from fellow players, casters and fans, and FlyQuest benched him during a pivotal moment in the race to Worlds. He has apologized and pledged to “reflect, listen, and do better.”

So, here we are yet again. It’s 2025 and it must be stated: Men are not biologically better at video games than women. Women, femmes and nonbinary people are not physiologically less interested in or skilled at competitive gaming than a player who lives as a dude. Gender on its own has no bearing on how quickly a person can click a mouse, scan a screen or strategize in high-intensity situations, and lines of code react the same no matter how an individual player identifies.

That said, I find myself agreeing with Bwipo’s initial statement, “There’s just not enough support for female pro players.” I understand, in a backward kind of way, the logical leaps he then tried to make in order to explain a situation that doesn’t make any sense — namely, the absence of non-guy players in mainstream, professional esports. His conclusion may have been laughably misguided, but the core conundrum still stands.

The professional esports scene is segregated by gender and dominated by men. There are no hard and fast rules barring women or gender nonconforming people from competing at a professional level in any major league, but there are vanishingly few women, femmes or non-male-presenting players participating in mainstream esports tournaments, and this tends to be the baseline. There are separate leagues and competitions established specifically for women and gender nonconforming players, and while I find these events to be extremely exciting, they’re siloed and receive far less financial, marketing and back-end support than mainstream tournaments. Women’s esports leagues exist in a bubble that, for some strange reason, seems to be modeled on the gender segregation practices of traditional sports, with matching gaps in pay, respect and opportunity.

A handful of women players have broken through on the main stage over the years, including Potter (Christine Chi, CS:GO), Karma (Jaime Bickford, Rocket League), Hafu (Rumay Wang, WoW, Hearthstone) and Scarlett (Sasha Hostyn, StarCraft II). Still, the earnings gap between men and women in esports is cavernous: According to Esports Earnings, the top male player on record is N0tail (Johan Sundstein, Dota 2), with $7,184,163 in prize money to his name. The top female player on that list is Scarlett, with $472,111 in total earnings. There are 619 male players ahead of her, and the totals don’t factor in the lucrative sponsorship deals available to elite gamers.

I have to say it again. Esports, an industry built around people playing video games really well, is segregated by gender. Isn’t that insane?

The natural question is, why? It’s not because only men are good at video games, since we’ve established that’s a steaming pile of horseshit. Nor is it because, as Bwipo suggested, some women menstruate. But the actual reason is just as clear.

It’s sexism. The gender makeup of the mainstream esports scene is the result of everyday, bog standard, garden variety, run of the mill misogyny. In the world of esports, it’s sponsored by Red Bull, drenched in LEDs and proudly hosted by your favorite streamer. At our current stage, when a veteran LoL player is openly trying to bring back the hysteria diagnosis rather than looking at the realities of a system that provides him privilege, I think we have to say it plainly. Put the pivotal issue on the table so we can look at how ugly, regressive and nasty it is. Only then can we start to change it.

There is a dearth of women, femmes and nonbinary people in mainstream esports because of the sexism that permeates society at large.

I understand why someone like Bwipo — or other players, coaches, presenters, managers, team owners, league organizers or game makers at the highest levels of esports — wouldn’t want to acknowledge this fact or how much power it holds over the entire scene. I get that some would rather twist themselves into knots trying to blame women for their own exclusion, instead of tackling an uncomfortable social issue that runs far deeper than just the gaming industry. I understand it, but I think it’s cowardly. Ostrich behavior.

So, let’s look at it. If misogyny in esports is the problem, I think a solution has to lie in the talent pipeline. During the scouting stages, when school-age players of all genders are streaming and climbing ranks from their bedrooms, boys naturally receive things from the community that girls don’t, like enthusiastic support, a welcoming attitude, respect, and, eventually, enough belief in their skills to risk investment. I’m not suggesting toxicity isn’t a thing for everyone, but these positive aspects are also built into the experience for many young men playing games. Young women have to earn these responses, generally by overperforming compared to their peers, and while being belittled, sexualized, threatened with violence, hyperanalyzed and othered, for years on end. It’s exhausting. It silently pushes some women out of video games and esports.

It’s also malleable. Sexism spawns from an embarrassing and irrational way of thinking, but people change their minds all the time. A simple but widespread shift in perception — oh right, it’s weird that esports is segregated by gender — can make an enormous impact especially on these early stages of esports play. How we think alters how we behave, how we speak and what we allow in social spaces. It really can be that simple, at least as a starting point.

I think about this each time I turn on a pro match, which is currently every day with LoL Worlds qualification tournaments in full swing (hi, FlyQuest). The esports gender disparity is face-smackingly obvious, especially in concert with the godlike presentation that existing players tend to receive: hype trailers with uber-masculine motifs, walk-out rituals, emotional behind-the-scenes documentaries and epic promotional spots depicting teams as otherwordly superheroes. Of course, most esports players are literal teenagers, which tends to make these macho presentations more adorable than anything — but the fact remains that male esports pros, even teenage ones, are taken extremely seriously as athletes (athletes!) and can find support for their goals at every level. I’d love to see this encouragement, faith and excitement extended to young women and nonbinary players as well.

The mental shift is the first step. As demonstrated by Bwipo’s offhand comments, it seems plenty of people in the esports scene are still in the early stages of critical thinking when it comes to gender and opportunity, so we’re starting with the basics. Remind yourself that men are not inherently skilled at playing video games and women aren’t naturally bad, and think about how ridiculous those suggestions sound in the first place. Remember that sexism is an artificial barrier limiting opportunities for everyone in esports. Next time you see an ad with a bunch of dude esports players surrounded by ladies in cosplay, take a second to notice how odd that is. Hear how many times the casters say “gentlemen,” “sir,” “boys” and other gendered terms during games, and recognize how daunting this space is for players who don’t fit those descriptions. Get comfortable with the idea that some humans can play video games really, really, really well, and this fact is completely divorced from how they look or identify. It’s easy to do because it’s true.

Additional reading and viewing

The news

007 First Light lands in March

IO Interactive’s James Bond game, 007 First Light, is heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Steam and the Epic Games Store on March 27, starting at $70. Engadget UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith got his hands on the preview at Gamescom earlier this month and he found it to be spectacular in the very literal sense.

There’s more Stardew Valley coming to Stardew Valley

What a lovely little surprise. Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe (Eric Barone) announced another numbered update is on its way, adding significant bits of new content to the game more than nine years after its Steam debut. Update 1.7 will hit Stardew Valley at an unspecified time in the near future and Barone clarified that it won’t impact the release timeline for his next game, Haunted Chocolatier. Barone had the following to say about the whole thing:

“Haunted Chocolatier will be released at some point. And sure, the reality of my life is that I have a very popular 1st game that I still want to take care of, which means that my 2nd game might take a little longer. It is what it is. I didn’t have to make a 1.7 update for Stardew Valley, but the game is still so popular (in fact, still growing), that it’s hard to just stop improving it when there are still things that can be improved. But I hope the approach I am taking for Stardew Valley 1.7 will help keep Haunted Chocolatier on track.

“About the Stardew Valley team: they are awesome, all very talented, hard-working, and contribute unique things to the development process. We are a very small group, and I like it that way. Also, I am still working completely solo on Haunted Chocolatier without any plans to change that for the time being.”

Yooka-Replaylee will be here in October

Playtonic’s bright and shiny remaster of Yooka-Laylee will come to PS5, PC, Switch 2 and Xbox Series X/S on October 9. For the Switch 2 version, Playtonic has opted to release the full game on an actual cartridge, rather than relying on game-key card downloads, which is a heartwarming throwback to the way things were. Digital versions of the game cost $30, while the physical edition is $50.

Diablo developers vote to unionize

More than 450 developers with Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo team have voted to form a union with the backing of the Communications Workers of America. The CWA is also overseeing the ZeniMax QA union, and is backing recent organization efforts by the Overwatch 2 crew and Blizzard’s Story and Franchise Development group. (Am I the only person who wants that to be Story and Song development? Probably.) The CWA says more than 3,500 Microsoft employees have organized under its banner.

Diablo producer Kelly Yeo is an organizing committee member of the latest Blizzard union and she said in a statement that multiple rounds of sweeping layoffs at Microsoft prompted the organization efforts.

“With every subsequent round of mass layoffs, I’ve witnessed the dread in my coworkers grow stronger because it feels like no amount of hard work is enough to protect us,” Yeo said. “This is just the first step for us joining a movement spreading across an industry that is tired of living in fear.”

Layoffs at Crystal Dynamics and Firaxis

It feels like nowadays, for every unionization story, there are at least two tales of layoffs. This was sadly true in recent weeks, with news of mass firings at Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics and Civilization team Firaxis. An unknown number of people were fired from Crystal Dynamics and it’s unclear if the cuts were tied to the recent cancellation of The Initiative, which Crystal Dynamics was helping reboot. The Initiative was canceled as part of Microsoft’s huge cuts to its gaming segment in July (which followed similarly large losses the year before, and so on). Crystal Dynamics is still owned by Embracer Group and is working on a new Tomb Raider installment.

After unleashing Civilization VII on the masses in February, Firaxis has also laid off an undisclosed number of developers in the name of studio restructuring. Firaxis is owned by 2K, which recently canceled a remake of the original BioShock and sent Cloud Chamber’s new BioShock title back to an even-deeper circle of development hell. Meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive, the company that controls all of this, is reporting healthy financials and expectations to grow in the second half of 2025. Grand Theft Auto VI is on its way, after all.

Ju-DAS, Ju-da’as / Ju-DAS, Ju-da’as

I swear, if the release trailer for Ghost Story Games’ Judas doesn’t include the Lady Gaga song, I will riot by myself.

Following all of that weird BioShock news out of 2K, Ken Levine decided to remind everyone that his game Judas is still in development and even has key art. His post on the PlayStation Blog outlines some of the relationship mechanics in Judas, relating them partly to the Nemesis system from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, which has me all kinds of excited. And, yeah, the new picture looks cool, too.

The Silksong corner

The day of its release, Hollow Knight: Silksong singlehandedly crashed multiple game storefronts including Steam, the Nintendo eShop and the Xbox Store. The marketplaces recovered, but players haven’t — the bulk of the post-launch discourse has focused on whether the game is too hard, a suggestion that I find baffling as someone who does not enjoy punishing metroidvanias like Silksong. With this brand of game, I was under the impression that if it’s beatable, it’s not too hard. It’s mechanically precise, tricky, twitchy and super-duper challenging — isn’t that exactly what you masochists want?

Then again, Team Cherry’s first update for the game includes a “slight difficulty reduction in early game bosses” including Moorwing and Sister Splinter, so what do I know?

There’s a Nintendo Direct on Friday

Watch it here at 9AM ET.

Catch the end of the Flame Fatales speedrunning event

The Flame Fatales speedrunning event, which features women and femmes playing a bunch of awesome games very quickly, is underway and runs through Sunday, September 14. Check it out here!