Women’s Experiences in eSports: Gendered Differences in Peer and Spectator Feedback During Competitive Video Game Play

Abstract

Despite the growing popularity of eSports, the poor representation of women players points to a need to understand the experiences of female players during competitive gaming online. The present study focuses on female gamers’ experiences with positive and negative feedback and sexual harassment in the male-dominated space of eSports. In Study 1, gender differences were analyzed in online gamers’ experience with feedback from other players and spectators during online play. In Study 2, gender differences were analyzed in observations of real gameplay that focused on the types of comments spectators directed toward female and male gamers on Twitch (a popular video game streaming website). The findings suggest a mixed experience for women that includes more sexual harassment in online gaming compared with men.

Demographics and Health Behavior of Video Game and eSports Players in Germany: The eSports Study 2019

“…This may tend to predominantly attract male players and, in this way, lead to a vicious circle. Additionally, sexism, offensive language and online harassment are reoccurring problems in some eSports titles [38][39][40][41] that might further deter female players.…”

Social motivations of live-streaming viewer engagement on Twitch

“…This has also been visible on Twitch, and studies have investigated areas such as mental health (Johnson, 2018), social anxiety (Ringland et al, 2016) and race (Gray, 2017). The role of gender in streaming is one that has raised concerns both in popular media (Grayson, 2015) and academic discourse (Ruvalcaba et al, 2018;Taylor, 2018;Uszkoreit, 2018), and findings from the spectating perspective include the fact the gender of the streamer in relation to the gender of the viewer plays a role in influencing perceptions (Todd and Melancon, 2018).…”

The playing experiences of esport participants: An analysis of treatment discrimination and hostility in esport environments

“…esports fandom among females steadily has been increasing over the previous years, and women's viewership of esports events grew from 23% in 2016 to more than 30% in 2018 (Interpret, n.d.). Based on these trends, it would appear that females are interested in participating in esports spaces, but their experiences in these environments are underexplored and require additional inquiry (Ruvalcaba, Shulze, Kim, Berzenski, & Otten, 2018).…”

“…In the case of esports participation, the less powerful group is comprised of women and girl players. Based on the male-dominated structure of esports environments and the similarities associated with processes of hegemony for traditional sport, esports spaces require an investigation of participant experiences (Ruvalcaba et al, 2018).…”