On October 1958, physicist William Higinbotham, while working at Brookhaven National Laboratory created an interactive module with hopes of making lab tours less dull. The module was a game that allowed players to choose the balls angle with the twist of a knob and launch it towards the opponent with a push of a button. His creation was called Tennis for Two and it was the birthing world’s first video game. Fast forward nearly 60 years of technological advances and video games have imploded into a global entertainment market that “saw revenues of $67 billion dollars, surpassing traditional forms of entertainment like music and literature revenues, to rivaling revenues generated by movies” (Marchand & Hennig-Thurau, 2013). A significant amount
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The players of eSports themselves are defined as “consumers who share tips and tricks on the Internet while competing in games for money and prestige”, which allows them to form social bonds with other players, develop abilities, create squads (team of players in a game) and the organization of clans (similar to clubs) online (Weiss & Schiele, 2013). eSports competitions are often played by both single players and teams seeking to achieve an objective such as capturing the flag, holding a certain location secure for periods of time or simply amassing a number of total points for victory. However, a major difference of eSports in comparison to traditional sports is that eSports has far lower physical barriers to become an athlete with teammates having the ability to practice together without being in the same geographical region (Seo, …show more content…
Since there is so few female eSports athletes, there are few role models for young female gamers to aspire to be like and perform better than. Majority of female eSports athletes live in Asia, with a large amount hailing from South Korea (Zaremba, 2012). In fact, Paaßen, B., Morgenroth, T. & Stratemeyer, M. found in their article What is a True Gamer? The Male Gamer Stereotype and the Marginalization of Women in Video Game Culture that “among e-sports athletes, there are almost no female players. For example, among the top 100 players in terms of earnings, none are female” (Paaßen, Morgenroth, & Stratemeyer, 2016). This is caused directly by less competitions that either allow women to compete or have a female division, usually resulting in a purse that is substantially lower. A recent BBC technology article found that “the earning for the top male player in e-sports amounts to over $2,500,000 while the top female earnings are less than $200,000. Ultimately, there is less money to be made from female teams, leading to fewer sponsors, and reduced coverage” (BBC, 2016). A simple solution may be to form separate leagues for women only competitions. However, gendered divisions is often viewed only as a temporary fix until women athletes are supported and skilled enough to compete with men. Tensions with male
The players of eSports themselves are defined as “consumers who share tips and tricks on the Internet while competing in games for money and prestige”, which allows them to form social bonds with other players, develop abilities, create squads (team of players in a game) and the organization of clans (similar to clubs) online (Weiss & Schiele, 2013). eSports competitions are often played by both single players and teams seeking to achieve an objective such as capturing the flag, holding a certain location secure for periods of time or simply amassing a number of total points for victory. However, a major difference of eSports in comparison to traditional sports is that eSports has far lower physical barriers to become an athlete with teammates having the ability to practice together without being in the same geographical region (Seo, …show more content…
Since there is so few female eSports athletes, there are few role models for young female gamers to aspire to be like and perform better than. Majority of female eSports athletes live in Asia, with a large amount hailing from South Korea (Zaremba, 2012). In fact, Paaßen, B., Morgenroth, T. & Stratemeyer, M. found in their article What is a True Gamer? The Male Gamer Stereotype and the Marginalization of Women in Video Game Culture that “among e-sports athletes, there are almost no female players. For example, among the top 100 players in terms of earnings, none are female” (Paaßen, Morgenroth, & Stratemeyer, 2016). This is caused directly by less competitions that either allow women to compete or have a female division, usually resulting in a purse that is substantially lower. A recent BBC technology article found that “the earning for the top male player in e-sports amounts to over $2,500,000 while the top female earnings are less than $200,000. Ultimately, there is less money to be made from female teams, leading to fewer sponsors, and reduced coverage” (BBC, 2016). A simple solution may be to form separate leagues for women only competitions. However, gendered divisions is often viewed only as a temporary fix until women athletes are supported and skilled enough to compete with men. Tensions with male