Liva "Liefje" Teernstra explores the rise, fall and future of female gaming.

Livia has a successful background as an esports journalist, but has also played in many professional duelling tournaments. Her gaming claims to fame include being resident in the girlz 0f destructions "Home of Chrome" in Sweden and being the female Dead or Alive 4 player for the Berlin Allianz CGS franchise for two consecutive seasons

Livia in Los Angeles for the CGS World Finals

Now I know you're all thinking, "great, another article about this bullshit" but let’s be real here. It was either this or writing about what it's like to be so hot. While the latter would be something somewhat satirical, I figured it would open up a world of unnecessary discussion.

The Rise

10 years ago, girl gamers were basically unheard of. There are the super old schoolers, like Ana "aNouC" Oliveras, Kornelia "Kornelia" Takacs and Stevie 'Killcreek' Case, but the only currently active one is aNouC. Then in 1998, badgirls clan was born - generally known as the first all-female Quake team. Female shoutcasters were legends, such as Trillian and DeeAy for Radio iTG.

Around about 2002, all-female teams started to pop up. At first they were rare, and mainly in Quake. Then more and more started to be formed in Counter Strike. Coincidentally, 2003 was when the first Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) was held, and offered an exclusive all-female tournament with a substantial amount of prize money. This was just when the professional gaming world was enlarging, with more and more international cash tournaments emerging. All of a sudden the community was flooded with all these female teams. There was also the birth of Ms. Quakecon, an all-female Quake 3 tournament (but just for the glory). Following that, these teams started to get more and more recognition in the media and landed sponsorships that male teams of the same skill could only ever dream of.

Livia playing

At first, it seemed like most players were very accepting of female teams and gave them the respect they deserved because of their skill. Females were able to enjoy games on servers without a whole lot of garbage (but of course there was always some from the beginning), and enjoy playing in both mixed and female only tournaments with ESWC being the most prestigious for female Counter Strike, and Ms. Quakecon for Quake ladies.

The prize money for Counter Strike Female at ESWC was always lower than that of the male teams and it seemed to keep the community satisfied. Ms. Quakecon always just had small cash and hardware prizes. Then when Ms. Quakecon 2005 rolled around with $30,000 in prize money for the top females, it was an outrage. The first thing wrong was that there was no open Quake 3 tournament. Secondly they also had a retro Quake 2 tournament with "only" $10,000 for first place, which was $5,000 less than what the girl in first place was receiving. Since this tournament, there has not been another Ms. Quakecon. Did the girls complain? No, they simply played in the open tournaments. Female gamers will always exist, and if opportunities for female only tournaments are presented, we will participate. If not, we still WILL play in the open tournaments.

The Fall

But as soon as there came teams that were clearly just used as marketing tools, it had a very negative effect on the female community as a whole. The frag dolls became one of the first salaried gamers outside of Korea, Les Seules got their own TV show and PMS clan were appearing in advertisements. Also the girlz 0f destruciton had a gaming house for the Quake 4 community. This brought professional gaming into the mainstream spotlight. It wasn't this marketing though that saw the downfall of female gaming: the female community killed itself.

Females began to become very competitive amongst themselves, striving to get sponsorship deals, trying to prove their credibility simply through marketing opportunities. Instead of banding together and showing that they are worth the spotlight, the community became very segregated. Females would see each other as competition, not as comrades in a male-dominated environment. Teams constantly changed players and females soon began to get the reputation of being not solid and unreliable. Look at big male teams like fnatic - they did not change their lineup for 2 years.

Les Seules at ESWC

The girls got greedy. Sponsorship and marketability started to become more important than being skilled at the game. Teams would recruit members based on looks and not skill. One team in particular had even removed a skilled player simply because she was not marketing the team in the way they wanted her too - she didn't wear a team shirt at an event where she placed top 5, so she got the boot. Gaming became something that many girls saw as an opportunity to get their "15 minutes of fame".

Then sites like girlsofcs started popping up. These girls were really just asking for disrespect. They were asking not to be taken seriously and to be taken as sex objects. Being a "gamer" was an easy way to market themselves to the perfect target demographic. The girls used the false pretence of proving that "not all girl gamers were fat sweaty nerds". Well why don't guy gamers go out and make sites like that to prove the same thing? Because they don't need to, because it's just a lame excuse in order to justify the girls exposing themselves like that online. Empowering? More like embarrassing.

The Future

Now sites like girlsofcs have closed and girl gaming is not as prominent as it used to be. There is no more hype about new female clans and even sites like feminaunited have come to a standstill. It's the perfect opportunity now for female teams to forget about the tainted past and become recognised just the way any other team does it - through skill.