E-Sports Gender Gap: 90+% Male

Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:17 · Score: 1

WTF is an e-sport?
I'm sorry but playing StarCraft 2 is not a sport. It's a video game.

Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:27 · Score: 0, Funny

WTF is an e-sport?
It's a method for insecure nerds to compare their lengths of their video game penises by proxy.
Understandably, not a lot of women see the appeal.
Re:Huh? by loonycyborg · 2014-02-19 01:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

You know, sports like football are just games too, only not not software-assisted.
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:36 · Score: 0, Interesting

Well, the strong independent womyns that ain't need no man could just organize their own competition in Bejeweled or whatever they are playing. Nobody forbids them that.
Re:Huh? by Shados · 2014-02-19 01:41 · Score: 0

Thats why no one is calling it a sport. They needed a different term that people would understand without it being explained. So e-sport it is. Video game at a competitive level.
No one thinks you're gonna lose weight doing it, there's no confusion. No problems.
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:47 · Score: 0

WTF is an e-sport?
I'm sorry but playing StarCraft 2 is not a sport. It's a video game.
An e-sport is to a sport as Beta is to Slashdot. It might appear to have the same content, but it's a hopelessly insufficient simulation of the real thing.
Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · 2014-02-19 01:47 · Score: 0

In physical sports there is a genuine reason why men and women don't complete directly... At least some times. No reason why they couldn't face off over a snooker table or at darts.
With video games there is no reason for them not to complete and no single sex tournaments. The problem is simply that we know women play games and enjoy them but that they are for some reason not taking part in competitions. We know women are competitive and enjoy sports, so there should be more of them participating, and would like to know why they don't so we can remove any artificial barriers.
To be absolutely clear it isn't about getting a 50/50 ratio. That's just something trolls use to discredit attempts to remove barriers in the way of women who do want to take part. Same with jobs, it isn't about an equal number, it is about women saying they want to do those jobs but are put off by various things.

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Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:55 · Score: 2, Informative

Calling it just a video game takes away the legitimacy of it as a activity in a professional setting. I agree they aren't athletics, but they are certainly sports.
E-sports are organised and played by professionals, depending on which game they make their entire living from playing and sponsorships (eg. many Starcraft players).
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:01 · Score: 0

No one thinks you're gonna lose weight doing it
So sumo wresting and curling are e-sports too?
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:05 · Score: 0

Inertia maybe? I know the best of my gamer friends were the ones that were always on someone's couch with the P2 controller in hand. Besides those nintendo ads, I've just never seen girls hanging out playing xbox all night. ( and I _do_ hang out with girls regularly :P )
Re:Huh? by NotDrWho · 2014-02-19 02:15 · Score: 1

Women and men both play videogames, but not often the same kind. The average woman is a lot more likely to play a game like Farmville or Angry Birds than Call of Duty or Gears of War. In general, they seem a lot more attracted to cooperative and social games than competitive ones. Since most e-sports games are competitive by nature, the relative absence of women is not surprising.

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Re:Huh? by nhat11 · 2014-02-19 02:15 · Score: 1

And here comes the e-sports bashing just because it involves little physical movements. Great we got some open minded people here that aren't restricted to the usual view of sports.
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:17 · Score: 0

WTF is an e-sport?
I'm sorry but playing StarCraft 2 is not a sport. It's a video game.
Many people consider Poker and Chess to be sports, so why can card games and board games be considered sports? Because they're old?
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:19 · Score: 0

It's what you play to exercise your e-peen.
Re:Huh? by Luckyo · 2014-02-19 02:22 · Score: 1

It's most definitely a sport, far more so than chess for example. In SC2, you actually need to be in top physical shape in terms of both your hand dexterity (these people need push out a steady stream of over 300 actions per minute for entire game, try doing that with untrained hands, your muscles will be cramping up in less than a minute) as well as mentally.
And it's helluva competitive, more so than many physical sports.
Re:Huh? by Andrewkov · 2014-02-19 02:26 · Score: 1

Even in Chess there is a separate women's league. Although women can play in men's tournaments.
Re:Huh? by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 02:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

But women do not, in 90% of the cases, play Starcraft.
Also, I think you should research more into darts, snooker, etc. In more sports like this Women are allowed to complete in male tournaments (the male leagues are actually unisex), they just are not able to actually win or qualify. Hand-eye coordination is a physical ability, and tends to have huge gender based differences. The real professional athletes know this, as they actually follow the sport. We have decades of hard data on this, and do you think professional women athlete never interact with their male peers? The only people who think that women and men should compete in the same leagues are people who do not even watch the sports they are suggesting be changed.
There is not a single sport that I know of that women and men actually compete at the same level at. They are different in every single way (their brains are wired more differentially than their physical bodies are), so they do better or worse based on these differences in every sport out there.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Huh? by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 02:31 · Score: 1

There are no overweight professional e-sport athletes. Every team I have ever heard of needed to maintain an extremely strict and intensive gym regime to stay at the top of their game.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Huh? by Shados · 2014-02-19 02:43 · Score: 1

Yes, but the e-sport itself isn't whats helping, its stuff related to training but unrelated to the game.
That being said, there are a LOT of overweight e-sport athletes. They're the minority, but there's a lot.
Re:Huh? by Entropius · 2014-02-19 02:49 · Score: 2

(Except the North American Starcraft champion and arguably best player outside Korea)
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:55 · Score: 0

Not a sport, it's e-sport. Now you know.
Re:Huh? by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 03:05 · Score: 1

Professional ones, world class e-sport athletes?
Well playing a dozen games a year does not really effect RL sports players either. It is the heavy training, including a lot of gym time, that makes sure they are all in top physical condition.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:10 · Score: 0

Playing a video game is as much a sport, as getting up from your chair and walking to the fridge is exercise.

Now that does not mean that people cannot play video games competitively. But a sport it is not. You don't consider Chess a "sport", do you? If you do, well, at least you are consistent.
Re:Huh? by Austerity+Empowers · 2014-02-19 03:22 · Score: 0

eSports is like regular sports in that it is dumb. eSports is unlike regular sports in that you cannot accidentally get fit playing them. That sums up [e]Sports. Women here are demonstrating their vastly superior intellect by ignoring eSports in droves.
Re:Huh? by Austerity+Empowers · 2014-02-19 03:28 · Score: 2

Hunting is considered a sport, but you normally can't lose (I haven't seen a deer with a rifle yet). Even hunting game that can hunt back, the game plays with a pretty heavy handicap. Generally you either win, or you drink beer in the woods for a few hours and go home, which maybe is also a win.
Fishing is considered a sport, very similar to hunting. The odds are stacked heavily in your favor.
Hang-gliding and skydiving are considered sports, but there's no competition whatever. I suppose winning is defined as landing softly enough to live.
What is a "sport" is in the eye of the beholder.
Re:Huh? by Alioth · 2014-02-19 03:30 · Score: 1

There are no e-sport athletes any more than there are chess athletes or darts athletes or snooker athletes. E-sports are not athletic sports.
That's not to detract from the skill required to be a pro-level Starcraft II player. Nor do I disagree that they may be called "e-sports". However, calling practicioners of a sport which involves no strenuous physical activity an "athlete" just doesn't make sense (unless they also play an athletic sport).

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Re:Huh? by cfalcon · 2014-02-19 03:37 · Score: 1

Played at high level, sports don't really increase fitness beyond a point, they increase your ability to play in your role. Football players shorten their lives in many ways, and no, not all of them are related to head banging injuries. Is that fitness? For a quarterback, likely. But plenty of the team is about fulfilling a role. Sumo wrestlers don't live long either- sustaining that much muscle (and of course the famous fat) is hard for any body.
Played at a casual level, of course sports offer benefits. Play football with your other sedentary buddies and you will all increase health.
Played at a high level, e-sports don't really increase cognition beyond a point, they increase your ability to play in your role. Starcraft players don't go on to make vast maps in their head, or use their extraordinary decision making skills in some manner, because a role for those explicit cognophysical tricks just doesn't exist outside of video games. Is that intelligence?
Played at a casual level, of course e-sports offer other benefits. Play starcraft with your other non-computer aware buddies and you will all get better at computers, reaction time, decision making, planning ability, and other facets of cognitive health.
Re:Huh? by tverbeek · 2014-02-19 03:50 · Score: 1

Lots and lots of people don't consider hunting or fishing "sports". Those are effectively a whole different sense of the word "sporting".

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Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:52 · Score: -1, Flamebait

No, women are not ignoring eSports out of intellectual superiority, as evidenced by the high number of female fans of regular sports.
Women are not competing in eSports for the same reason that they don't compete in professional sports:
Women are inferior to men.
Re:Huh? by Austerity+Empowers · 2014-02-19 03:54 · Score: 2

I think that's a generalization that's dangerous, particularly when this is done based on percentage of a self-selecting subset of a population. I know very few grown men who play CoD or that ilk, and actively hate those games and the people who play them (and generalize as such!). I think there's even a brogaming hate website out there or two. Similarly Angry Birds didn't get popular from women alone, it's a pretty popular game. So what's the breakdown?
The statistics are this, 47% of gamers are female, 60% of female gamers are more or less exclusive mobile gamers. That leaves quite a large population of women on consoles and PCs. Such that 30% of the gaming population is female and playing on platforms that are eSports friendly. They are either not playing those games, they are playing but not competitively, or they are concealing their gender. Given that black and middle eastern men are definitely also playing games, but are not identifying, may suggest that concealing ones background is advantageous in the eSports arena.
This isn't surprising, competition tends to bring out the absolute worst in personalities. Look at football, in 2014 a guy admits to being gay, brouhaha ensues. Certainly there are other gay men in football, but they're on the DL.
Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · 2014-02-19 03:59 · Score: 0

Darts is an excellent example. Women score as well as men, so they are clearly just as capable at the game. Rules and equipment are the same for both, their skill is equal. Yet women have their own world championship.
I take your point that there are fewer high level female darts players, and having a women only tournament gives them all a better chance of participating at a high level. If that is the argument then you might as well have two arbitrary darts world championships with players assigned randomly.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Huh? by tverbeek · 2014-02-19 04:05 · Score: 1

"E-sport" is an attempt to apply the macho-associated word "sport" (usually understood to be a physical activity) to gaming. Competitive video gaming (even for an audience) is really no different from competitive chess or poker. You sit down and you match your ability to play a game against other people playing the same game. Something one can reasonably be proud of being good at, so the pretending-it's-something-else aspect is a bit childish.
Which might help explain the lack of appeal to female participants: childishness in adult males is really, really off-putting. Combined with the aggressiveness of a competitive activity... it's worse.

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Re:Huh? by Austerity+Empowers · 2014-02-19 04:09 · Score: 2

Regardless, the dictionary definition of "sport" does include eSports, as well as Hunting, Fishing, Bowling and even Golf. eSports, to me, seems to fit a second meaning of sport, i.e. "mockery", better than any of the other definitions, but that's the eye of the beholder part.
Of course most sports playing in a "sporting" way, tend to have totally lost the original definition of the word "sport", that is to cause mirth and enjoyment. Very few competitive sports do that, most of the time. I find the people who play them are there for the 5% of the time something awesome happens, and suffer the other 95%.
Re:Huh? by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 04:36 · Score: 2

You very well might be, I do not follow darts.
But from what I understand from Wikipedia there is nothing stopping them from enrolling in mens tournaments. And I find it hard to believe that their never existed a woman darter who wanted to be the universal world champion.
"although no restrictions on women competing against men [exist]."
And for example, I did find this excerpt for some dart world records, separated by gender (http://www.sentex.net/~pmartin/patdarts/guinness.htm).
Which shows gender having a huge difference.
"MEN (8 players) 1,722,249 by Broken Hill Darts Club in New South Wales, Australia on September 28-29, 1985."
"WOMEN (8 players) 744,439 by a team from the Lord Clyde in Leyton, London on October 13-14, 1990."
Maybe you mean than in amateur darts, women are as good as men? Because I also found a few conversations of actual fans who follow both gender's tournaments bemoaning how unskilled the women are compared to the men.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Huh? by Cederic · 2014-02-19 04:38 · Score: 1

You click that often without getting a strain injury.
Don't knock the physical demands these e-sports put onto the competitors at the top-end. It may only be a couple of fingers, but you try living without them.
Re:Huh? by Smauler · 2014-02-19 05:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

Women don't score as well as men in darts. In the BDO darts finals, only once in the last 20 years have either of the male finalists averaged less than the best ever women's average in a final, and that was last year. Only once has a male finalist averaged less than 80, and that was Leighton Rees losing in a whitewash back in 1979 - Anastasia Dobromyslova won the woman's final in 2009 with an average of 73.95. Men regularly average over 90 in the finals, which has never been achieved by a woman.
Where did you get the idea women were as good as men at darts?
Re:Huh? by Smauler · 2014-02-19 05:08 · Score: 1

Those records are not representative of good darts - they're just oddball records. Hardly anyone actually tries to do them. The gap between men and women in darts is far closer than those records imply, but there is a definite small gap, as I posted above.
Re:Huh? by Applekid · 2014-02-19 05:56 · Score: 1

Maybe not, but at least eSports don't artificially limit the potential performance of participants that don't happen to have the magical combination of freak athleticis genes that conventional sports require to make it big.

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Re:Huh? by nospam007 · 2014-02-19 05:58 · Score: 2

"Hunting is considered a sport, but you normally can't lose (I haven't seen a deer with a rifle yet)."
A deer perhaps not, but there have been cases where a hunter got shot by his own dog.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/do...
Re:Huh? by NotDrWho · 2014-02-19 05:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

I suspect that if a female were out there that could really play well in e-sports, her gender would not only not be a disadvantage, but a serious advantage as far as attracting sponsors and attention. Look at Danica Patrick. Do you think she would be making as much in sponsorship deals if she were a guy with the same record? Shit, she was getting huge endorsement deals before she had even won a single race. A women who can compete head-to-head with guys in just about *any* sport is going to be CELEBRATED, not discouraged.
Look, in e-sports, if someone is good and wants to play, they're going to rise to the top. The notion that there are scores of women out there who are secretly great players, but too meek to enter competitions because they're afraid of some player insulting them, is not only ridiculous, it's insulting to women. Your thesis is that women must be treated special because they're too frail and weak to hang with men, and shrink like violets the first time some guy calls them a name in a game. I don't buy that for a second. They're not at the competitions because they don't want to be. And trying to get them there by force is not only insulting to them and their choice, but it's also going to increase resentment among the male players who'll then see them as affirmative-action newbs who didn't earn their way there like everyone else had to.

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Re:Huh? by nospam007 · 2014-02-19 05:59 · Score: 1

"... you cannot accidentally get fit playing them"
Like car-racing then.
Re:Huh? by nospam007 · 2014-02-19 06:04 · Score: 3, Informative

"A deer perhaps not, ..."
Sorry I was too fast. A guy named Clarence Gerkin achieved that goal and was actually shot by a deer.
http://news.google.com/newspap...
Re:Huh? by ShieldW0lf · 2014-02-19 07:06 · Score: 2

What I want to know is, what are we going to do about the absence of Asian people in professional basketball!

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-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Re:Huh? by Reapy · 2014-02-19 07:35 · Score: 1

I think there is a certain type of age and genetic traits that are predisposed to succeeding in certain games, much like sports. I mean like any sport I'm sure most can achieve a certain high level of play, but those special people that sit above most others just tick at a different rate than the rest of the competitors.
Also now that competitive gaming has been around a while you can definitely see the effects of age slowing down previously top players to the point that they aren't even competitive anymore.
As for the article, seems like just bad statistics. They say 50% of gamers are female, but I'm sure they are counting casual social gamers, not core games. Just take a look around any 'core' style game and you will see all guys still, and these core games are what drive esports, not farmville and candycrush.
Re:Huh? by CCarrot · 2014-02-19 08:31 · Score: 1

Look at football, in 2014 a guy admits to being gay, brouhaha ensues. Certainly there are other gay men in football, but they're on the DL.
On the Defensive Lineman?? O_o

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Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 08:51 · Score: 0

i would like to join a book club/sewing circle/baking club, unfortunately, they are 'dominated' by women who don't welcome men...
the few times i've gone, i've been made to feel very uncomfortable: i was there to discuss a book/sewing pattern/recipe, but they were going on and on about Sherry's new hairdo, and how so-and-so doesn't like so-and-so, and when i tried to steer the conversation back on topic, i was ridiculed as a 'spoil sport', and why didn't i go play with guns, or something...
it makes me so mad because i LOVE books/sewing/baking and i know i am capable of discussing books/sewing/baking intelligently, but i am dismissed and belittled by the female knuckle-draggers who don't like men invading their little province...
seems unfair, but they are women, so -of course- it can't be that...
*snicker*
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 08:56 · Score: 0

curling -like slo-pitch softball- is a 'Beer Sport': a sport you can play 90% of the time with a beer in your hand...
bowling, beer sport...
billiards, beer sport...
frisbee, beer sport...
smashball, beer sport...
etc...
Re:Huh? by vux984 · 2014-02-19 09:02 · Score: 1

There is not a single sport that I know of that women and men actually compete at the same level at.
This sort of opens the can of worms that there is not a single sport I know of that any two substantially different groups compete at the same level.
" the NBA in 2011 was composed of 78 percent black players, 17 percent whites, four percent Latinos, and one percent Asian"
If women were in the NBA instead of having a separate league what do you think the percentage would be? Surely not less than 1% ?
So perhaps instead of (or inaddition to) a womens NBA we should have a latino and asian NBA? Maybe even whites should have their own NBA... 17% is pretty low. And olympic gold medals for each as well.
So... women shouldn't be in direct competition with men since only a tiny fraction of them can compete in a given sport at the same level... ok... so why don't we have a summer olympic medal for 'asian basketball'?
Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 09:07 · Score: 0

interesting factoid:
wild animals which kills the most people per year ?
sharks? no way...
venomous snakes ? not even close...
crocodiles, lions, hippos ? nope...
bambi...
yep, bambi gores or pummels to death more people per year than any other wild animal...
we are RIGHT to kill the long-horned, bob-tailed rats...
(also, they should be killed because they eat the shit out of my apple and orange trees, and the rest of my garden... bambi my ass, kill those overgrown rats ! ! ! since we have killed off all their predators, that job is left to us...)
Re:Huh? by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 09:44 · Score: 1

They have Asian basketball leagues, you just have to watch Asian TV to hear about them, as they are not good enough to compete with teams filled with African players. And you have to go to Asia to join them.
There are no professional Asian teams in America because no one would pay to see that. But they will pay to see the world class teams compete, and they will pay to watch women jump around a court though, so profession women's leagues exist.
And I think it is likely that if women were allowed in 0 would make it. It was only a few years ago that the best women tennis players thought that maybe they could compete in the men's league, and it only took an hour playing against a man ranked 204th to make them give up this idea.
We know that all the world class runners, of all races and genders are actually all Black Men. And in fact I think they are all specifically Jamaica, or some other very small sub-category of black men.
So I think we do need different categories. If there are white men who want to be basketball players or runners, and there is interest from the public to watch this, then they should form a league.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Huh? by vux984 · 2014-02-19 10:21 · Score: 1

"They have Asian basketball leagues,"
Do they actively discriminate against African men? Or are they just basketball leagues, that happen to be primarily asian because there isn't a signficant local black popuation looking to participate?
"There are no professional Asian teams in America because no one would pay to see that."
Lol, maybe. Maybe not. Certainly it wouldn't be as popular as the NBA though. The womens NBA or whatever its called is a fraction of the value of the mens franchise as well. And perhaps an asian one would lack enough value to fill stadiums or get air time on TV, but if inner city asian people want to play competitive basketball in america we agree they should theoretically be allowed to build a court and form a league to play on it right?
I mean other than the fact that they'd be blown to legal oblivion the minute they turn away a black man.
"So I think we do need different categories. If there are white men who want to be basketball players or runners, and there is interest from the public to watch this, then they should form a league."
As above. Until they are blown to legal oblivion for rejecting a black jamaican from their league. And really the publics interest is irrelevant, so what if its not on TSN or ESPN or whatever. There are LOTS of people who want to play sports competitively with others who are like in skill and physical ability. And it seems odd that society sanctions "womens only" as a valid acceptable way to let one group exclude people who are 'better then them" from playing against them, but "white sprinters" or "asian basketball players" would not dare to even imagine creating an exclusive league for fear of being labelled rascist and whatnot.
Re:Huh? by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 10:41 · Score: 2

Actually, I was wrong. There are actually leagues in America which only allow Asians to join, and there was an attempt at a white one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-American_Basketball_Alliance_(2010)).
And I would not worry too much legally. There are thousands of women/black clubs. It is not like I could try to go to enter a Domestic Violence center, be denied, and sue them out of existence; And similarly for some group that specifically caters to blacks. You are right, you could never create a white only basketball league in this political climate, but you could create an Asian only one, and have no trouble (and if their are sports that Blacks suck at, they could create their own leagues without much trouble).

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Huh? by vux984 · 2014-02-19 12:06 · Score: 1

Actually, I was wrong. There are actually leagues in America which only allow Asians to join
I didn't know that either. Thanks.
and there was an attempt at a white one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-American_Basketball_Alliance_(2010)).
I do vaguely recall that ... and that it was a fiasco.
And I guess that's the rub, I am white, so I DO see the political situation surrounding anything white.
I suppose the league I'd create would be for anyone, white or black or asian of average height or less who can't dunk or palm a basketball ;) I really have nothing against black people; nor do I begrudge people are taller, faster, or significantly better at basketball than I am.
I just enjoy playing a game of competitive basketball. But with people similar to myself in terms of skill and physical ability. I wouldn't enjoy playing competitively in the NBA... just as I wouldn't enjoy playing competitively against my son's grade 3 class.
I just find it interesting that women are granted a 'tier' so they don't have to compete with the top tier without question because they are "physically incapable of being competitive", while people like myself who are equally "physically incapable of being competive" with the top tier have no such outlet.
I also find it vaguely interesting that there is a group of men out there who would be a very competitive match for the women's tier, yet they are ineligble to compete against those women or get an olympic medal effectively precisely because they are men. Why do we celebrate one group of 'physically less capable at X by virtue of there genes' yet ignore another group that are just as "physicially less capable at X" due to their genes?
Transgender and intersexed individuals must be a nightmare; and in some respects renders the whole thing kind of arbitrary.
I'm not really bent out of shape over it... I really couldn't care less about the olympics, and this is really just one of the many reasons why. Winning the genetic gene pool lottery + being in the right place and time + funding + hard work isn't really something to celebrate. And that's before even getting to Olympic commitee, corporate, and judging corruption.
Thus being decreed the best in the world at something is pretty unrelated to personal effort. They all tried hard, and I don't buy that the winner just tried harder than anyone else so that leaves one of the other factors... none of which is worth celebrating.
Re: Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-20 08:49 · Score: 0

That is so wrong.
http://atlasf1.autosport.com/99/feb10/fitness.html
Re:Huh? by anyGould · 2014-02-20 09:07 · Score: 1

To be absolutely clear it isn't about getting a 50/50 ratio. That's just something trolls use to discredit attempts to remove barriers in the way of women who do want to take part. Same with jobs, it isn't about an equal number, it is about women saying they want to do those jobs but are put off by various things.
I'll bite - if 50/50 (or the close-enough number that represents actual demographcs) isn't the goal, then what *is* the acceptable ratio?
Also: I'd love to know why we're complaining about e-sports, but not any of the other long-standing professional sports that don't accept women. Where are the female MLB players, for instance? We had one woman in the NHL, but where are the rest?
Re:Huh? by AmiMoJo · 2014-02-20 10:07 · Score: 1

There is no "acceptable radio". If a woman is good enough to compete she should have no gender based barriers put in her way. That is all.

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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Huh? by Austerity+Empowers · 2014-02-20 15:14 · Score: 1

Women in sports get a lot of attention, but usually the wrong kind. Men in sports have a very high level of expectations placed on them, are subject to constant abuse when they don't perform, and are ultimately fired and no one sheds a tear. They rise and fall most significantly, with their performance on the field.
Women in sports, if they play well but are not attractive, get very little attention or respect. If they are attractive, it doesn't matter if they play well or not, they get a lot of attention and discussion over the parts of their athleticism that have nothing to do with their sport. Golf and Tennis are most well known for this, the best women players are all but ignored, but occasionally a hottie gets out there and she gets tons of press in spite of weak play.

Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

Wonderful. Another story based on the assumption that absolutely everyone should be absolutely equally interested in absolutely everything.

*Shock* *amazement* they're not. Unless the venue is telling women, black people, and Middle Eastern people they're not allowed in the door, there is no story here.

Oh and if women are uncomfortable identifying themselves as female, maybe it's because stories like this keep making it into a Great Big Deal. Maybe they just want to be a person and not *OMFG A WOMAN IS HERE!* all the time.

Re:Great by flintmecha · 2014-02-19 01:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Or maybe it's because that 90% majority of males is largely toxic, vulgar, immature, misogynist, and unwelcoming, and say shit like "OMFG A WOMAN IS HERE!" and tell women what they should do or say or feel about the men who act that way.
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

Or maybe it's because that 90% majority of males is largely toxic, vulgar, immature, misogynist, and unwelcoming, and say shit like "OMFG A WOMAN IS HERE!" and tell women what they should do or say or feel about the men who act that way.
<sarcasm>Yes 90% of males are all that way, just like 90% of black people want to steal your car.</sarcasm> Yes that is how you sound.

You just announced that you are perfectly fine with bigotry as long as you like the choice of target. Guess what? Every bigot operates that way.

Congratulations, you are part of the problem. If you ever learn to stop hating men you don't know who haven't done anything against you, you can be part of the solution. Then together we can speak out against the few troublemakers who think exactly the way you do now, except their target of bigotry happened to be women.
Re:Great by serviscope_minor · 2014-02-19 02:09 · Score: 2

Wonderful. Another story based on the assumption
Ah this comment and its moderation makes me think the "sexism does not exist" brigade is out in full force.
The story has nothing to do with why, or assumptions or anything else. It merely reports the results. Now please stop getting your knickers in a twist about some supposed butthurt over some imaginary feminism or whatever it is you believe has happened.
It's kind of funny because you clearly don't like the results in some way because you're complaining about them while complaining that they're good at the same time. Which is it?

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:19 · Score: 0

<sarcasm>Yes 90% of males are all that way, just like 90% of black people want to steal your car.</sarcasm> .
No - be fair 45% of black people want to steal your car and 45% have a great deal on used car parts
Re:Great by fsck-beta · 2014-02-19 02:20 · Score: 0

Are you one of those lulzy male feminists I hear so much about?
Re:Great by flintmecha · 2014-02-19 03:43 · Score: -1

Actually, I said a majority (I used the word "largely") of the males involved in e-sports (a very tiny niche minority of all men) behave that way. Not sure how pointing out an observable statistic of a subset means I hate an entire set of people, or how such strawmen can be considered "insightful".
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 04:56 · Score: 0

Feminism moved on from that point of view a long time ago. Get with the program already!
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 05:06 · Score: 0

It smells like a white knight with a twist to me.
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 05:27 · Score: 0

Or maybe it's because that 90% majority of males is largely toxic, vulgar, immature, misogynist, and unwelcoming, and say shit like "OMFG A WOMAN IS HERE!" and tell women what they should do or say or feel about the men who act that way.
I can't speak about competitors, but I call shenanigans on the idea no women watch, I attended the 2012 North American qualifiers for LoL and there were a crapload of women there. This was not a small event, I estimate that during the big games there were close to 20,000 people present. Over half of the cosplays were women (one cosplaying as Sejeuni had her boyfriend in a very clever suit for her mount). A friend contacted me from England and asked me to take his ex-gf, she wanted to go really bad but didn't want to go alone. So I did (very attractive woman with a law degree, btw, and working on international law).
It was fun, tons of fans of both genders. I can no longer say for sure that "half were female" or anything because I wasn't really worrying about figuring that out at the time. But there were a ton of women.
No one's defending that a-hole during the whole incident with the tourney fighting. But that guy got raked over the coals by nearly the entire community. It wasn't just the gaming press, NO ONE came to that guy's defense and he deserved what he got.
But don't equate the competitive gamers to 4-chan, most interviews with these guys never pass the "shit-talking" level of a UFC pre-fight interview.
Re:Great by Smauler · 2014-02-19 05:31 · Score: 1

The story has nothing to do with why, or assumptions or anything else. It merely reports the results. Now please stop getting your knickers in a twist about some supposed butthurt over some imaginary feminism or whatever it is you believe has happened.
However, TFS has plenty of assumptions, and false conclusions : "Even though nearly half of the gaming population is composed of women, they account for less than 10% of the players in competitions."
Women play different games, and play less competitive games generally. Playing Candy Crush or Solitaire, no matter how much you play them, will not help you play competitive Starcraft 2. Note that I'm not saying that all women just play crap games, and all men don't, but I am saying that the female game playing population is far more skewed to the "casual" side. I wouldn't be surprised if the SC professional male/female proportions were broadly similar to the general SC male/female proportions.
The point I'm making is that claiming because 50% of gamers are women does not mean that 50% of gamers of a particular game will be. It's disingenuous comparing total gameplaying population to that of one game, and blaming one aspect of the gameplaying community (the professional leagues) for being non-representative of the entire gaming community, despite being representative of their game's community.
Re:Great by AmiMoJo · 2014-02-19 05:54 · Score: 2

Maybe they just want to be a person and not *OMFG A WOMAN IS HERE!* all the time.
Correct. The problem is that if they go to a gaming tournament that is the reaction they often get. In games themselves both genders are portrayed unrealistically, but women in particular tend to have ridiculously minimal costumes and improbably large boobs. At least the prototypical male lead is a somewhat attainable state if you can be bothered to work out every day.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Great by StoneyMahoney · 2014-02-19 05:57 · Score: 1

Totally agreed. Some people seem to totally forget neurological differences in gender and race, not to mention the historic sociopolitical/economic differences between genders and racial groups, might actually have some affect on what people like to do with their time. Fix the injustices in the world, by all means, but this just isn't one of them.
Re:Great by sexconker · 2014-02-19 09:26 · Score: 0

Actually, I said a majority (I used the word "largely") of the males involved in e-sports (a very tiny niche minority of all men) behave that way. Not sure how pointing out an observable statistic of a subset means I hate an entire set of people, or how such strawmen can be considered "insightful".
He pointed out your sexist bullshit.
Please show me your research that says males involved in "e-sports" are "largely toxic, vulgar, immature, misogynist, and unwelcoming, and say shit like "OMFG A WOMAN IS HERE!" and tell women what they should do or say or feel about the men who act that way.".
Be sure to define "toxic", "vulgar", "immature", "misogynistic", and "unwelcoming".
Oh, you don't have any such research?
Re:Great by Macgrrl · 2014-02-19 10:54 · Score: 1

To be fair, the female body types are probably just as attainable by the average gamer - it's just that they involve a significant amount of plastic surgery and low self esteem rather than steroids and a life-changingly intensive gym regieme.

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Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Re:Great by AlphaWolf_HK · 2014-02-19 11:13 · Score: 2

I don't think anybody in any significant numbers believe that sexism doesn't exist. The main thing is that people such as myself don't believe it is a travesty that women are interested in different things than men are. For example, you have fewer women in IT than men mainly because they simply aren't interested. There isn't some conspiracy holding them back (perhaps in the middle east or some place, but they're already backwards,) nor is there industry pressure to keep them out. Quite the opposite in fact, because affirmative action rules can halt the growth of your business unless you deliberately turn some men away in favor of a woman who might be less qualified.
This e-sport thing only further demonstrates exactly what I'm saying. There is zero pressure anywhere stopping women from being interested in the same games that men are, yet they by and large prefer different games than men do. I mean what, are men supposed to be labeled sexist for simply having different tastes? Am I supposed to feel like an evil women oppressor because I don't particularly care for games like candy crush?

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Re:Great by narcc · 2014-02-19 12:03 · Score: 2

Being so new, I don't know that it's been studied specifically. From experience with similar groups, I suspect that the parent is correct. You'll also find plenty of research on male athletic subculture which supports his assertion.
Or you could just continue to stick your head in the sand and ignore reality because it conflicts with your groundless anti-feminist beliefs. That's a popular pastime here.

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Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:Great by sexconker · 2014-02-19 12:50 · Score: 0

Being so new, I don't know that it's been studied specifically. From experience with similar groups, I suspect that the parent is correct. You'll also find plenty of research on male athletic subculture which supports his assertion.
Or you could just continue to stick your head in the sand and ignore reality because it conflicts with your groundless anti-feminist beliefs. That's a popular pastime here.
So you don't know, you have no way to find out, and you're going to continue to malign a gender because of your prejudices? That's textbook bigotry and sexism.
Re:Great by narcc · 2014-02-19 13:04 · Score: 1

So you don't know, you have no way to find out
Didn't read my post, eh? Give it another go.

you're going to continue to malign a gender
You're deeply confused. You quoted me, so I'm fairly certain I was the person to which you intended to reply.

That's textbook bigotry and sexism.
I'm a "textbook" sexist bigot because I acknowledge that there are similar artificial barriers imposed on women in similar areas, a fact well-supported by current research, and thus have little reason to doubt the parents assertion that those same barriers exist in e-sports?
Who wrote that textbook?

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Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 13:33 · Score: 0

Doesn't seem sexist to me so much as...e-sports-ish. FlintMecha has zeroed in on e-sports, which cuts out conservatively 99% of the population of Earth. But somehow you are focusing on the "male" qualifier, which cuts out conservatively 10% of the population of e-sports people.
It's like claiming nationalistic bigotry when somebody declares that American Citizens seem to watch a lot of the Simpsons, when *really* the only statistic we have is that people in the United States watch a lot of the Simpsons and some are travellers, some are visa-holders, some are permanent residents (green-card holders), some are not there legally at all, and there's no really good data on who is who. Let's be serious. American Citizens seem to watch a lot of the Simpsons. If we know a lot of the Simpsons is watched in the US, you'd have to have a very good reason to claim that American Citizens did *not* have that profile.
See, asking for the research that the majority is there is fine, but declaring it sexist to make this claim is missing the point so completely that it seems like you just want to bring sexism against men into everything. I don't know the e-sports scene nearly well enough to know if the majority of people are particularly dickwads (though I've learned enough to know they are certainly present and vocal).
Separately, if sexual harassment against women is pervasive in any group, it's likely that it's coming mainly from men (and yes, the same is true vice-versa). We all know people can be sexist against their own sex, though that creates a pressure against self-selecting into that group.
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 14:39 · Score: 0

Oh and if women are uncomfortable identifying themselves as female, maybe it's because stories like this keep making it into a Great Big Deal.
That's not it at all. If you had spent any time in these communities, you would have no doubts as to why a woman running in these circle might not want to reveal herself as one. The guys are, by and large, fairly creepy.
Re:Great by radarskiy · 2014-02-19 15:27 · Score: 1

Fat, drunk, and petitio principii is no way to go through life, son.
Re:Great by Belial6 · 2014-02-20 07:15 · Score: 1

I would go one step farther and say that it isn't just that no one believes sexism exists, but that a large part of the problem is that many people believe that sexism doesn't exist in women. Humans are tribal. They form groups and get aggressive to those that are outside of them. What this leads to is for sexists to default blame for any exclusion on men.

It is possible that women are not welcome at these events due to mail prejudice. It is also possible that women don't go because they don't want to be around men do to their own prejudices while men would love to have them. It is also possible that from the time of birth, girls are tough that they can choose to compete in predominantly male domains, but that they can also choose to rely on being a girl to have things handed to them on a silver platter while boys are thought from the birth that they will need to compete and win anything of value that they get in life. Including women. It is possible that as adults, the gender is an effect of humans being split between those who have been raised with the ever present push to compete for resources vs. those that have not. There are other possibilities of course, but until men AND women start being seen as human, you can't tell if there is a problem, or if the problem isn't something that happened 20 year ago.
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-20 10:49 · Score: 0

Maybe we should do one of these surveys/reports on book club, knitting or scrap booking groups...
Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-21 04:40 · Score: 0

It's interesting how someone who claims the parent post fails at reading comprehension while doing so themselves, PLUS moving the goalposts. You are the problem no matter how hard you try to play the demagogue.

Just gonna say it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:18 · Score: -1

They're not real sports. This is just boys playing video games against each other and justifying it by appealing to people who like watching other people play video games. You can't expect this to have any kind of semblance to any real social sporting institution or to be held to the same standards.

Re:Just gonna say it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:31 · Score: 0, Funny

You can't expect this to have any kind of semblance to any real social sporting institution or to be held to the same standards.
Quite - despite the purported gender gap and the various potential explanations for it, not even autistic vidya game nerds can keep up with the amount of misogyny required by professional sporting clubs.
Also they've all got prescriptions for their performance-enhancing adderall, so it's not technically doping.
Re:Just gonna say it by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 02:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

I have to disagree.
When the competitors have to train harder than real sports athletes and have shorter shelf lives than Olympic athletes, it is a real sport.
E-sports simply is more competitive, and shows of far more impressive, super-human, skill than its RL analogue.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Just gonna say it by serviscope_minor · 2014-02-19 02:28 · Score: 1

E-sports simply is more competitive, and shows of far more impressive, super-human, skill than its RL analogue.
By what judgement do you claim it's far more impressive? I've played plenty of videogames and plenty of sports. The top professionals in all of them seem very, very far away. I've actually raced alongside a professional XC racer: the usual staged start, but he got a puncture almost straight out of the gate and so was passed by the entire field, myself included. Seeing him in action in conditions I was riding was frankly incredible.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:Just gonna say it by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 02:51 · Score: 1

Purely subjective.
I have never been impressive by any RL sport. The results we see seem completely plausible for someone who has dedicated their lives to it. In fact, they have always disappointed me. I do not understand how someone would dedicate their life to being the best archer, dart-er, bowler (etc.) and ever make a less than absolutely perfect shoot/performance. I myself, having bowled 3 times in my life have gotten a large number of strikes. In my opinion, any professional bowler that ever bowls a less than perfect 300 point game is a failure. Professional athletes should be roboticly perfect.
The problem with this is that it would make professional bowling (and so many other sports) obsolete. After you got to a certain level, their would be no reason to complete as you have reached the plateau of perfection where everyone is equally perfect at the game. I think it is likely that this huge incentive to not be perfect subconsciously prevents people from getting this good.
Starcraft does not have this. You can always be faster, and the strategy (intellectual level) in the game is not even comparable to football of any other RL sport (in many ways even far beyond chess). But for whatever reason, in my opinion these sport's athletes do push what is is to be human beyond what you might think is possible.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Just gonna say it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:08 · Score: 0

E-sports simply is more competitive, and shows of far more impressive, super-human, skill than its RL analogue.
You're a fucking retard.
Re:Just gonna say it by operagost · 2014-02-19 03:09 · Score: 1

Are you serious? You think because you have some natural bowling ability that becoming "roboticly perfect" should be common? Did you ever notice that human bodies aren't perfect? That wooden lanes aren't perfect? That the oiling of the lane isn't perfectly distributed? That the pins aren't perfect in weight and shape? Too many variables.

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Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Re:Just gonna say it by serviscope_minor · 2014-02-19 03:13 · Score: 1

The results we see seem completely plausible for someone who has dedicated their lives to it.
I have a feeling that you don't do much by the way of RL sports.
It might look "plausible" to an armchair expert, but unless you've tried it then it's impossible to know quite how hard it is. You will never come close to doing a 2 hour marathon, no matter how hard you try, because you almost certainly don't have the physiology for it.
Likewise you will never be a top level wrestler.
Or basketball player (you're too short).
Or cricketer (professional bowlers are huge, huge men).
Or cyclist (that and you almost certainly don't take enough drugs either).
I do not understand how someone would dedicate their life to being the best archer, dart-er, bowler (etc.) and ever make a less than absolutely perfect shoot/performance.
That's a hilarious claim. Person who has never done something doesn't understand how it can be hard.
I myself, having bowled 3 times in my life have gotten a large number of strikes.
Well, well done. I guess you have some degree of natural talent for it. What are you scoring on average? And furthermore, can you keep that up consistently. It's mildly unliklely, but not implausible to play 3 beyond average games in a row.
In my opinion, any professional bowler that ever bowls a less than perfect 300 point game is a failure.
I'll bet you make a great (I believe the US expression is) armchair quaterback too.
Not sure it's troll, but it's quite funny how you had 3 decent games of bowling in your life and extend that to a criticism of all professional sports.
Professional athletes should be roboticly perfect.
Why should they be? According to you, perhaps. But humans aren't robots.
I think it is likely that this huge incentive to not be perfect subconsciously prevents people from getting this good.
I'd love to watch you go up to a professional athlete and tell them with a straight face that the reason they're not better is because subconciously they want to be imperfect in order to preserve the sport.
The whole point of professional athletes is to strive to be as good as they can. They cannot achieve perfection because they are human.
TL;DR I very much get the impression you have never done any sort of physical activity to any sort of level at all.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:Just gonna say it by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 03:18 · Score: 1

People are capable of perfection. Someone who dedicates their life to something should be incredibly good at something.
As another example, I have no idea how professional basketball players can ever miss a shot, from any distance within a basketball court. It is not plausible to me that someone who dedicated their lives to it can ever miss.
Not common, just possible with millions of hours of practice. After ten years, and your brain has be completely rewired to be basket ball dominating machine, being so incapable of perfection is astounding to me. People achieve this perfection in other disciplines.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Just gonna say it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:32 · Score: 0

Soulkey, is that you?

You're lucky Dear didn't compete in more matches.
Re:Just gonna say it by porges · 2014-02-19 04:20 · Score: 1

In the case of basketball, bear in mind that aside from free throws, every player who has devoted their life to learning to shoot baskets has a guy in their face who's devoted their life to (among other things) stopping you from making that basket.
Re:Just gonna say it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 04:23 · Score: 0

why do pro b-ball players miss? stress, fatigue, defender's pressure, sweat changing the physical properties of the hand/ball contact.
If you went to a training session you'd see a very long series of successful throws.
Also players have different tasks assigned to them and not everybody is valued by his raw scoring skills. Dennis Rodman was all about defense so even if he knew how to throw in his youth, that skill went unused and detoriated.
Re:Just gonna say it by Cederic · 2014-02-19 04:41 · Score: 1

I think e-sports competitors have to train just as hard, and have a far shorter shelf life than Olympic class curlers.
(Which may have been your point. It could read either way)
Re:Just gonna say it by serviscope_minor · 2014-02-19 04:46 · Score: 1

People are capable of perfection.
Er, no. People get tired, injured, distracted or just have an off day.
The human brain and general neuro-muscular parts have limits.
Someone who dedicates their life to something should be incredibly good at something.
Yes, but that's not the same as being perfect.
As another example, I have no idea how professional basketball players can ever miss a shot, from any distance within a basketball court. It is not plausible to me that someone who dedicated their lives to it can ever miss.
Well, than frankly you're mad. The evidence is clearly in favour of them being able to miss. Clearly the task is more difficult than you imagine.
Not common, just possible with millions of hours of practice.
Well, maybe if you could practive 8 hours per day, every day from age 10, live to 352 and somehow not die and not suffer age related deterioration then maybe you would reach a better level with the 1e6 hours of practice.
Or perhaps there are also other factors.
After ten years, and your brain has be completely rewired to be basket ball dominating machine, being so incapable of perfection is astounding to me.
It's astounding that you believe this. You have never achieved near professional level in anything physical, or even tried to do some beyond the most basic level. Yet you persist in arguing from a point of view of utter ignorance.
People achieve this perfection in other disciplines.
No, they don't.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:Just gonna say it by Cederic · 2014-02-19 04:47 · Score: 1

I have never been impressive by any RL sport. The results we see seem completely plausible for someone who has dedicated their lives to it.
When someone like Ronnie O'Sullivan scores a 147 point snooker break in under five and a half minutes in competition that does not seem completely plausible to anybody on the planet, except Ronnie.
Even under practice conditions, that's implausible. World champions watched with awe and wonder. There's only one person that's ever lived that could even consider matching that right now, and that's Ronnie himself.

The problem with this is that it would make professional bowling (and so many other sports) obsolete. After you got to a certain level, their would be no reason to complete as you have reached the plateau of perfection where everyone is equally perfect at the game. I think it is likely that this huge incentive to not be perfect subconsciously prevents people from getting this good.
Nope, it's because it's just not as easy as you seem to think it is. You underestimate the amount of practice, natural ability, dedication, mental effort and physical skill needed to perform at the top end of any sport.

But for whatever reason, in my opinion these sport's athletes do push what is is to be human beyond what you might think is possible.
How the fuck is performance in a fully deterministic computer game more impressive than performance in an infinitely variable real world?
You admire e-sports competitors. That's cool, they're bloody good at what they do. That doesn't make them better than people that master other sports, even if they're not 'perfect'.
Re:Just gonna say it by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 05:23 · Score: 1

I do not even know what Snooker is, so I have no idea if I would find it impressive or not. But I think I can safely say, you can exclude some sports from my blanket statement. I have seen Tiger Woods do incredible things. And in general would consider golf a decent sport. I do not think you can compare getting a 1-inch ball in a 1.2 inch hole 5 miles away over a infinity complete, detailed, and varied surface to getting a 1 foot wide ball down a perfectly level surface with a minimal amount of accuracy for only like 15 feet (indoors) [I am talking about bowling].
The problem is that every sport in existence was created as a leisure activity. Perfectly fine and enjoyable for people to do in-between work. And they have turned into entertainment for the masses; Which works as well. What both these things are not are mediums through which to test, strive for, and topple perfection. Mainstream sports cannot be too complex, as they are for the masses, and they were all historically designed for amateurs to play. Even chess is simply too deterministic and simple, as it is designed to just pick up and play; Really all you need is some autistic man with a perfect computer like memory to memorise billions and possible situations. E-sports like SC, and real sports like golf, are not like this. Their are infinity complex and cannot be modelled like that. There is no perfection, only the striving to be better. Also, it is important for a sport, in my opinion, for to test what it is to be human. It is simple to build a program that would play chess perfectly. Given improved sensors, a robot would easily be better at golf than a human. but it would be very hard to build a AI that would be better at the full complexity of SC, even though speed is such a huge issue in the game; Yes, they could probably micro-manage their way to a victory, but they would suck at many aspects of the game.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Just gonna say it by Cederic · 2014-02-19 06:34 · Score: 1

The problem is that every sport in existence was created as a leisure activity.
Your opening premise alone is flawed.
A lot of sports originate from skills that were essential initially for survival, then for cultural dominance - which in itself is sometimes essential for survival.
As for automation: SC is easier to automate than most RL games, including golf. Shit, people have already produced AI better than most players and that's without even putting a team of computer scientists onto the problem.
Re:Just gonna say it by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 07:29 · Score: 1

"I'd love to watch you go up to a professional athlete and tell them with a straight face that the reason they're not better is because subconsciously they want to be imperfect in order to preserve the sport."
I think there is just less drive. I once, for example, heard the training regiment of the 203th best tennis player in the word described as drinking whisky and smoking.
These sports, even world class professional sports, do not necessarily recruit the best of the best, and they do not necessaries inspire complete dedication.
Some sports inspire 12 hour a day, 7 day a week training regiments. Training is simply your life if you want to stand a chance.
But even these do not necessarily get the best of the best to work with. Sports, to a large degree, recruit from the poor and less determined, exclusively. The best humanity has to offer are too busy getter doctorates, building billion dollar companies, or solving mathematical problems or philosophising in some shack in the woods. The same people who are really good scientists are not necessarily the same people would make the best bowlers, but I do not think that there is any reason to assume that the people who would have made the absolute best bowlers have any reason to become professional bowlers. I think it is quite likely that the person who would of been the absolute best Starcraft player of all time is instead performing surgeries for millions of dollars a year somewhere.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:Just gonna say it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 07:56 · Score: 0

I get it, you think sports with a simplistic setup like a bowling alley should be easily mastered. They are not. Bowling is not a very cerebral sport, it is just physical performance based on the same setup every frame, but it is extremely difficult for a human to get that strike 12 times in a row. It would also be hard for a machine to do it. There are variances in all the real world objects involved that a machine might not account for.

You seem to like games like SC that would have more thought involved. Do you consider war to be a sport then? That would have all the strategy and thought that you see in SC.
Re:Just gonna say it by Algae_94 · 2014-02-19 07:59 · Score: 1

It's harder than it looks to deliver that curling stone down the sheet.
Re:Just gonna say it by Myu · 2014-02-19 10:44 · Score: 1

People are capable of perfection.
We call the demand that everything be perfect an anxiety disorder. If your claim is that sporting should have been perfected by now in a sense that Esports aren't, then I begin to wonder whether the dispute here is simply concerning a phenomenological difference in performance anxiety. That would make sense, since this isn't sport.

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Myu: ... The map's upside down...
Re:Just gonna say it by goose-incarnated · 2014-02-19 21:00 · Score: 1

As for automation: SC is easier to automate than most RL games, including golf. Shit, people have already produced AI better than most players and that's without even putting a team of computer scientists onto the problem.
Better than most players != better than the best players. GP is quite correct - it is easy to throw a bunch of electro-mechanical components together that will best even the very best "sportsman" of all time, but it is well-nigh impossible (provably so) to put together an AI that will better a Go champion (e-sport).
So, for traditional sports we already have the ability to beat the very best humans while for E-sports (Go, Starcraft, etc) it's still very much a human-dominated activity, with good reason.

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I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Re:Just gonna say it by Cederic · 2014-02-19 21:16 · Score: 1

Since when the fuck was Go (a centuries old game played with bits of wood, stone or other non-electronic materials) an e-sport?
You're actually arguing that a non-e-sport (I.e. Go) is not automatable, and trying to use that to say e-sports are harder than real ones. Well done, I concede the debate; I can't win against an idiot.
Re:Just gonna say it by balbus000 · 2014-02-20 07:35 · Score: 1

Going back to something you said earlier:

How the fuck is performance in a fully deterministic computer game more impressive than performance in an infinitely variable real world?
There are a finite number of games of Go possible. At least to my understanding, but I don't know all the rules. There are definitely a finite number of possible moves on a given turn.
I'm not really sure what the argument is with you and the GP. Trying to prove whether e-sports or traditional sports are harder or more impressive? I don't think it's possible to say. When you have humans competing against other humans at something, you're going to see some amazing things. It doesn't matter if it's an e-sport or a traditional sport, or if it's fully deterministic or infinitely variable.
Re:Just gonna say it by Cederic · 2014-02-20 07:49 · Score: 1

I agree with you. People at the top-end are bloody impressive, whether it's Starcraft, the triathlon or fellatio. I can admire the skill, whether it's something that could be automated or not.
The challenge with the other guy is that he seems to think e-sports are more impressive. I'd say he needs to find one of the people I referred to above.

equality of outcome by stenvar · 2014-02-19 01:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

Well, according to the "equality of outcome" school of thinking that dominates progressive thinking and policies, this amounts to racism. Therefore, the government must intervene in order to restore the preferred state, namely a statistically representative distribution of all genders and races.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Re:equality of outcome by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

Well, according to the "equality of outcome" school of thinking that dominates progressive thinking and policies, this amounts to racism. Therefore, the government must intervene in order to restore the preferred state, namely a statistically representative distribution of all genders and races.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
The only way government could do that is to use force or threat of force to either: Force members of $MinorityGroup to attend events they don't want to attend, or Force $WhiteMales to stay away from events they want to attend. Both options would, in and of themselves, be institutionalized racism.

Institutionalized racism in the name of fighting racism is one of the worst kinds because its supporters can convince themselves they're doing a good thing. It's sort of like all the wars and killings and torture conducted in the name of Jesus, a man who preached and conducted quite the opposite.

The best thing we could do is to make it illegal to even collect such statistics. The government should have no interest whatsoever in what color your skin is. We are all supposed to be equal. A colorblind society is how you would achieve that. The only "problem" is it would provide one less reason to manipulate and socially engineer and then these people would have to learn to accept that life is not always the way they insist it should be. A bit like growing up actually.
Re:equality of outcome by Mashiki · 2014-02-19 01:36 · Score: 2

Seriously, the entire "if there isn't enough of x" BS pisses me off to no end. It's screwed up everything it's touched, and then some. It literally allows people who wouldn't be qualified to work in areas they shouldn't, and it creates no shortage of animosity among people and for a very good reason. My personal favorite was back in the '00's where police services in Ontario were posting ads with "*insert minority* but, applications from whites were not being accepted" happens in government, happens in business.
Beh, the entire thing is disgusting to anyone who has an ounce of common sense, and rational thinking.

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Om, nomnomnom...
Re:equality of outcome by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:39 · Score: 0

Only after Major League Baseball and the NFL are also forced to do the same. I hear their ratio of men-to-women players is even higher than e-sports.
Re:equality of outcome by skovnymfe · 2014-02-19 01:47 · Score: 0

The dumbest part is the organizations already do this. You'll consistently across find across all esports tournaments that you have tournaments and then you have womens tournaments. How's that for equal rights. And of course no one argues if women want to join the regular tournament, but there has to be a special one just for them because... well I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has something to do with their breasts, and attracting more men to look at their breasts. But we wouldn't actually say that anywhere, no, instead we say that we enjoy diversifity. We enjoy being so diversifited that women need to do everything men do, just to prove women are just as handicapable as men. But do you know what the worst part is? Women fucking suck unbelievably much at computer games. Really. They do. It is so god-fucking awful to watch women play computer games, even on a "professional" level. You've probably already come across it. Women playing football or women playing soccer. They're just so shamefully bad I can't believe anyone would actually pay to watch it. It's like, dude, seriously, have you never fucking heard of the internet? It's full of naked women. Please stop paying out your ass to watch this ridiculous spectacle. What NFL team in their right mind would hire a woman to play for them when they're just not suited for it? They get massacred. They are physically incapable of competing with men in sports. Nature made them this way, not society. Why the fuck do all the men of the world have to suffer because it's unfair that women don't get an inherent advantage? Why do women need special treatment to compensate for them being underrepresented? You're a woman you say? Well here's a free pass to the finals where you get your face blown off cause you're terrible. What's that, no women won any of our tournaments you say? Well shit, let's give everyone a fucking trophy and do away with competition altogether. We don't watch or play competitively to win anyway, it's all about having fun! Right? Girls just want to have fun? Well boys want to fucking win and they will punch eachother in the face to do it. What happens when women do this? Why it's degrading! It's horrible! It's shameful for women to behave like men. Only when it suits them is it unfair that they aren't all men.
Re:equality of outcome by serviscope_minor · 2014-02-19 02:14 · Score: 2

The dumbest part is the
Actually the dumbest part is where your enter key appears to be broken.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:equality of outcome by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:26 · Score: 0

$Handouts
Re:equality of outcome by AmiMoJo · 2014-02-19 04:51 · Score: 1

It isn't about getting a 50/50 balance of male/female competitors. It is about women who say they want to compete but are put off by the attitude of other competitors towards them due to their gender.
Same with jobs, when people say we want more women in tech jobs what they mean is that women want to go into those jobs but are put off, and we should do something to remove those gender based barriers. Not hand them a job or a qualification, remove the specific gender related problems.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:equality of outcome by cryptizard · 2014-02-19 05:46 · Score: 1

So how then do you propose that we deal with the systemic inequality in the US caused by slavery? Like it or not, most people end up with very similar means to their parents. It sometimes happens that you can go from lower class to middle class or middle class to upper class, but those cases are the exception rather than the rule. Unfortunately, 150 years ago every black family in the US started out with a disadvantage. You can't possibly believe that it doesn't still effect our modern society. What do you do about that if not some kind of affirmative action?
Re:equality of outcome by Nephandus · 2014-02-19 06:36 · Score: 2

There're more white people in as bad or worse positions than black. Kiss my white trash born ass, Racist fuck.

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"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
Re:equality of outcome by Algae_94 · 2014-02-19 08:04 · Score: 1

You are correct that black Americans do generally come from a disadvantaged position, but that is not a universal truth. When you have blanket policies that give preference to minorities, you are helping out all the minorities, even the ones from privileged backgrounds. You are also holding back all the people of the majority, even the ones that were born in the dirt and have been poor their entire lives. I'm not against policies to help the people that need help and level the playing field, but I'm not sure if the implementations that we've been using are the proper choice.
Re:equality of outcome by Algae_94 · 2014-02-19 08:07 · Score: 1

I think we all know that the enter key will not break a line in /. comments. Case in point... I hit the enter key 3 times in this sentence.

Using HTML line breaks works though.
Re:equality of outcome by cryptizard · 2014-02-19 08:58 · Score: 1

Only because there are a lot more white people than black people. By percentage, african americans are three times more likely to be in poverty.
Re:equality of outcome by sexconker · 2014-02-19 09:31 · Score: 1

Well, according to the "equality of outcome" school of thinking that dominates progressive thinking and policies, this amounts to racism. Therefore, the government must intervene in order to restore the preferred state, namely a statistically representative distribution of all genders and races.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Sadly, this is the same reasoning Blizzard uses to "balance" SCII.
I've got a preview of the next balance patch for you guys: Nerf terran, buff zerg, buff protoss but only against terran.
Re:equality of outcome by narcc · 2014-02-19 12:29 · Score: 1

Reason has no place here. This thread is for us to talk about how 'dem fem-nists is spoilin' the fun.
Try something like this instead: "Privileged, white, middle-class males are being oppressed!" It's an easy +5 insightful.

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Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:equality of outcome by stenvar · 2014-02-19 14:27 · Score: 1

It is about women who say they want to compete but are put off by the attitude of other competitors towards them due to their gender.
Well, then they need to start dealing with the real world.

Same with jobs, when people say we want more women in tech jobs what they mean is that women want to go into those jobs but are put off, and we should do something to remove those gender based barriers.
Sorry, you don't have a right not to be offended or "put off" by your co-workers.
Re:equality of outcome by stenvar · 2014-02-19 14:30 · Score: 1

As far as I can tell, it is mostly "privileged white middle-class males" that are adopting such pro-feminist bullshit attitudes as you do.
The rest of us know that whining and complaining about other people's attitudes doesn't get you anywhere, and that it is perfectly possible to toughen up and succeed despite other people being jerks.
Re:equality of outcome by bingoUV · 2014-02-19 20:11 · Score: 1
IT ---about to hit enter twice ---
--hit enter twice above, about to hit enter twice more --
DOES
Just use plain old text, it even
1. supports
2. basic
3. HTML
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Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Re:equality of outcome by Nephandus · 2014-02-19 23:38 · Score: 1

Ah, so some rich white people mean the rest owe the black people? Why? You counting what kind of white people the white people are? Those that were the wrong kind of white have somewhat intact populations now, which will skew low. How are the Irish doing vs Germans? No data on that, right? How about East European? All just "white" to you, right? Ironic that American poverty vs African poverty means the black population you're fixated on actually profited from slavery. They could go "back" to Africa with their poverty level money and be upper class. They're not going to do that though, are they? Why?

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"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
Re:equality of outcome by Algae_94 · 2014-02-20 08:20 · Score: 1

You got me looking into this. My commenting was definitely not breaking the line when hitting enter twice or more.
This is determined by an account setting for posting. "Plain Old Text" will convert enter presses to line breaks, but if you have set "HTML Formatted" it will not. Of course now that I reread your comment you specifically mention "Plain Old Text".
Thanks for the tip.
Re:equality of outcome by anyGould · 2014-02-20 09:22 · Score: 1

It isn't about getting a 50/50 balance of male/female competitors. It is about women who say they want to compete but are put off by the attitude of other competitors towards them due to their gender.
Except that's *not* what the articles say - one is just rehashing the other, which is simply a "hey, we threw a survey and this is what we got back". Which not only is self-reporting bias, but it's not even talking to the same question. All it says is that on this *one* event from this *one* site, they had a 90/10 split. Which doesn't check for such things as "what's the usual demographic for your site", "what's the demographics on other comparable sites", or "what's the demographics on sites that have more than 200 people", or "how many women checked the 'male' box because they didn't trust the survey-takers"
That's before we get to the elephant - are we talking about skewed numbers in viewership (which is what TFA is), or skewed numbers in participation? It's entirely possible for the participation to be skewed one direction while the audience is skewed in another.
But most importantly, that article makes a bigger case for racial discrimination, simply by which interviews they picked. And I'd love to hear how anyone is going to fix that, short of requiring token minorities in all groups so that interested parties have someone who look like them in the room. (Which frankly strikes me as far more insulting that simply being the first one through the door.)
Re:equality of outcome by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-21 04:50 · Score: 0

I hate to tell you this, but 150 years and no less than five generations have passed since 150 years ago. No race is immune from the fact that some people in poor economic straits only want a helping hand while others loudly demand handouts. If you really want to analyze why black people in specific seem to have the outcomes that result from the latter, perhaps looking at (as one example) the glorification of "thug culture" would be more revealing than claiming slavery is permanently keeping them down and taking away their agency as human beings. The same kind of toxicity exists in the cultures that follow every other racial makeup in America as well, so it definitely isn't just a "black thing." Where I live, there is a glut of shady white folks.
Re:equality of outcome by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-21 05:07 · Score: 0

I don't agree with you on a lot of things you comment on, but I damn well agree with the sentiment of this one. Replace parent post with "WALL OF TEXT" which is at least tolerable and to-the-point.

Forbid males to discriminate female gamers! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:22 · Score: -1

How can that be, the gender "studies" "proves" there are no brain differences between male and female brains! That have to mean that female gamers are not lower in numbers, but are discriminated by these chauvinist male gamers!

Re:Forbid males to discriminate female gamers! by narcc · 2014-02-19 12:30 · Score: 1

WTF are you babbling about?

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Required reading for internet skeptics

it's designed for violent MANic viagrants by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:23 · Score: 0

abuse victims abuse... why would current & former victims want to watch?

Whites and Asians do esports because they can't ju by raymorris · 2014-02-19 01:24 · Score: 0

Well duh. When black kids want to play sports they go outside outside and play - basketball, football, whatever they just play. If they want to dunk, they dunk.

There's one Asian guy who can dunk. The rest have to dunk from the couch. Is it not obvious why little Asian high school kids aren't on the high school football team? There's a safety issue there. Look at the NFL and NFA - thousands of black guys, 34 white, and two Asian. The white guys who want to play do so via Madden 2013.

Once again.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:25 · Score: 0

Slashdot posting about a problem that doesn't exist.

This just in: only one in one hundred quilters are male! Where's the outcry?!?!

Likely due to regional and economic influences by magamiako1 · 2014-02-19 01:26 · Score: 1

All this study says to me is that White Males and Asian Males typically have more free time capable to dedicate to this sort of endeavor.

Re:Likely due to regional and economic influences by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:42 · Score: -1

Huh I thought black people got plenty of free time in jail.

We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 01:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

Men and women are not equal in everything, regardless of what people may want to belief. There are differences in physical and mental capabilities, career inclinations and aspirations and a lot of other physical and psychological traits. Trying to conform men to women behavior and women to men behavior is a violence our political society tries to do to people, is ironically comparable to what it did in the past trying to make homosexual people straight.

In this day and age, where laws do not only grant equality of rights, but try to enforce equality of results, whenever there is a gender gap it is because it is part of what makes us different and the freer we get to choose the greater the gender gap will become. In a general manner, social gaps that can be closed by force are social gaps that should not be closed.

Re:We are not equal... by wonkey_monkey · 2014-02-19 01:39 · Score: 1

I was tempted to post much the same thing, although I note that, for once, the summary isn't screaming "how do we fix this?!"

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systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Re:We are not equal... by jellomizer · 2014-02-19 02:03 · Score: 1

However if there is a case their may be an unnatural bias. Say for video game, most of the games played professionally are targeted towards male players.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:36 · Score: 1

However if there is a case their may be an unnatural bias. Say for video game, most of the games played professionally are targeted towards male players.
Why do you think that might be?
Surely if you just produced a game targeting females, you would instantly get rich by selling it to the massive unsatisfied gaming audience! I just wish that ALL game creators and ALL investors weren't so sexist that they were keeping that from happening. Oh wait - maybe there's another explanation...
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 02:40 · Score: 2

Any unnatural bias solves itself eventually and naturally as long as the law is neutral. Medics and Lawyers were all men in the past. Today half are women. If Engineers and Pro-Gamers are mostly males maybe it is because women (as a group) do not want to do these tasks or are not very good at it, especially when they have even additional legal incentives and advantages in doing so compared to men.

Individual women and individual men are another history though. There is enough variance in human genome to produce some anomalies, but they are the exception and not the rule.
Re:We are not equal... by Jmac217 · 2014-02-19 03:53 · Score: 1

It also goes without saying that women who want to compete in E-Sports are free to do so. I distinctly remember multiple occasions where there were female team members competing along-side male-only teams.
Re:We are not equal... by tlhIngan · 2014-02-19 04:14 · Score: 1

However if there is a case their may be an unnatural bias. Say for video game, most of the games played professionally are targeted towards male players.
Perhaps. Though another thing is well, boorishness. I believe people were interviewed on it and someone unwisely said "Sexual harassment is part of Street Fighter culture. You can't take that away".
Well, gee, perhaps it's now obvious why e-sports are 90% males, because they creep the rest of the players out.
And then you wonder why the general public feels games are for kids - because the people they see playing on TV act like kids. They may have adult bodies (the average age of gamers is around 34), but damn, they're completely immature. Which leads to an unfortunate conclusion that "gamers" are all stereotypically kids and shouldn't be taken seriously.
Re:We are not equal... by avandesande · 2014-02-19 04:33 · Score: 1

Women are smart enough not to waste their time on this sh_t, if you want my opinion.

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love is just extroverted narcissism
Re:We are not equal... by CODiNE · 2014-02-19 04:35 · Score: 1

I notice it tends to be a push towards more women in traditionally male dominated areas but not the other way around.
For example, a huge majority of sign language interpreters are female. If you take a sign language class you see the same thing, lots of women, few guys. For such a politically active workforce you have to wonder, where is the outrage?
Why is male disinterest unquestioned? Why not start with the assumption that men are being prevented from joining female dominated groups and work to change that as well?

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Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 04:50 · Score: 1

In this day and age, where laws do not only grant equality of rights, but try to enforce equality of results, whenever there is a gender gap it is because it is part of what makes us different and the freer we get to choose the greater the gender gap will become. In a general manner, social gaps that can be closed by force are social gaps that should not be closed.
Wow, you know what, you might know what the fuck you're talking about, since unlike the feminist and sociologists hypothesis that men and women are equal blank slates that society writes identity upon your concept is ACTUALLY SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE. So much evidence that it's disturbing any rational person with two eyes would think otherwise.
What's telling is that these feminist social justice warriors have been causing real harm by suppressing the FACT that men and women are different even down to the cellular level. I don't know about you, but if medicines act differently on men and women I sure as fuck would like to know so that we don't overdose our boys and girls. The fucking feminists don't give a shit about what's right if it contradicts their assumption based ideology -- There are two types of feminists: Evil, or useful idiots who lending political power to the evil ones... Like Mary P. Koss of the CDC who is redefining rape exclude male victims and marginalize female perpetrators -- She's fucking evil because most rapists have been raped or abused themselves, so not going after female perpetrators creates more female victims of rape in the next cycle of violence.
Re:We are not equal... by Cederic · 2014-02-19 04:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

Medics and Lawyers were all men in the past. Today half are women.
More women than men entering those professions now. Strangely there's little outcry from feminists about this, no demands for subsidies or positive action to help men.
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 05:13 · Score: 1

Maybe you are right, but regardless, I am all for letting everyone do whatever professional activity pleases them most as long as they are ready to face the consequences of their choices..
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 05:14 · Score: 1

Because men are mostly irrelevant to our progressiveness, except as nemesis and the cause of all evil. That is true especially when they are in a situation of seemingly disadvantage.
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 05:19 · Score: 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Re:We are not equal... by AmiMoJo · 2014-02-19 05:59 · Score: 1

It isn't about equality or having an equal number. We know women play games, we know they are competitive, and we know they want to compete but are put off (because they tell us). We know exactly what the artificial barriers are. We just need to remove those barriers, not try to force a 50/50 ratio.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 06:13 · Score: 1

We know nothing of this. We know very few women fit in your description and that there are huge artificial incentives to put more there, not barriers. If there are not more it is because they do not want to. Period. There is no problem to fix. Move along.
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 06:13 · Score: 0

Except the women are playing candy cane nut crush (or whatever it's called).
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 06:22 · Score: 0

* I believe people were interviewed on it and someone unwisely said "Sexual harassment is part of Street Fighter culture. You can't take that away".
Oh dear... I love the feminist habit of using purely anecdotal evidence as if it's fucking proof - in order to paint and entire community as somehow anti-women.
Show us that interview... and show us it's a pervasive attitude and not just one jerk... or shut the fuck up and piss off.
Re:We are not equal... by Nephandus · 2014-02-19 06:34 · Score: 1

So what shit are they dumb enough to waste thier time on? Or would your "opinion" get in the way of actually comprehending such a question? Women do lots of stupid things, wasting lots of money and effort, but will gladly sneer at men for not noticing, completely missing the point that we usually don't care. Female chauvenism doesn't doesn't get to define intelligence, despite what pussy pass waiver care to chain vomit at any opportunity.

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"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
Re:We are not equal... by Tom · 2014-02-19 07:54 · Score: 1

Strangely there's little outcry from feminists about this, no demands for subsidies or positive action to help men.
Feminism has long stopped being about equality. Heck, it's even in the name - Feminism. Not Equalism.

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 11:13 · Score: 0

That's because it's completely false . Not only that, but even if it were true, the problem has never that more men work in a field than women. That's merely a consequence of the problem. The problem is a lifelong pressure put on women not to join certain fields (like IT, etc) as well as a prejudice against those who do.
Re:We are not equal... by Macgrrl · 2014-02-19 11:13 · Score: 1

And despite that, an unqualified male was still selected for what was a significant public opportunity for a sign language interpreter.

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Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 11:24 · Score: 1

I see your data stops 6 years ago and at that time it was almost even. Now women are the majority. Welcome to the present. Regarding your other statement, there is far more social pressures over men (and it has ever been this way) than over women, and you seldom see men crying about it. Women have it easy today and still we keep seeing feminist groups crying and asking for more.
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-19 12:40 · Score: 1

Why would there be any outcry? Are there artificial barriers keeping men out of those professions?
What's that? No?
So... are you an idiot that is incapable of understanding the problem or are you really so ignorant that you believed that the problem was the lack of a perfect 50/50 gender split?
That's not fair. You could easily be both.

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Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 12:53 · Score: 0

Any unnatural bias solves itself eventually and naturally as long as the law is neutral.
Not really, at least not for reasonable definitions of "eventually". The law is just a specific case of society enforcing rules on individuals.
There's no particular reason that high heels should be a feminine thing, and historically they were a masculine thing, and they are clearly a disadvantage. Yet it's persisted for a long time without any legal backing. Because we figure high heels are hot on women and kind of strange on men. Despite a strong cultural theme that tall men are attractive to women.
There are tonnes of other unnatural biases linked to religion or culture etc.. Places where eating bugs isn't so strange, and places where it is, have both existed for hundreds of years and rarely is there a law against (or requiring) bug-eating, but it doesn't get widespread in anti-bug places *even after famines*.
This said, I don't think anybody really cares about getting more women into competitive gaming, (or fewer men). Just the general point that law neutrality is just *one* aspect of the greater societal neutrality.
Re:We are not equal... by CODiNE · 2014-02-19 13:14 · Score: 1

Yeah, I wonder who he's related to.

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Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 13:14 · Score: 0

Here's the interview:
http://www.giantbomb.com/artic...
Here's the exact quote:

Rea: Can I get my Street Fighter without sexual harassment?
Bakhtanians: You can’t. You can’t because they’re one and the same thing. This is a community that’s, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of a culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community--it’s StarCraft. There’s nothing wrong with StarCraft if you enjoy it, and there’s nothing wrong with anything about eSports, but why would you want just one flavor of ice cream, you know? There’s eSports for people who like eSports, and there’s fighting games for people who like spicy food and like to have fun. There’s no reason to turn them into the same thing, you know?
It actually goes on for quite a while afterward about how it's okay to be sexist and if you don't want sexism, go play StarCraft, and that even trying to change it is ethically wrong and the same as telling basketball players to dribble a football or some damn thing.
And as for it being a pervasive attitude: I don't have a fucking survey and it's quite possible that nothing I say can ever convince you, but really, it just has to be a few people saying it and nobody shouting them down. This guy is obviously an extreme example. Even people who are openly misogynist, not even denying the "misogynist" title, often won't go this far.
Also, this:

in order to paint and entire community as somehow anti-women.
Is changing the subject. This guy was anti-woman, and yet instead of calling this guy an asshole, you first ask for proof that he exists, then imply that even if he exists he's now set the bar such that the only way the system can be sexist is if people are *at least as douchey as this guy*, and told the person who tried to call the asshole out to "shut the fuck up and piss off". In other words, you chose to side with "sexual harassment guy" instead of "sexual harassment guy is an asshole" guy. And that's pervasive, and that's the problem.
It's kind of like on a playground, when the bully beats up the nerdy kid for his lunch money, and he does it right in front of the teachers' eyes and they do nothing at all to help, just tell the nerdy kid that he shouldn't be so sensitive, the bully is just one person in the school, and he should really quit whining unless he can prove that the school as a whole has a big bullying problem.
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 14:43 · Score: 0

"And as for it being a pervasive attitude: I don't have a fucking survey and it's quite possible that nothing I say can ever convince you, but really, it just has to be a few people saying it and nobody shouting them down. This guy is obviously an extreme example. Even people who are openly misogynist, not even denying the "misogynist" title, often won't go this far."
Thanks. In that one bit you've torpedoed your entire argument. It's pathetic... and you then try to limply accuse me: "it's quite possible that nothing I say can ever convince you".
All I've asked is that before you dismiss an entire community based on one person and demand that EVERYONE change... that you PROVE it's pervasive.
You haven't. You can't. It's not.
The reason I'm saying this is because feminists rarely prove what they claim. They just make baseless sweeping generalisations - usually massively sexist and racist too - and never get called on it.
" just tell the nerdy kid that he shouldn't be so sensitive, the bully is just one person in the school, and he should really quit whining unless he can prove that the school as a whole has a big bullying problem."
Excuse me? Did you read the fucking article YOU just linked to? That bit where CAPCOM - the international company - apologised for ONE person in a community that plays their game acting like a dick.
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 14:50 · Score: 1

Sure there are. It is called positive action. Just to give you an example, in careers women prefer, like pedagogy for example, there is no problem in having 90% of women in a class, but universities suffer considerable pressure to put more women in STEM courses, for example, even though very few women want to have anything to do with these. courses.

Each woman that is forcibly placed in a course takes the place of a better qualified man. Additionally many courses where universities cannot recruit enough women end being closed, because it is usually better for them to not have a course than to have a "gender unbalanced course".

There is also a very significant anti-male posture in the universities, born from the progressiveness disease that spread though them. Any male falsely accused of rape and he will be forced to prove his innocence, that if they have the chance to even try before being expelled.

Currently the problem is not what you think it is the problem. The problem is you and people like you.
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-19 15:13 · Score: 1

Each woman that is forcibly placed in a course takes the place of a better qualified man.
WTF? Who is being "forcibly" placed in a course? Even if such an absurdity were to occur, what makes you think that anyone is being displaced, let alone a "better qualified man"?

Additionally many courses where universities cannot recruit enough women end being closed
Bullshit. I defy you to find a single instance, let alone "many".

it is usually better for them to not have a course than to have a "gender unbalanced course".

Better for them ... how? In what possible way could that benefit the institution?

There is also a very significant anti-male posture in the universities
Never mind, you're clearly just trolling. Not bad. 8/10 You got me. Carry on.

--
Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-19 16:15 · Score: 1

WTF? Who is being "forcibly" placed in a course? Even if such an absurdity were to occur, what makes you think that anyone is being displaced, let alone a "better qualified man"?
Whenever you apply positive action you are forcing in someone that wouldn't be there otherwise and taking the place of someone that should be there.

Better for them ... how? In what possible way could that benefit the institution?
Many education institutions are partially government funded and they lose funding if they do not reach quotas of gender equality. So it is better for them to extinguish courses where gender equality is hopeless. This has happened with many schools and universities.

A lot of this is properly explained here if you want to have a reality check (although I doubt you will be able to get rid of your indoctrination):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-19 20:02 · Score: 1

Fool me once, you know.
The video was too much. The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute? Too obvious.
Good effort though. 4/10

--
Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by Cederic · 2014-02-19 20:03 · Score: 1

Or possibly I'm merely better informed and less prejudiced than you.
Artificial barriers? Let's try the education system. In the UK the teaching approach and curriculum has been heavily revised and now caters better for girls than for boys - with a commensurate shift in exam results.
Women also get access to scholarships and funding that just isn't available to men, which makes it easier for them to financially commit to lengthy higher education; needed for those professions.
Sorry but there are more barriers to male equality in this country than there are to female equality.
Re:We are not equal... by goose-incarnated · 2014-02-19 21:31 · Score: 1

Yeah, your pointing to an outlier totally shows that even the 90% majority that females hold in a profession still leaves them disadvantaged and in need of "help" to become more equal.

--
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-19 21:32 · Score: 0

Removing barriers for women does not impose barriers for men.

Sorry but there are more barriers to male equality in this country than there are to female equality.
Name one.

--
Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by Cederic · 2014-02-19 21:51 · Score: 1

I've already named two!
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-20 02:27 · Score: 1

Fool yourself as much as you want, my friend.
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-20 06:37 · Score: 1

As I said before: Removing barriers for women does not impose barriers for men. Scholarships exclusively for women do not disadvantage men, they only help to give women equal opportunity.
You MRA's are a pitiful lot. Are you afraid that if you male privilege doesn't advantage you enough you won't be able to compete?
Look, I'm a tall, good-looking, white male from a middle class background. That's life on "easy mode". I could pretend that all of my success is due to exclusively to my intelligence and hard-work, but I'm not delusional. I had, and continue to enjoy, countless advantages. Advantages that other people can only dream about. So many, in fact, that it's hard for me to identify most of them! I won't even try to list the educational opportunities and advantages that were available to me and not others. Let's stick to the less obvious ones.
People automatically assume that I'm competent, capable, intelligent, and well-educated. I don't have to constantly prove myself to others. (I don't know that I've every had to do that!) People listen when I talk and give serious consideration to what I have to say. For many women and minorities, that's a rare occurrence. (If they're lucky enough to ever have experienced that at all.)
I get preferential treatment virtually everywhere I go. Not just at work, but at stores, bars, restaurants, etc. I'm willing to bet that you do as well -- you just don't recognize that or assume it's because of something you've done when, in reality, it's merely due to your gender and where and to whom you were born.
You reminded of This and, to a lesser extent, This.
Give it some thought.

--
Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by fredprado · 2014-02-20 06:39 · Score: 1

Not really, at least not for reasonable definitions of "eventually".

The law evolves as society notions of right and wrong not the other way around. Trying to invert that and enforce arbitrary notions of right and wrong over society, that are incompatible with current morals by force of law never works as intended, and it has been shown time and again in the past. That is the great flaw of the revolutionary mentality, and that is why revolutionary movements always end in authoritarian regimens.
Re:We are not equal... by Cederic · 2014-02-20 07:08 · Score: 1

What's 'MRA'?
How is a scholarship that benefits women when women are already ahead of men (academically) anything other than reinforcing the advantage that women are getting?
What 'male privilege' are you fucking talking about? I sure as shit haven't seen one. I'm not a fucking CEO, people don't hold doors open for me, the Government sure as shit doesn't hand cash out to me, the education system is biased against me, the welfare system doesn't recognise me, the health system allocates less funding to me than an equivalent age/race woman..
Maybe 20 years ago there was a privilege, but not now. Don't even fucking pretend.
As for compassion, go fuck yourself. Seriously, I had no empathy when I was living in second-hand clothing and my mother skipped meals to save money. So my lack of empathy now has no relationship to my relative level of wealth, I just lack empathy.
I also hate people pretending that men are somehow given a free ride in life. They're not. Is equality really so much to ask?
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-20 08:51 · Score: 1

Sounds like you make really, really, bad decisions. You have numerous advantages and are still unable to succeed. I just gave a few examples of the many privileges I've enjoyed and continue to enjoy.
The educational system sure wasn't bias against me. I had virtually no obstacles to overcome. The welfare system doesn't affect me because I've never needed it, all due to privilege. (See my earlier post.)

What's 'MRA'?
Men's Rights Advocate. Like you didn't already know!

I also hate people pretending that men are somehow given a free ride in life.
Pretending? Do you think I just worked harder? I seriously doubt that! I had an easier time than most because I had significant advantages from the start. In work, school, and everywhere in between. Being a man gave me, or enabled, many of those advantages.

Is equality really so much to ask?
No, it's not. That's why we need things like scholarships for women. They deserve equality. They don't enjoy the same privileges that you and I do. They need to work twice as hard to be perceived as half as good. (That's a bit glib, but you'll find tons of research which supports that.)
Let me clarify something. Life is hard for just about everyone. Still, it's much easier for people like you and me. The only difference between us that I can see is that I know that I enjoy privilege denied to others. When you say "people don't hold doors open for me" it becomes very obvious that you just haven't been paying attention!
Give it some thought.

--
Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by Cederic · 2014-02-20 09:25 · Score: 1

Bully for you. I had to work for my success. Nobody handed it to me on a silver platter. Being male didn't get me into university, didn't earn me my first job, didn't stop me getting fucked over by three different companies.
Life is hard for everybody. I accept this. I'm just keen that people don't build systemic prejudice; why are you so fucking keen that they do?
As for "Men's Rights Advocate", I've never encountered that term before. But I'll tell you what, I'll advocate gender equality. That's not men's rights, that's everybody's rights. Is that fair?
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-20 11:20 · Score: 1

I'm just keen that people don't build systemic prejudice; why are you so fucking keen that they do?
What you don't understand is that that prejudice exists -- and it works in YOUR favor!

But I'll tell you what, I'll advocate gender equality.
Apparently not. We provide opportunities to disadvantaged groups to help achieve equality.

Being male didn't get me into university, didn't earn me my first job,
Being male undoubtedly helped you achieve those things. Is this really that difficult for you to see? As an exercise, try to see the various ways that white privilege has benefited you. That should help you to start identifying areas where male privilege has benefited you.

didn't stop me getting fucked over by three different companies.
Yeah, that's all on you. Make better decisions. You have advantages that others do not. Just because you haven't played the game well doesn't mean that the deck was stacked against you. To the contrary, it was quite clearly your favor.

--
Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by Cederic · 2014-02-20 11:31 · Score: 1

Thanks for sharing your prejudiced stereotypes. Sorry but they don't apply here.
And please, stop being a hypocrit:

We provide opportunities to disadvantaged groups to help achieve equality.
Yet you don't see the need to provide financial assistance to men to help them get into well paid professions such as medicine and law? Despite them being in the minority of entrants?
As I said, prejudiced. Now fuck off back to your ivory tower, I'm trying to live in the real world.
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-20 11:55 · Score: 1

Yet you don't see the need to provide financial assistance to men to help them get into well paid professions such as medicine and law?
I don't see the need. Men don't face the same barriers that women who want to enter those professions do. That we're seeing a major demographic shift suggests that those extra opportunities did, in fact, help women achieve equality. It's entirely possible that women won't need those advantages in the future as we'll have real equality.
Equality is good, isn't it?

As I said, prejudiced. Now fuck off back to your ivory tower, I'm trying to live in the real world.
No, you're not trying to live in the real world. You're trying to place responsibility for your failings on someone else. Know what I see when I read your post? "I'm not a doctor or a lawyer because I didn't have a special scholarship" and "I'm not more successful because the world is bias against me."
See, here in reality, you have countless advantages. How different would your life be if you were a woman? Would it be better or worse? What things can you do now that you wouldn't be able to do? What obstacles would you face that you don't face now?
Know what I can do? At 1 am on a weekend I can walk to a convenience store and back home without giving it a second thought. How many women can say that? Male privilege is extensive and varied. So much so that many don't even recognize it.

--
Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by Cederic · 2014-02-20 12:27 · Score: 1

I don't see the need. Men don't face the same barriers that women who want to enter those professions do.

Listen, fuckwit. MEN AREN'T ENTERING THOSE PROFESSIONS.
There are barriers. You bleating about male privilege is not backed up by the raw fucking numbers of men and women entering those professions.
Now fuck off and take a walk. It's nearly 1am here, and the streetlamps have all gone out. My female friends still manage not to be attacked. Meanwhile, men are MORE LIKELY than women to be assaulted. Just what the fuck is with your irrational prejudice.
Clearly you recognise your privilege to be a cunt. It's working for you, keep going.
Re:We are not equal... by narcc · 2014-02-20 14:41 · Score: 1

In your fantasy land ...

Listen, fuckwit. MEN AREN'T ENTERING THOSE PROFESSIONS.
Here in reality, things are dramatically different:
Here are the figures for Medicine and Law
Both are about 47/53 female/male
What was that you were saying again?

You bleating about male privilege is not backed up by the raw fucking numbers of men and women entering those professions.
Feeling foolish? I'll bet you do! Sorry about that. Reality is cruel sometimes...

--
Required reading for internet skeptics
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-21 05:32 · Score: 0

Ah yes, dismiss those who disagree as trolls while shouting them out of the discussion. Typical feminist tactics. If you can't win in the realm of logic and rationality, attack in the realm of loudness.
Re:We are not equal... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-27 20:24 · Score: 0

Women are smart enough not to waste their time on this sh_t, if you want my opinion.
Nope. I don't think we do.

Disposable Income by rmdingler · 2014-02-19 01:28 · Score: 1

This is entirely intuition, but I suspect the average American youth of Asian or European descent has parents who make more money.

Not only does this provide more toys, it also allows more leisure for their offspring.

--
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Ernest Hemingway

Re:Disposable Income by Piata · 2014-02-19 02:43 · Score: 1

That doesn't seem to be the case. StarCraft II was $50 at launch but quickly adopted free to play multiplayer options. League of Legends was free from the start. A lot of pro e-sports players come from lower to middle class incomes that rent time on computers at the local internet cafe. In Korea and more recently North America and Europe, teams provide shared housing complete with food and a house maid so there inncentive to get good at these games.
If you need a specific example, Huk had a pretty awful childhood and now lives in a team house, frequently sending money home to his dad and brother.

E-sports? by Lumpy · 2014-02-19 01:29 · Score: 0

Really? Does this term really have serious traction or is it another blogger term that is being used for page clicks?
It's called Video Games, and real players embrace that term.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Re:E-sports? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:35 · Score: 0

Here in Belgium the news media at the moment often refer to games as E-sports. Depends on the type of game though, a math learning game for children is just a video game, but for example WoW or LoL is E-sports.
Re:E-sports? by gnfnrf · 2014-02-19 01:41 · Score: 1

It is a common term in the ... fully professional competitive video game scene. And it's faster to type than that.
Re:E-sports? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:43 · Score: 2, Informative

E-Sport is a real thing with wide use, yes. There's quite a bit of money involved as well, depending on which game.
Video games are called e-sports when played in a professional setting, in organized tournaments etc.
Re:E-sports? by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 02:09 · Score: 1

Well that is what they call the leagues/events, what else would they call it.
If you are talking about the events themselves, they have a lot more than traction. They are bigger than RL sports in many countries.

--
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:E-sports? by fsck-beta · 2014-02-19 02:22 · Score: 1

That's because Koreans aren't manly enough for any real sports. They mature into 10 year old boys.
Re:E-sports? by Yosho · 2014-02-19 03:11 · Score: 1

"Real players" call themselves whatever they want and do not feel obligated to shoehorn themselves into whatever labels you have personally deemed acceptable.
And pretty much anybody who plays Starcraft, League of Legends, or Dota 2 competitively (among others) would tell you that "e-sport" is a common and perfectly acceptable term.

--
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)

Women in Esports are there by BisuDagger · 2014-02-19 01:30 · Score: 1

Women in ESports are still making their mark on the scene. Early on it was just Tossgirl the first female pro to compete in all male leagues for Starcraft one. Along with her coach January coached one of the first Starcraft teams. And now Starcraft 2 is making head way for females in competitive gaming. "Ladies of the Swarm", http://wiki.teamliquid.net/sta... , is a great tournament run by all women and has a pretty decent prizepool too. While females in competitive gaming is trailing behind there is no lack of involvement. The best interviewers, translators, and hosts for major Starcraft events are run by ladies. They all do a great job too and it has been a pleasure to meet many of them. Other then this being a slew of statistics, it doesn't really show anything new in the article or attempt to suggest solutions to this "problem." Females, whether gamers or ESports entertainers, get their opportunities as equally as men do. And in fact they are welcomed with open arms from the Starcraft community. And if it means anything, one of the top non-Korean progamers is a female.

Re:Women in Esports are there by Khashishi · 2014-02-19 11:17 · Score: 2

If you are talking about Scarlett, she doesn't count, because we don't have a very complete grasp of the underlying reasons for the gender gap. Therefore, we must allow for the possibility that genetics plays a role. She may be socially female, but biologically male. God, I'm going to get a lot of flak for this one.

in other news... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:32 · Score: 0

nothing but white bread at the Dave Matthews concert

Sample mean = population mean = OUTRAGE? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:32 · Score: 0

The vast majority of people who are serious enough about a game like SC2 or LOL to watch it online are male. Is it any surprise that the majority of attendees at an event who are there to watch it in person are male?

The majority of of the Major League Gaming events are in the United States. The percent of people in the USA that look like they're from the "Middle East" is vanishingly small. "Serious" gaming like SC2 or LOL requires a decent computer at the $500+ range. (monitors, keyboard, and mouse included) It also requires a decent internet connection especially in an age where LAN play is no longer widely available. A decent internet connection in the US costs at least $20 a month. Given the income distribution of the US (slanted heavily towards whites and asians), is it any surprise that the racial profile of competitive gamers mirrors that of people well off enough to afford the equipment?

Is there a gender gap in competitive chess? Yes. (Isolated/small team improvement training much like in gaming)

Is there a gender gap in competitive football? Yes. (Very high commitment of time and energy for a very small chance of making it big much like in gaming)

Is there a gender gap in computer science? Yes. (Many indications of passive/unconscious exclusion of women and blacks due to the attraction/selection/attrition process)

Is there a gender gap in cheerleading? Yes. (Social stereotypes that discourage many from participating if they are not $Physical Trait and $Racial Trait, people don't consider it a "real sport," etc.)

Why should we be surprised or upset that there's a gender gap in competitive gaming?

Alpha Male by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:33 · Score: 0

In my experience, most competitive/pro gamers have a Napoleon/Alpha Male complex. Congratulations, you're the best at playing a videogame! Those skills don't typically contribute to anything outside of gaming. It is not at all surprising to hear about a gender gap in competitive and pro gaming...

Re: Alpha Male by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:43 · Score: 0

First of all, games have been shown to increase reflexes, problem solving skills, creative thinking, and so on.
And real sports skills contribute little as well (maybe health benefits, but maybe athletes are injured in the process). Same with music skills or any other specialized entertainment skills. So your point is...?
Re: Alpha Male by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:04 · Score: 0

The point? That videogames aren't sports and that there is indeed a gender gap. Duh...

Gender gap: so what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:33 · Score: 1, Interesting

Prostitution Gender Gap: 95% female, 5% male.
I don't see social programs toward moving more males into prostitution. Nobody sees this a problem.
Why anyone should see gender inequality in gaming as 1st world problem?
Let girls be girls.

Women can be nerds as well... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:34 · Score: 0

The statistical probability of meeting one is just 0 :P

Different games by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:35 · Score: 0

Women play"games" like candy crush and farmville. That's why they don't watch e-sports.

Re:Different games by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 02:04 · Score: 1

SO the solution is simple. Make Farmville into a professional e-sport.
Oh God, No.

--
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.

Add more pink and purple by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:42 · Score: 0

And storytelling. Girls like storytelling.

Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:43 · Score: 0

Since you like libeling me? You ran from this "Chumpy" -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

(You sure "talk a good game" -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... but you can't even produce a MERE SCRIPT!, windbag...)

You aren't even on the level of a "script kiddie", & full of HOT AIR!

You certainly won't reply there in that 2nd link I posted either, as that would remove your downmods to my posts like this one you can't validly disprove or justify your downmod on -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm...

Oh, I suspect that IS the case here (simply logging out of a registered account & trolling by ac is a common troll trick around here OR using alternate registered 'luser' accounts sockpuppets to do the job will also, & Lumpy is LOADED with those & trolling - which doesn't matter: He PROVES he's all talk, no action (or skills, OR brains, lol))

(You're all TALK, & NO action "CHUMPY!)

* :)

(You know it, I know it, & so does anyone reading AND laughing their asses off @ you now... lol!)

APK

P.S.=> Answer the question in the subject-line Lumpy - since you had to "eat your wrods" in the 1st link above flavored with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH + the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", lol...

... apk

Re:Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:07 · Score: 0

To some people, e-sport means stalking registered users on Slashdot to accuse them of "trolling by ac". The irony
Re:Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:45 · Score: 0

Lumpy libeled apk. Apk shot lumpy down with facts. Lumpy ran http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... when that post shut him up. That's how I see it.
Re:Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:42 · Score: 0

Disregard that.

APK

P.S.=> I suck cock

...apk
Re:Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 07:58 · Score: 0

Better have 100++ modpoints Lumpy to go with your sockpuppets too - see your post history, chump!
(Especially since I KNOW why you won't post here using your "registered 'luser'" acct. -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... since it will remove ALL downmods YOU applied prior to that post in response to you there... lol, I am PRETTY SURE it was you doing those, so let's see YOU post there (that, or you used sockpuppets to do so)).
You "Run, Forrest - RUN!!!" from THIS challenge in parenthesis above?
Man - I will have your ASS same way I caught tomhudson = Barbara, not Barbie using BOTH of those sockpuppet multiple accounts for trolling... lol!
* Like I said: I will win... - I do, ALWAYS!
(Especially, vs. no-mind/done zeros like yourself in the art & science of computing (especially in comparison to myself)
APK
P.S.=> By the way, Lumpy? ANY commercially sold code to your name that was a 2 yr. in a ROW finalist @ MS-TechEd? Mine was 2000-2002!
Additionally - JUST like how I shot you DOWN easily with concrete, verifiable & UNDENIABLE facts you RAN from, here (with Mr. Steven Burn who works for malwarebytes) -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Yes - I can do the EXACT SAME on what I noted now, albeit w/ Mr. Eric Dickman, owner of SuperSpeed.com (whose ware my idea & code made that very set of apps 40% faster for that very set of technical conferences)
So - how about you, BIG talker - answer that question that starts ouf my 'p.s.' here!
I doubt it on YOUR end, dunce... lol!
... apk
Re:Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 09:52 · Score: 0

kill all niggers and kikes
Re:Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 09:57 · Score: 0

APK, please. We know that that is you. Absolutely no other human on Earth would possibly support you. Cockpuppeting support for yourself like this just makes you look even more pathetic. Please stop.
Re:Lumpy how'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 12:39 · Score: 0

Lumpy, APK doesn't need support. You run from posting where you did bad mods proving you did them and can't justify why. You won't post there since it undoes them proving you did them. That much is certain as much as it's clear you are posting now.

So what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:47 · Score: 0

Women can play e-sports too, if they are not as interested in it as men, so what?

she's got game by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:51 · Score: -1

(CNN) -- An 84-year-old nun was sentenced to 35 months in prison Tuesday for breaking into a nuclear facility, her lawyer said. In May, a federal jury in Knoxville, Tennessee, found Sister Megan Rice; Greg Boertje-Obed, 57; and Michael Walli, 63, guilty of . wtf

Re: Whites and Asians do esports because they can' by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 01:51 · Score: 1

And the NHL, arguably more athletic and dangerous than the NBA or NFL, is 95+% white dudes. Explain that one!

how do they know this? by bitt3n · 2014-02-19 01:54 · Score: 2

WellPlayed, said, '[A] whopping 90-94% of the viewers were male, and interestingly enough, only about half of the remaining survey takers felt comfortable being identified as female.'

If half the remaining survey takers didn't reveal their sex (assuming this is in fact what is meant by the above), how can one profess to know they are female?

--
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?

Re:how do they know this? by sandytaru · 2014-02-19 02:30 · Score: 1

I think the survey was 1. Male 2. Female 3. Do not want to disclose. 90-94% said they were male, and of the remaining 6-10%, half said they were female. The other half preferred not to say. But that does mean between 3-5% actually did identify as female.

--
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Re:how do they know this? by bitt3n · 2014-02-19 02:45 · Score: 1

I think the survey was 1. Male 2. Female 3. Do not want to disclose. 90-94% said they were male, and of the remaining 6-10%, half said they were female. The other half preferred not to say. But that does mean between 3-5% actually did identify as female.
If that is so, then it is incorrect to infer the sex of those who preferred not to disclose it.

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how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Re:how do they know this? by phantomfive · 2014-02-19 05:13 · Score: 1

They didn't profess to know it, you inferred it. What they said was, "only half (of x number) felt comfortable being identified as female." Some people don't feel comfortable being identified as female because they are, in fact, male. You should realize that.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:how do they know this? by bitt3n · 2014-02-19 05:44 · Score: 1

They didn't profess to know it, you inferred it. What they said was, "only half (of x number) felt comfortable being identified as female." Some people don't feel comfortable being identified as female because they are, in fact, male. You should realize that.
One cannot speak to what percentage of those who did not report their sex are male and what percentage are female, nor to their motivations for withholding this information. To infer that the sex this group felt "uncomfortable" reporting was female, rather than male, is unjustified. To infer that members of this group were "uncomfortable" reporting their sex is also unjustified, given that one might refuse to disclose information for other reasons than comfort. For example, one might refuse to provide information he expects might be employed by nitwits inclined to jump to unjustified conclusions.

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how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Re:how do they know this? by phantomfive · 2014-02-19 15:32 · Score: 1

One cannot speak to what percentage of those who did not report their sex are male and what percentage are female
Yes, fortunately they didn't do that.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:how do they know this? by bitt3n · 2014-02-19 16:14 · Score: 1

He said half the remainder felt comfortable identifying themselves as female, and half did not. It is obtuse to suppose he believes the half that did not was comprised in part of males who failed to provide a response on the ground specified, namely that they were uncomfortable identifying themselves as females, given that if this were indeed their objection, they would simply have identified themselves as males. This option was not available to the females, unless we suppose that a significant number of the study's participants was lying, which would invalidate the results in the first place. If you are deliberately straddling the boundary between sophistry and beetle-browed obstinance, I can only congratulate you on your success.

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how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Re:how do they know this? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-20 07:38 · Score: 0

Me being a transgender, there is a difference between sex and gender, so it depends exactly on the wording on the question aswell as self confidence, im not sure what i would put down on such a survey and as such that could account for some of the non disclousred answers.
Re:how do they know this? by anyGould · 2014-02-20 09:31 · Score: 1

I think the survey was 1. Male 2. Female 3. Do not want to disclose. 90-94% said they were male, and of the remaining 6-10%, half said they were female. The other half preferred not to say. But that does mean between 3-5% actually did identify as female.
If that is so, then it is incorrect to infer the sex of those who preferred not to disclose it.
The 90/10 number is male:not-male, so the number is accurate as far as the reporting goes. But considering it's no big secret that many women check the "male" box (to keep the Nice Shoes Brigade away), so I'm skeptical that that 90% is actually 90% in reality.

Me = competitive, women = social? by Stolpskott · 2014-02-19 01:55 · Score: 2

My first instinct was to think that the competitive nature of e-sports would be more likely to attract men than women, as men are "naturally" more competitive when playing games, while women (in my experience) tend to play games either to socialize or relax. It is a very broad brush to paint the two sexes with, but as we are basically looking at a sub-section of men (those who are interested in playing or watching e-sports) versus an entire gender (women, specifically why are there not more of them playing/watching e-sports) any comparisons are going to be a bit disingenuous.
However, I suspect that a large percentage of people who chose not to declare their gender in the survey are doing so out of a sense of privacy, rather than a desire to hide the "fact" that they are women... unless they are also attending the venue where the survey is taken while wearing androgynous clothing designed to mask their gender, and expect to be pounced on like an antelope surrounded by a pack of hungry lions if there is even a hint of femininity (disturbingly, that is probably not far from the truth in some cases).

Re:Me = competitive, women = social? by sandytaru · 2014-02-19 02:33 · Score: 1

Actually, I think that may be part of it. There are individually competitive women, of course, but I think most women who have that kind of drive are already doing real sports. I personally find a lot more enjoyment in team-based video games and activities than in solo play, which is why "E-Sports" seems like a weird hobby to me despite the fact that I play games several hours a day.

--
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Re:Me = competitive, women = social? by Ardyvee · 2014-02-19 04:04 · Score: 1

You could always play Team-based e-sports, though.
Now, back to the topic at hand... I think that some of the high-profile games tend to have a plot/story and/or serveral characters that may not appeal to women. Thus, they do not try video games. Those that do then have to go through Internet (it isn't pretty, and it isn't just related to video games) on their way to tournaments/professional playing (because even if they don't really go online, people will find their info and bring it outside the Internet). Important: it doesn't take many to make the Internet a scary place. A few will look like many and feel like many.
That, however, is probably changing. Just as it becomes more common and less strange for girls to play games from a young age, and just as a few of them join the industry, there will be more games that will appeal to more women in general and the end result is that we will probably have more female professional players.
A very important factor in how we behave is how we are educated. Women tend to want to cooperate more because that's the way we teach them (it was until a while a go that you would have the girl learn how to do chores around the house and have them take care of the children while young, while this didn't happen as much with boys). It all seems like so far away, but it really was just now.

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I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.
Re:Me = competitive, women = social? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 05:32 · Score: 0

My first instinct was to think that the competitive nature of e-sports would be more likely to attract men than women
My first instinct was to think that e-sports is becoming more and more accepted among females.
I have followed competitive gaming for a while and even when it comes to non-competitive game content like gaming news the numbers reported are usually that 5% of the viewers are female.
Note that this only is relevant to competitive gaming and gaming related content that isn't actually playing, when it comes to playing and you bring WoW and Sims into the mix the number of females players are pretty close to the number of male players. The type of games differs.
The survey says that 6% of the Starcraft 2 players and 10% of the LoL players are female. This means that more female players are entering competitive gaming in multiple games. The lower number for Starcraft 2 is a bit interesting but does not necessarily mean that it is less friendly for females. The study also shows that Starcraft 2 attracts players with a higher education compared to other games. (The currently best non transsexual female Starcraft 2 player is a Ph.D student in math.) The difference in number of female players between the game could just as well be the result of other social structures.
Re:Me = competitive, women = social? by AmiMoJo · 2014-02-19 05:57 · Score: 1

Professional sports suggest otherwise. Women seem to be just as competitive, but historically have not had the same opportunities to play as men.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Me = competitive, women = social? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 08:07 · Score: 0

...and ? ? ?
there is no discernible reason for that discrepancy ? ? ?
love women, (used to be a feminist, but with the ones these days, i don't want to be associated with them), but that does not mean i want to see them play -say- football (you know, the oblate spheriod one, not the non-scoring one), 'cause they suck at it... unless they are nekkid, it would be boring... sorry, but that is based on a true story...
this butt-hurt bullshit that the female of the species *MUST* have 50/50 participation in EVERYTHING is wrong on so many levels as to be retarded... (and, as numerous -you know, woman-haters- point out, funny how that doesn't work the other way around: traditional or mainly woman dominated professions, sports, etc get no such grief for not being 'inclusive'... why is that ? ? ? could it be the 'H' word ? ? ? na-a-a-h-h-h...)
we all *SHOULD* be equal in the eyes of the law and of opportunity, but that does NOT mean we are all equal of ability or predisposition... we are not all identical androids, and i kinda like it that way...

How are they defining "gamer"? by ildon · 2014-02-19 02:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

The problem with saying "half of gamers are female" is in how you identify someone as a "gamer." If you identify someone who plays phone games but doesn't own a console and hasn't purchased a AAA game since they left high school as a "gamer," you're not going to be pulling from the same pool as people who would be interested in actually playing StarCraft II or League of Legends competitively. For the purposes of identifying the gender game in e-sports, those casual gamers are not "gamers." And if that means that the pool of available players shifts to something like 75% male (I have no idea if this is true or not, this is entirely a hypothetical), then the gender gap does not appear *as* bad (but obviously would still exist). And if that means the pool shifts to 90% male, then the gender game as it applies to e-sports basically does not exist, because the gender gap in e-sports would be a result of the gender game in competitive games in general, and not an e-sports specific problem.

Re:How are they defining "gamer"? by thesandtiger · 2014-02-19 02:29 · Score: 1

I agree with your idea that we're looking at the wrong populations, and actually would suggest that "e-sport" people aren't "gamers" but rather "people who play obsessively".
Look at the population of people who play a single game obsessively, then look at the population of people who play said game at the competitive level, and I'm sure any demographic gaps would disappear almost completely.

--
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Re:How are they defining "gamer"? by gajop · 2014-02-19 04:17 · Score: 1

Well at first I thought it would be discrimination to say that certain "casual" games aren't games, but then I realized that technically my mother plays video games for 10+ years now (solitaire type games), and I would never have considered her a gamer - so those figures are really meaningless.
I really doubt there are 50% female gamers in most games being played as e-sports, even 10% seems optimistic.

Typo by ildon · 2014-02-19 02:01 · Score: 1

identifying the gender game in e-sports,

I meant "gender gap."

And this seals it. Woman are superior. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:02 · Score: 0

To be fare, we should have known better the moment 22 grown-ass men decided to get together and chase after a ball using nothing but their heads and feet...

Then again, there is the matter of shoes and jewellery...

Author shows their own bias :-( by clay_shooter · 2014-02-19 02:02 · Score: 2

Black and Middle Eastern esports fans are conspicuously missing.

Hispanics make up 17% of the US population and aren't mentioned at all. What's up with that?

Those of Middle Eastern ancestry make up .42% of the US population. That would be 4 people at a 1000 person convention. The small percentage makes it very easy to skew the over/under representation.

Re: Whites and Asians do esports because they can' by mark-t · 2014-02-19 02:04 · Score: 1

You don't have to be able to throw or jump in hockey except *after* you score a goal, or your team has won the game.

More seriously, skating does not consume anywhere nearly as much energy per unit of time as running at the equivalent speeds... and since you did say it was only "arguably" more athletic, I figured that meant it would be okay to argue with you.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

Re: Whites and Asians do esports because they can' by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:06 · Score: 0

You don't need to be able to jump really high to play hockey.

Girls play with barbies, boys play sports! OMFG! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:07 · Score: 1

Am I the only one who looks at these things and thinks, "Well, DUUUUUUhhh."

The marketing departments know it. The psychologists know it. Why does anyone think this is an issue?

If you hand my daughters a 4x4 post, they're going to sit it on end and dance around it.

If you had the same 4x4 post to my son, he's going to beat the shit out of things.

What makes the difference?

_BALLS_

So why is this considered a problem?

This seems like another veiled attack on masculinity to me.

Players or Spectators? by wisnoskij · 2014-02-19 02:07 · Score: 1

Make up your mind. The summery keeps switching between the two, like they are the same thing.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.

Re: Whites and Asians do esports because they can' by CastrTroy · 2014-02-19 02:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

Cost of entry. Even as a white dude with a decent income, hockey is one of the few things that is off the table for my kids, because it's just too expensive. The amount of training that people put their kids through in Hockey in unlike any sport out there. You won't see kids who only ever played on an outdoor rink making it into the professional leagues. 20 years ago, that might have happened. But parents now spend thousands of dollars per year putting their kids in training camps, travelling leagues, and all other sorts of expensive endeavors, making the sport completely inaccessible to low income families, and even middle income families who don't want to devote all their resources to the sport.

--

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.

Gender roles, ethnic roles, pass the butter... by wjcofkc · 2014-02-19 02:13 · Score: 1

I am one of those annoying socially progressive types that calls people and business out when I see them assigning genders roles to kids. The difference in male and female toy isles is a big pet peeve of mine. But that's not what I am here to comment on, I just want people to know where I am coming from regarding the following statements:

So we know that roughly half of all gamers are women yet nearly none attend these events. First, I would like to see a breakdown of game genre's between men and women. There are differences in the way we approach the world, and therefor the worlds these games provide. Of course this cannot be exclusive, my GF prefers Grand Theft Auto over Portal, so let's assume there is little difference in the games being played.

When Street Fighter x Tekken player Aris Bakhtanians made a string of uncomfortable sexual comments toward female teammate Miranda “SuperYan” Pakozdi while broadcasting live on a major event’s stream, the incident made international headlines far beyond the gaming press. Bakhtanians guessed at Pakozdi’s bra size and asked to watch her in the bathroom, among other comments.

Here's the problem: marketing. These events are being marketed to people with the mindset in my above quote from the article, because the marketers have a stereotypical, gender role assigning mindset and approach.

By contrast, nearly half of all video game players today are women and 46 percent of the Super Bowl viewing audience is female.

The NFL got things right. They took an event the was stereotypicaly assigned to men, realized they were missing half the potential viewership, and marketed successfully to both men and women.

WellPlayed, an esports production company, conducted the survey over the course of one year at the CLG Premiere Series (League of Legends, Feb. 2013), the Spring Promotion Tournament (League of Legends, Dec. 2013), and the Ender’s Game on Blu-Ray Tournament (StarCraft 2, Feb. 2014). Of the 2,040 respondents, 69 were female; 33 listed themselves as “other.”

The fact that an esports Production company is conducting this survey tells me that someone in their marketing department got a clue and realized they were only marketing to half their potential revenue stream. So in defense of the sexism, it's a brand new industry trying to figure itself and it's market out. To apply my own stereotype, I would be willing to venture that this entire business model originated from immature young males. If the survey is an indication that they are considering an environment friendly to both sides, marketing and advertising are powerful things and honestly I don't think it would take a whole lot to turn this mess around.

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Brought to you by Carl's Junior.

Re:Gender roles, ethnic roles, pass the butter... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 04:40 · Score: 0

Which just goes to show you - there are few problems that can't be resolved by shooting a sufficient number of leftists.
Re:Gender roles, ethnic roles, pass the butter... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 08:17 · Score: 0

I am one of those annoying socially progressive types that calls people and business out when I see them assigning genders roles to kids. The difference in male and female toy isles is a big pet peeve of mine. But that's not what I am here to comment on, I just want people to know where I am coming from regarding the following statements: So we know that roughly half of all gamers are women yet nearly none attend these events. First, I would like to see a breakdown of game genre's between men and women. There are differences in the way we approach the world, and therefor the worlds these games provide.
Freely admitting that there are differences in the way men and women approach the world, but strangely believe that boys and girls should have the same toys?

yawn by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:14 · Score: 0

Another great slashdot story, not
Who gives a fuck, why do I still visit this shit site?

Yeah, so what? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:20 · Score: 0

Big deal. Not everything has to be gender neutral, or racially diverse. And if it's not, that's not evidence of a conspiracy or something that has to be corrected...

If women as a group really care - they can start a group...

If Race X as a group really cares, they too can start a group...

The groups can then choose (or not) to compete against each other...

what a stupid article by slashmydots · 2014-02-19 02:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

That's because testosterone makes us competitive and aggressive where as most women find a lot of games pointless. That is THE reason, this isn't a problem, this isn't sexism, and this isn't an article worth reading. The end.

Re:what a stupid article by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:10 · Score: 1

That's because testosterone makes us competitive and aggressive where as most women find a lot of games pointless. That is THE reason, this isn't a problem, this isn't sexism, and this isn't an article worth reading. The end.
Then perhaps THE problem is the fact that most (all?) games are programmed around the testosterone-fueled male intellect, which creates gameplay equal to monkeys running around with machine guns.
Perhaps even further root cause analysis will reveal that most programmers are male as well. Is the problem that we need more female coders, or is the problem the fact that violence inherently sells, and violence is still predominantly a function of the male species (for better or worse)?
Seems you can't just simplify this "problem" down and call it "The end" when said "problem" is seen in more than one area of the entire industry feeding it.
Re:what a stupid article by twocows · 2014-02-19 03:52 · Score: 1

To start with, no, not all games are designed for the "testosterone-fueled male intellect." If that's what you think, you only have exposure to the ultra-popular games (and they're ultra-popular because the testosterone-fueled male intellect has a lot of money). If you want games for whatever other crowd (I'm guessing women, since it's the general topic of discussion), you're going to need to make a persuasive argument as to why a profit-seeking entity should bother with you and, furthermore, come to the discussion table and talk to people about what you want and how to do it without sacrificing what other people want and what the game is about. Regarding the first part (I'll touch on the second part later), game devs and publishers are, nine times out of ten, ultimately looking to make money. Games for "girls," while often being misguided and pretty blatantly offensive to begin with, tend to sell very poorly. The largest and most lucrative audience is the male gamer, 18-24, who is influenced by his peers. So the big-money games tend to be targeted toward that crowd. There's a bit of a negative feedback loop going on: women tend to be less interested in games in general, and this results in game developers not making a concerted effort to make games that would appeal to them, thus strengthening the general disinterest in games by that audience.

That said, creators often create what they know. Most game devs grew up surrounded by the last generation of gaming culture: D&D, point-and-clicks, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, etc. That kind of thing shows through in a lot of games. Speaking generally, women weren't really a part of that culture to any significant degree. Modern devs really have no idea how to make a game appeal to women, especially in the context of everything else they're trying to do with their game. Devs usually make what they know they would like (provided the game's not being written by committee for that college bro gamer market). If you want these games to be designed in a way that appeals more to you, you're first going to have to educate people on what it is you want that's different from what's available: what you think is fun and interesting, why and how it's different from what's offered, etc. And, of course, you're going to need to be able to sell it, because, as mentioned, ultimately the goal is money. People might give your ideas a chance if they make sense, but they better pay off.

I am a part of a specific gaming community that largely opposes a lot of the "we're not appealing to X enough" mentality that's starting to become pervasive in the modern discussion about games. Speaking for others here, and not myself, a lot of people are afraid that this whole mentality's going to ruin what has produced fantastic games in the past. People in the community I am part of are afraid that there won't be that next Planescape: Torment, that there won't be the next Myst, or Half-Life 2, or Metroid Prime, or whatever. They're afraid that all games are going to be designed specifically to pander to some particular market segment (women or not). That's the fear, and it's what causes the hostility. Personally, I don't think it'll ever be so bad that it prevents good works from showing up. It's true that there is some pandering going on to that 18-24 "testosterone gamer" crowd as mentioned earlier, and publishers are starting to direct devs to pander to other crowds, but there are still good games being made for the sake of being good games. I don't think this pandering mentality is ever going to become the one and only force in game design to the complete detriment of creative expression. I would like the discussion to get away from this whole "we need to be inclusive of everyone" mentality, though. I think some people are starting to losing sight of what makes a really good game.

Anyway, that last part was a bit of a tangent. What I'm trying to say is that a lot of the hostility you're seeing from certain people comes from a fear of losing what they love. If you have this good thing g
Re:what a stupid article by Ardyvee · 2014-02-19 04:14 · Score: 1

I think it's more related to art/plot/story direction than gameplay itself, although I'll admit that you are right in stating that men tend more towards violence (from young males tend to be encouraged to do that. Just notice how people give toy guns and action figures that everything around them is violence [yes, superheros ARE about violence. How many superheros do you see solving problems through argumentation, for example?]). And yes, we probably need more females in the video game industry (not just coders) because it's damned hard to make something for a group you know nothing about (which is covered by knowing people from the other gender, but still. There is a difference between "I think that $DemographicGroup will like x and y" and "I'll like x and y, and $DemographicGroup will probably too, since I'm part of it".

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I don't care if I'm wrong. I only care about everyone obtaining something from the discussion.

Re:Girls play with barbies, boys play sports! OMFG by Chrisq · 2014-02-19 02:22 · Score: 1

If you had the same 4x4 post to my son, he's going to beat the shit out of things.

hey .... is that you Dad? You need to pick me up at the local precinct again.

The porn industry is sexist too! by erroneus · 2014-02-19 02:23 · Score: 2, Funny

The porn industry has some amazingly sexist statistics. It's a very sexist industry. Something needs to be done about that!! We have to encourage more women to enjoy watching porn and more men to engage in producing it. Yeah... equality in all business and recreation. That's the ticket!

Re:The porn industry is sexist too! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:27 · Score: 0

Add in the amount of women reading romance novels and the statistics are much more even. Females desire more emotional support as getting pregnant and trying to give birth in a stressful environment is a bad idea. The baby is less likely to survive and all the resources that went into it are wasted. Males have less of a commitment after sexual acts so they're more visual based. Once they see a ready female they're ready as well. As current porn is defined as sexual images and movies, it will always be skewed towards males. Books provide much better emotions than pictures but books aren't considered porn. At most they're soft porn, which is rarely banned, censored, or considered a bad habit. After all, it's just reading...

Study on the issue in more depth by Luckyo · 2014-02-19 02:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

http://psychology.wichita.edu/...

The numbers pretty much match up. This is simply a gender based preference. Argument that "women play more but are discriminated against in competitive scene" which is what these claims usually push appears to be patently false - the issue is that women are simply not interested in comeptitive gaming, preferring cooperative gaming instead.

Re: Whites and Asians do esports because they can' by Mashiki · 2014-02-19 02:31 · Score: 1

And the NHL, arguably more athletic and dangerous than the NBA or NFL, is 95+% white dudes. Explain that one!

Everyone knows that hockey is the national past time in Canada, as such we get a controlling stake in the say of who gets to play. No one, not even Americans can tell us otherwise. Now that I've let the secret out though, we can't have you spreading it around...

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Om, nomnomnom...

Taxi drivers 90% male by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:39 · Score: 0

MACHISM OVER HERE!! smallcharacterstobalanceoff

Re:Taxi drivers 90% male by Khashishi · 2014-02-19 11:22 · Score: 1

Men are dominant in all risky professions. Taxi driving is dangerous.
E-sports is risky for another reason. You could lose, and go home with nothing.

A Couple of Thoughts by EXTomar · 2014-02-19 02:41 · Score: 1

1. "It Is The Tools (Stupid)." And by that I mean "the tools" I mean the software used to watch and participate. None of this is exactly "user friendly" or easily discoverable. I don't play "League of Legends" but I do play "Dota 2" a lot and you have to actively follow reddit.com/r/Dota2 and know where to look for the information on the software let alone matches. It is difficult if not impossible to even use social "share" mechanism. And even using the hooks offered from Twitch.tv into FB/G+/Twitter just means your "regular" page becomes a spammy mess.

This isn't about "dumbing down" or "making it easy for girls". If you want casual players to participate by simply watching a match that can be a chore even for hard core gamers because they haven't followed "the scene".

2. I am suspicious of the data because a lot of the metrics that float around for "Dota 2" don't even collect "gender". Dotabuff.com catalogs a huge volume of stats on all matches played where it can tell you things win/loss of any particular hero, item popularity, stats for some players (that enable public posting), and a bunch of other tidbits but for all of the data and stat tracking it has it can't answer a simple question: How many matches where played by women? There are 530,000,000~ matches stored and yet there is no evidence supporting it either way. Using one survey at one event (is this even a major?) is the definition of "inconclusive".

Re:A Couple of Thoughts by shadowrat · 2014-02-19 03:18 · Score: 1

1. "It Is The Tools (Stupid)." And by that I mean "the tools" I mean the software used to watch and participate. None of this is exactly "user friendly" or easily discoverable. I don't play "League of Legends" but I do play "Dota 2" a lot and you have to actively follow reddit.com/r/Dota2 and know where to look for the information on the software let alone matches. It is difficult if not impossible to even use social "share" mechanism. And even using the hooks offered from Twitch.tv into FB/G+/Twitter just means your "regular" page becomes a spammy mess.
hard to find games to watch in dota2? maybe you never clicked the watch button right there on the title screen.

Not news by davidwr · 2014-02-19 02:43 · Score: 1

For nerds? Check. News? Not so much.

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Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

goes both ways by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 02:45 · Score: 0

99% of men have some health care by the time they are adults but less then 99% of men are nurses. Why are we discriminating against men!

99% of men had a elementary school education but there are less then 50% male teachers discrimination i say!

Online no one can tell you aren't a woman by goombah99 · 2014-02-19 02:47 · Score: 1

Plus they do chromosome testing at the E_sports events, so the 50% of male gamers that pretend to be women on-line can't pass at the event.

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Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Hockey = Canada = 2.9% black by raymorris · 2014-02-19 02:48 · Score: 1

And the NHL ... is 95+% white dudes

Hockey is the national sport of Canada. Canada is 95+% white.

Re:Hockey = Canada = 2.9% black by germansausage · 2014-02-19 03:08 · Score: 1

"Canada is 95+% white." Have you been to Vancouver lately?

Does testosterone have anything to do with it? by sideslash · 2014-02-19 02:54 · Score: 2

I love watching nature. The female deer come out every spring and engage in these amazing head-butting fights to see who will win the docile males. Or something like that.

Of course, there are exceptions to behavior patterns among individuals. But facts are facts, and male (not-equals) female.

Re:Does testosterone have anything to do with it? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:29 · Score: 0

Make a 'protect your babies' video game instead of 'kill everyone' and maybe there will be more competitive women playing it?
Re:Does testosterone have anything to do with it? by DoofusOfDeath · 2014-02-19 05:02 · Score: 1

Actaually, as a father myself, I'd find protecting my family to be pretty darn motivating. In fact, if you look at the story lines for a number of games, they involve protecting children, even if the actual gameplay is somewhat divorced from that.

Just like in real life, men watch competition by mveloso · 2014-02-19 03:13 · Score: 1

The numbers for sporting events are the same for e-sporting events: most viewers are male.

YOU DON'T SAY ? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:27 · Score: 0

posting anon to cover up my karma

I really wanted to use this meme, I like it a lot.

That's 10% better than professional football by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:28 · Score: 0

So they've got that going for them, which is nice.

No shit. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:29 · Score: 0

It's also 90% antisocial assholes. Its a pit of the very worst personalities in the online gaming community and I'm glad they keep to themselves. The girls stay away because they know it's not worth trying to insert themselves in to such a toxic environment.

Gee, I wonder why. by Arancaytar · 2014-02-19 03:33 · Score: 1

only about half of the remaining survey takers felt comfortable being identified as female

It's almost as if girls are actively made to feel unwelcome in gamer culture or something.

Are we supposed to be shamed? by cfalcon · 2014-02-19 03:38 · Score: 1

That we like something that other white dudes and asian dudes are into? Fuck no. It's fine. Not everyone has to like every thing. If only white guys like it, that doesn't mean that something must be WRONG with it, or white guys, or that the whole institution is sexist and/or racist.

The NBA isn't very racially diverse, and has 0 sexual diversity. Who gives a fuck?

Re: Whites and Asians do esports because they can' by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 03:52 · Score: 0

I'm not convinced you've ever watched a hockey game. The athletes aren't gliding on the ice; they're effectively running on it and they do travel far more distance than most other sports require. Not to take away from the physical demands of other sports, but there is a reason most hockey shifts are only a few minutes long.

"sports" by bambewn · 2014-02-19 03:53 · Score: 1

I... I don't think you know the meaning of the word?

Compare with other competitive activities by Daniel+Hoffmann · 2014-02-19 04:00 · Score: 1

How does this compare with other competitive activities? Without a reference point there is no basis for any assumption.

My (totally non-scientific) guess is that this is just a consequence of how the genders are raised. Boys are usually encouraged to take sports and play with cars while woman are encouraged to play with dolls and play instruments. This favors boys to have a more obsessive drive to master a subject, be it sports, science, or competitive videogames.

Sexism in eSports is real! by deaf.seven · 2014-02-19 04:00 · Score: 1

In the popular eSports titles (LoL, Dota 2, SC2, CS GO and a few more) there are many competitive female teams and there are also many female tournaments.
However, their skill level is simply far away from that of male teams and the female tournaments are also significantly smaller.
But that's not really a problem.

What's really the problem is the sexism in the community. Often, female teams are only reduced to what their members look like. Going through commets (before the mods clean them up), you can see plenty of evidence of this.

Since I regularly play competitive (CS GO) myself with mixed teams, I just keep witnessing it over and over again. Once you hear a female voice in teamspeak/ventrilo/mumble (with VoIP you can't really hide your gender), there is surely gonna be at least one male players that's gonna make a comment.

Interestingly enough there seem to be many female gamers that kind of enjoy the extra attention too.

But still, there is a significant amount of male gamers that are simply sexist towards female gamers.

One very interesting case is that of the Canadian female SC2 pro gamer Sasha 'Scarlett' Hostyn. Currently she's considered the best foreigner by many (Koreans are Koreans and the rest of the world are foreigners in SC2, because Koreans dominate so hard and there are only few Non-Korean that can keep up with them... barely)
She was born as a male, but feels as a female.
Well sadly, there are many many male players that make a lot of fun of her.

(here a very good article about it from Day9 who's a rather famous SC2 commentator: http://day9.tv/d/Philosopher/a... )

Re:Sexism in eSports is real! by geekoid · 2014-02-19 04:26 · Score: 1

She was born as a male, but feels as a female."
70's pop psychology bullshit.
She can dress how she wants. make herself up to look female, I don't care. But that person doesn't know what it's like to 'feel female' anymore then I know what it feels to be anther man. It's stupid. No one know what it feels like to be someone else much less a different gender.
It's insulting to women, and it dismisses what could be actual mental issues.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Sexism in eSports is real! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 08:17 · Score: 0

Oh wow -- I knew you were kind of on the fringe of gender-whackos, but I had no idea you were a TERF.
Please, keep speaking up loud and clear, so that we can spotlight you as one of the hateful bigots that actually drives policy behind feminist organizations.

Lumpy "impersonates me"? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 04:05 · Score: 0

Better have 100++ modpoints Lumpy to go with your sockpuppets too - see your post history, chump!

(Especially since I KNOW why you won't post here using your "registered 'luser'" acct. -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... since it will remove ALL downmods YOU applied prior to that post in response to you there... lol, I am PRETTY SURE it was you doing those, so let's see YOU post there (that, or you used sockpuppets to do so)).

You "Run, Forrest - RUN!!!" from THIS challenge in parenthesis above?

Man - I will have your ASS same way I caught tomhudson = Barbara, not Barbie using BOTH of those sockpuppet multiple accounts for trolling... lol!

* Like I said: I will win... - I do, ALWAYS!

(Especially, vs. no-mind/done zeros like yourself in the art & science of computing (especially in comparison to myself).

APK

P.S.=> By the way, Lumpy? ANY commercially sold code to your name that was a 2 yr. in a ROW finalist @ MS-TechEd? Mine was 2000-2002!

Additionally - JUST like how I shot you DOWN easily with concrete, verifiable & UNDENIABLE facts you RAN from, here (with Mr. Steven Burn who works for malwarebytes) -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... ...?

Yes - I can do the EXACT SAME on what I noted now, albeit w/ Mr. Eric Dickman, owner of SuperSpeed.com (whose ware my idea & code made that very set of apps 40% faster for that very set of technical conferences)

So - how about you, BIG talker - answer that question that starts ouf my 'p.s.' here!

I doubt it on YOUR end, dunce... lol!

... apk

because by geekoid · 2014-02-19 04:08 · Score: 1

women are smarter then that?

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The comments demonstrate why by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 04:12 · Score: 0

These comments are a great example of one of the big drivers of the gap. The gaming community is hostile towards women. When someone says "women are less good at gaming than men," that's textbook stereotype threat. My wife and I play games together, and when we play Dota2 she won't talk unless we know everyone on our team, because people freak out when they hear a female voice. When she does talk, she gets friend requests after (not an exaggeration).

To what extent the hostile environment prevents women from competing in or enjoying esports I don't know. But I do have personal experience of it being a problem.

You Missed The Problem (Re:A Couple of Thoughts) by EXTomar · 2014-02-19 04:12 · Score: 1

You clearly don't see the problem.

Lets say you are a new guy (or girl) who has only heard of "Dota 2" from the guys at work who won't stop talking about it so you want to watch a few games to see for yourself. You need to install the client which isn't that hard (as difficult as anything else on Steam) but it is not stupidly trivial either. You can try the default settings but that is a "your mileage may vary" situation where one might have to tweak the graphical settings to get a smooth running display. Now that you have system setup what game do you watch. As you astutely point out there is a big fat WATCH button at the top but the problem is that it is a giant list of games of public games which are of varying quality but ultimately not that important matches. Tournaments are on the other tab and those are better quality matches and often have commentary attached but they (often) require buying a ticket which may be a shock to someone new.

Finding out what is going on the next episode of "Survivor" is easy. Finding out when the next game for the Boston Celtics is easy. Finding out when the next game Na'vi is going to play is difficult. Where is "corey" from Zephyr right now? You have to follow their FB page and follow reddit.com and even follow a few players to figure out the right time to be online to start watching. All of that makes it hard if not impossible for anyone who wants to be casual about following games because by the time they see this stuff pop up in a new feed or whatever it is too late.

The point is that for a new guy, they are given no clues on what to watch or when to watch or even why they should bother to pay money to watch. Forget the gender thing, the only people who are watching competitive MOBA games know exactly what they are doing and the neophytes are left out. No one should be shocked that random men or women aren't interested because its convoluted to follow and sustain interest.

Easy to solve problem. Proven method by Tanuki64 · 2014-02-19 04:22 · Score: 1

Just make the games for women easier and bore men away. More women, less men... ratio improved. Problem solved.

Don't understand sporting video games... by CohibaVancouver · 2014-02-19 04:22 · Score: 1

I've never really understood the point of sporting video games. If you're playing a game, why wouldn't you fly a spaceship or kill aliens or build a railway or raid tombs or do something that you couldn't otherwise do in real life?

Why play a soccer video game when you can just go outside and play soccer?

(Exceptions, of course, for those people with physical disabilities. If you like soccer and don't have use of your legs I suppose it makes sense, but I also assume this is a small minority of players.)

Re:Don't understand sporting video games... by genner · 2014-02-19 04:33 · Score: 1

I've never really understood the point of sporting video games. If you're playing a game, why wouldn't you fly a spaceship or kill aliens or build a railway or raid tombs or do something that you couldn't otherwise do in real life? Why play a soccer video game when you can just go outside and play soccer? (Exceptions, of course, for those people with physical disabilities. If you like soccer and don't have use of your legs I suppose it makes sense, but I also assume this is a small minority of players.)
Why play chess when you can join the army......
Re:Don't understand sporting video games... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 08:19 · Score: 0

Why play chess when you can join the army......
In chess, you are the general, not a pawn.
Re:Don't understand sporting video games... by Khashishi · 2014-02-19 11:25 · Score: 1

I don't think everyone can slam dunk in real life. Does that answer your question?

"E-Sports" by PPH · 2014-02-19 04:32 · Score: 1

My sides!

--
Have gnu, will travel.

Need a Women's league by genner · 2014-02-19 04:33 · Score: 1

Women need a league of their own.......preferably one without a Madonna movie attached to it.

Re:Need a Women's league by Tanuki64 · 2014-02-19 06:31 · Score: 1

True. but won't happen if men don't create one for them.

Women in The NFL by RudyHartmann · 2014-02-19 04:41 · Score: 1

I like women. Heck, my wife an daughter are women. It's unusual that it is almost necessary to define that these days. But when I see women linebackers on an NFL winning team I'll know us guys are doomed. ;-)

--
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!

Do females know what an "e-sport" even is?! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 04:48 · Score: 0

I've never heard the term "e-sport" before today. How many females even know what it is?

Wear pink for breast cancer by dgaspard · 2014-02-19 04:54 · Score: 1

E-sports should just take a month out of the year to use pink mice and keyboards. They can add a pink tint to all of the boards and characters on the screen. It's working for the NFL.

Nothing more to add by Tanuki64 · 2014-02-19 05:09 · Score: 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4yH2r2uzDI&list=PLS4KoI1QwbWKYwbY7vnxHhXqZtbY9hj09&index=8/

uhh by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 05:11 · Score: 0

There should be an outcry but there isn't. You thought you were being funny.

ok by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 05:14 · Score: 0

you are drawing examples from the most extreme gender-differentiating society next to Saudi Arabia. that does not prove at any level that a gender gap is a "fact of nature".

LOL by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 05:17 · Score: 0

someone doesn't like getting judged by video game competition

so he says losing in video games is meaningless because winning in video games is meaningless, because IRONICALLY, he has his own alpha male complex and can't accept being shoved down into Bronze league.

otherwise, he has to accept that he is functionally less-able than others. WHOOPS.

Re:LOL by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 05:28 · Score: 0

Who is this "he" you speak of? Methinks you make too many presumptions...

Bishonen by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 05:24 · Score: 0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bish%C5%8Dnen

Bishnen (?, also transliterated About this sound bishounen (helpinfo)) is a Japanese term literally meaning "beautiful youth (boy)".
Today, bishnen are very popular among girls and women in Japan.[2][3] Reasons for this social phenomenon may include the unique male and female social relationships found within the genre. Some have theorized that bishnen provide a non-traditional outlet for gender relations. Moreover, it breaks down stereotypes surrounding feminine male characters. These are often depicted with very strong martial arts abilities, sports talent, high intelligence, or comedic flair, traits that are usually assigned to the hero/protagonist.[4]

yeah keep up the MANLY YOU MANLY MAN MAN MAN

Data by StoneyMahoney · 2014-02-19 05:41 · Score: 1

Let's shed some more light on the subject here with some more data.

Market research on computer games by studios:

http://www.theesa.com/facts/pd...
- "Women 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31%) than boys age 17 or younger (19%)"
- Women make up 45% of the gaming population

Compare with this Time Business article about women in competitive jobs:

http://business.time.com/2010/...
- "...anecdotally at least, it appears the industries and positions with the most competitive work environments tend to pay the most."
- "Females were more likely to pass on the job once they found out part of their pay would be based on their performance versus a co-worker."

Women come to gaming later in life than men. Studies have shown that fast action gaming develops the areas of the brain associated with rapid decision making, so taking into account the predisposition for young boys to play games with big guns in, neurological development means men will be inherently better at the kind of games that come under the e-sports umbrella. Case closed.

Not a problem by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 06:00 · Score: 0

"The problem is simply that we know women play games and enjoy them but that they are for some reason not taking part in competitions. "

Women may enjoy the games, but they do not enjoy competition/tournaments to the same extent as men. They play their games for fun, not for scoring. they are less competitive, so they don't compete as much. No problem, and no surprise here either.

So women are... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 06:22 · Score: 0

So women are smarter?

gender imbalance is meaningless by Tom · 2014-02-19 07:51 · Score: 1

The number itself has no meaning. First there is always an imbalance due to random fluctuations, thought 90/10 is unlikely to be entirely random (but we have Feminazis complaining about 60/40 distributions in other fields).

It cuts both ways, too. In some things, there are more men, and in others more women. There are, for example, more female than male nurses.

That is not a problem.

It only becomes a problem if some man who would like to be a nurse can't get the job due to his gender. So for e-sports, the real question is if there are any women who would like to be in e-sports, but can't because of their gender.

It's the difference between equal rights and opportunities, and Gleichschaltung.

--
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org

Lumpy: How'd "eating your words" taste? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 08:19 · Score: 0

Where you libeled me & ran when I used facts vs it -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

(You sure "talk a good game" -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... but you can't even produce a MERE SCRIPT!)

You aren't even on the leve of a "script kiddie", & full of HOT AIR, windbag!

(You're all TALK, & NO action "CHUMPY!)

* :)

(You know it, I know it, & so does anyone reading AND laughing their asses off @ you now... lol!)

APK

P.S.=> Answer the question in the subject-line Lumpy - OR, is it you won't since it will remove the unjustifiable downmods you applied to my other post here -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... ?

Oh, I suspect that IS the case here (simply logging out of a registered account & trolling by ac is a common troll trick around here OR using alternate registered 'luser' accounts sockpuppets to do the job will also, & Lumpy is LOADED with those & trolling - which doesn't matter: He PROVES he's all talk, no action (or skills, OR brains, lol))...

... apk

Women and Sports by Dareth · 2014-02-19 09:33 · Score: 0

Men enjoy sports and keeping score on the game. Women keep score on real life.

--

I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling

White, Yellow, and Differing Interests by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-19 09:40 · Score: 0

They group whites and Asians together, and claim the group is not racially diverse. Further, Asians represent 4.8% of the total US population, which means they are overrepresented.

The 50% of gamers things gets bounded around a lot, but people never look past the surface. Women play games, but not the same games as male gamers tend to. Games women tend to play are far less competitive, and in general spend a lot less on video games then men do.

That 5% represents the 10% of women, (math is fun), that play games the same way men do. 5% is exactly what you should expect.

Also, professional gamers tend to have professional gaming rigs, which cost a lot of money. Black people are underrepresented in professional gaming because they are overrepresented in poverty. Also, how many Arabs are there in the US? Wolfram groups everything but White, Black, Asian (assuming that means east asian), and Native into Other, which collectively represent 4.8% of the total US population. At most that means Middle Eastern probably represents 1-2% of the US population.

*slowclapmodule*

wii sports by DarwinSurvivor · 2014-02-19 10:18 · Score: 1

Yeah, when I read the title I assumed they were talking about the physical fitness video games with motion controllers and stuff. These I consider "competition video games" and it's been known for years to be over 90% male (I knew someone who won competitions in Counter Strike).

Re: Whites and Asians do esports because they can' by mark-t · 2014-02-19 10:19 · Score: 1

The reason they travel more distance than most other sports require is because being on ice actually enables them to do so within human limitations. The exact same game played without skates, and otherwise using a playing area that is the same size is *FAR* more physically debilitating. Watching such a game would be like watching hockey in slow motion.

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

International Basketweaving by sylivin · 2014-02-19 11:57 · Score: 1

Statistics! Let's just edit the story a bit and see what we get:

In other news, The International Basketweaving company, WellWeaved, said, '[A] whopping 90-94% of the viewers were female, and interestingly enough, only about half of the remaining survey takers felt comfortable being identified as male.

DailyNeedle makes the point that competitive basket weaving communities also tend not to be racially diverse. Quoting: 'Although no studies have been done about race in basketweaving, it only takes one trip to a Major League Weaving event to confirm what Cannon says. With the notably racially diverse exception of the underwater basketweaving community, Middle Eastern and white Americans make up an enormous portion of basketweaving players and fans. Black and Asian basketweaving fans are conspicuously missing.'"

Define sports. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-20 01:22 · Score: 0

So, what is sports? Is figure skating a sport? (results by judge) Synchronized swimming?(pretty much just floting, results by judge) Nascar?(is driving a car sports) Destruction derby?(now they aren't even trying to drive fast) Chess? (just sitting there) Shooting?(olympic sport, but you can be in very bad shape and yet be very good)

Why not computer gaming? I actually do agree with you that "sports" is a wrong term, but that term is already missused in many places. If there can be motorsports, why not electronicsports?

Did you know.. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-20 01:40 · Score: 0

At least Lol and Dota are very team oriented games. The highest level is 5 person teams agains eachothers.

who gives a flying fuck? by osiaq · 2014-02-20 01:54 · Score: 0

parity in counter strike teams in 3..2..1

First question by anyGould · 2014-02-20 08:53 · Score: 1

Is there any sort of moral imperative that women must consist of 50% of all occupations? Even the niche dumb ones?

Here is a US page showing high concentration *female* jobs. Where's the cries for more men in teaching and nursing?

Now, show me women who are trying to get into e-sports and can't, and then we can talk.

Really women don't see themselves inside the games by laranjatomate · 2014-02-20 14:08 · Score: 1

Talking with some female friends, feminist or not, they really feel incomodated in having majority os male protagonists inside the games. Women play looking for a virtual male on the screen. Also, some games have machist/maleist content, I accept, even liking them. For example, OutRun 2 and OutRun 2006 Cosat to Coast, with the Heart Attack Mode in which the man do some trickies requested by one of the three girls ans receives hearts and kisses for it. I wrote to Sega requiring to equilibrate things on a next OutRun version, maybe with some FLower Attack Mode, with one of the girls driving and Alberto giving flowers to them. I also wrote do Konami, in the Winning Eleven era, requiring a version of that game comprising famale soccer.

Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-20 17:15 · Score: 0

Every single hobby, job an sport does not have to have a 50% female presence.
Perhaps they just aren't interested, and that is OK. Why do we have to bother defining them as male / female?

They don't need to have separate leagues. Pile them in with the men, let them all be known as gamers.

designer handbags wholesale http://www.shoesctv. by jasiwevc · 2014-02-26 03:46 · Score: 1

Slashdot Mirror

E-Sports Gender Gap: 90+% Male

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