RESPECT FOR GIRL GAMERS? ARE YOU TECHNOLOGICALLY DEPENDENT?

Pebble's Gaming Diaries 

26/10/2022

Hello everyone,

I hope we’re all having a lovely week!

As I shared at the end of my previous blog, today we will be discussing an article written by Claire Gregory (Sky News), regarding Chloe Grace Moretz’ views on being a girl in the gaming community, as well as Jack Reynor’s opinion on the rise of technological dependency.

If anyone has any comments they would like to share, please feel free to comment below or even private message me on my social media – Twitter and Instagram.

Moretz shares her frustrations with the Sky News team stating how there isn’t really any “respect” for female gamers, which I think a lot of us women can agree with. I think it goes without saying, a mutual pre-emptive fear of being verbally harassed by teammates is a clear sign that something is wrong in the community.

A lot of female gamers are scared to speak, scared to play alone, and scared to lose, and this all stems from previous interactions with certain male gamers. I know that when I first started playing video games, I wasn’t scared of anything, I was just there to have fun. However, as time progressed, I got more and more nervous about being a letdown to my team or speaking in-game in case someone would belittle me or sexualise me, for just being female.

Moretz goes on to comment on Twitch and the unequal viewership, “some of the highest numbers are still predominantly the guys and you have girls that are just as good, if not better.” I personally agree with Moretz, but I do also understand why male streamers tend to have higher viewer counts, it’s just like in sports, e.g. football, male football just like male esports is promoted way better than the female versions. According to an article by Tomoko Yokoi (Forbes) from 2021, female gamers were said to comprise “up to 45% of the world's gaming population. However, the gaming industry is still composed of males,” just showcasing further that women are the smaller percentage and men still dominate the community.

Here are two screenshots from today (taken at the same time):

One is of XQC one of Twitch's biggest male streamers and the other is of Amouranth, one of Twitch's biggest female streamers.

• XQC has 11.3m followers and 69.9k viewers and had been streaming for 8hrs at the time of the screenshot.
• Meanwhile Amouranth has 6m followers, 17k viewers and had been streaming for 9hrs at the time of the screenshot

Both streamers are playing the same game, Overwatch. 

Despite both having the same sort of status on Twitch, there is still quite a large difference in their followers and viewership.

Jack Reynor goes on to discuss how "we are living in a day and age where our devices are just never out of our hands.” As gamers, it is often that we can become addicted to our favourite games, playing for hours at a time, sometimes all night and while it can be fun, in the long run, it is not the best for our health, especially if we are targeted with hate (regardless of gender).

The actor continues with a point I think is very important for us all to keep in mind. Gaming and technology in general may be an amazing invention and a great way to pass time, "but at the same time, you do kind of wonder what is the impact of this stuff on people's personable social skills in the real world?”

Are dependent on your technological devices?

Maybe it’s time we all go touch some grass ;p

 

Pebbles x

 

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