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Moving Forward: The Future of Females in Gaming

by - 9 years ago

In August of 2014, the Internet exploded with outrage and support of false accusations with regard to women and the gaming industry.  The term “GamerGate” became a widespread hashtag on Twitter and led to some discussion about how women in video games and in the gaming culture.

Social justice bloggers” started to condemn the gaming industry and community for its misogyny and sexism.  As such, many news sites picked up the story.  Many of the prominent women in the industry who came forward became victims of hateful comments, leaking of personal information (doxing) and calling the police to their residence when they were streaming online (swatting).

The Supreme Court even weighed in on the issue, in a way.  Since there was no way to prove some of the threats posed prominent danger, not much could be done about it legally.  In June 2015, Elonis v. United States’ ruling stated that harassing messages sent online are not necessarily true threats that would be prosecutable under criminal law.

As the number of prominent figures in the gaming community started to dwindle, where does that leave the future generations to turn to for mentorship and support?

AnnaProsser.com

Enter Anna Prosser Robinson, a now prominent figure in the professional competitive gaming realm, or eSports, she is working hard to ensure that women not only have a place in gaming and geek culture, but a support network as well.  Prosser hails from Oregon and has a long-standing love for video games.  She commented, “It was something I did with people I cared about.”  Her father was an early adopter of the home Personal Computer and built a Local Area Network for Prosser and her brother.  “My brother and I used to play Warcraft 2 against each other from one computer in the basement to one computer in the upstairs and we’d yell down the stairs at each other…” she remarked.  Prosser also said that her grandmother was a huge gaming influence as she had an old Intellivision console that, even today, is in mint condition.

 

Competitive professional gaming, or eSports, has existed for a long time but she admitted, “I had no idea that the eSports world existed until I met him.”  Prosser got in to eSports in college when she met her now husband Geoff “iNcontrol” Robinson.  “He introduced me to Starcraft 2, and back then there were a lot of tournaments going on, a lot of people involved and a lot of people who were big fans of the personalities who were involved in eSports.”   Prosser noted the lack of media coming from these competitions and that no one was telling the stories of the people playing these games.

As a speech communication and international studies student, Prosser had experience working in front of the camera.  She identified the need to show the other side of professional gamers, because, at that time, all fans could do was watch the pros play.  “Fans never saw their faces, or heard them speak…  So, I just started making videos and putting the stories out there,” Prosser recalled.  These videos did not go unnoticed – by caring enough about the community to show the other side of professional gamers, Evil Geniuses, (an eSports team) hired her to do videos centered on their players.

Prosser has been involved in many different aspects in the eSports realm as well as in the video game industry since her beginning with Evil Geniuses: working with GameSpot on their web show “On the Front Line,” hosting Major League Gaming (MLG) tournaments, speaking at videogame industry conferences including Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)… and also works providing play by play commentary on eSports titles like Defense of the Ancients 2 (DotA2) and Heroes of the Storm. In the close-knit community of Blizzard entertainment fans, Prosser is most well known for her accomplishments hosting the Heroes of the Storm stage at Blizzcon and hosting the Heroes of the Dorm finals on ESPN2. “I’m a huge Blizzard fan, I like a lot of the people that I’ve worked with in Blizzard and I like their approach to producing games,” she said.  When speaking about Blizzard’s newest title, Heroes of the Storm, Prosser remarked, “The fact that this game takes character from so many games that I already love and puts them in one game…  I kind of fell in love with it and it’s really really (sic) fun.”

Prosser currently serves as a prominent caster for Heroes of the Storm, an accomplishment in which she takes pride.  “I’ve been in eSports for a long time and something that I’ve always wanted to do was cast a game…  So when Heroes came out and I was in the Alpha (Testing), and I tried it for the first time, I went on like a two day binge of playing it because I enjoyed it so much,” she recalled.  “I thought, okay, here’s my chance if I want to be a caster to invest myself from the very beginning in a game and add value that I have as an alpha participant to the community as a caster,” Prosser said.  Knowing a game well enough to be able to break down the fast moving action, play by play as a caster takes a deep knowledge and a lot of time actually playing the game according to Prosser.  Comparisons have been drawn to other male dominated sports and when asked whether there should be a separate league specifically for females, Prosser had a lot to say.

On the one hand, eSports lends itself well to being unsegregated and being co-ed, because there are fewer physical differences between humans that would make them need to be separated in to gender competitions in eSports.  Theoretically a woman and a man could play a game exactly the same physically and mentally… But you can’t overlook the problem that there are so few female pro gamers and that they, when they are there, struggle to show the results that men pro gamers show.  So it’s my theory that we’re going to need women only competitions for a while in order to give women potential pro gamers.  The role models that they need to see, to say ‘Okay, if that person can succeed and they can be happy doing that, maybe I can do that as well.’

Prosser believes that there is a very bright future for women in gaming, “Statistically, it’s very even how many boy and girl children play video games, so there’s very little gap as far as who is enjoying video games right now.”  In a Pew research study concerning teens and video games showed 99% of teenage boys and 94% of teenage girls play video games. “I think as this generation continues to grow up it will be more and more normalized for women to be heavily involved in video gaming where as in past generations it may not have been,” Prosser noted, “and I think that in order to speed that transition along it’s really important to identify the role models that already exist for women in gaming and elevate them and provide them support.”

AnnaProsser.com

The current environment for females in the gaming community can be hostile and less than welcoming, but keeping them around and helping them as well as future generations, Prosser said that is her calling. “One of my biggest causes has been to identify and support and elevate and provide exposure for those role models,” she remarked.  Prosser believes the out lash and criticism is similar to what you would find in any form of entertainment, people like to comment on whether or not public figures fit a societal ideal and in some ways Prosser believes that is insurmountable, but not always the case in the gaming community.  “What I do think is cool about gaming is that there is at least some part of our community that wants to be a meritocracy and that a lot of fans are more concerned about the entertainment value or the skill of a woman gamer or stream than they are about her looks,” she said happily.  But when asked about the stigma with how women gamers dress, when streaming on live gaming platforms such as Twitch, Prosser commented, “It’s interesting to evaluate the careful line that we walk as women between, ‘I want to express myself and my femininity’ or ‘I want to be taken seriously as a professional.’  That’s a frustrating line to walk within gaming,” she noted.  Then she shared a great example of this fine line from her personal perspective.

I hosted MLG a few times for Starcraft 2 and I had a couple of times where I host and I would wear something like a cocktail dress or something markedly feminine and people would have complaints in chat or on forums saying, ‘Man she’s just she’s like trying to use her sexuality to get ahead in eSports and she’s taking attention away from the players and she doesn’t know anything about the games, she’s just a hot girl they hired…’  Then I would dress in a full suit, like the most masculine outfit I could wear as a woman with a tie and everything and people would write, ‘Oh she looks so professional, this looks so great, she knows the game so well…’  So, I think that in terms of the being taken seriously debate, there’s still a lot of sexism involved there as well.

But, like any other public figure, Prosser has learned ways to cope with the rough moments and criticism.  “I don’t look at this or that during this or that time… but beyond that, psychologically the way that I deal with it and have come to deal with it through something like Misscliks is, I like to see myself as someone who is making people uncomfortable for the good of the future and women who will come after me,” Prosser said.  “I guess I try to look at it through the bigger picture even when the remarks are very personal or hurtful, I try to think of it as a sign that I’m doing my job, that I’m supporting future women in gaming.”

Misscliks is a community that Prosser and three other co-founders created to help foster an environment of growth, encouragement and support for females in geek and gaming culture.  “I think one of my biggest challenges for me in my career so far has been, fear I would say…  I felt, especially in my early career, I felt like I should have to work harder and fight harder than everyone else,” she recalled.  “So if I had a large scale regret, it would be letting that fear dictate a lot of my early actions and not finding the confidence in myself to be certain of my own value and to let other people define my own value for me.” Prosser stated plainly –

If you’re making waves, that means you’re doing a good job and… no one is ever going to love everything that you do… be confident in that (yourself) and you can find where you’re value fits best, find a hole that needs filling in the industry and just start doing it.

Prosser also said she likes would like to thank women that go through these experiences.  “I’ve been in so many situations where I’ve felt so alone… it directly helps me feel less alone and more supported and more capable of continuing to do my job; so, I hope that gratitude helps them the next time they encounter it as well.”


JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


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