Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Wasn't their excuse something to do with the fact in actual sports men and women have separate tournaments? I can understand that in traditional sports since men generally have an advantage. But in a gaming scene those advantages don't really count towards anything do they. Seems kind of silly to me.

Guys, the esport scene is like 95% men, who are we kidding. Esports which have been "genderneutral" have been 99,9% men anyway. The little progress that has been made are in the esports where they actually divide into genders. Men have an advantage culturally in that it is accepted for them to nerd out etc.

There are mixed sport. Low female participation doesn't matter for that. Try to tell Danica Patrick to drive her own Indy 500 in the name of equylity. That would be absolutely ridiculous.

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Men have an advantage culturally in that it is accepted for them to nerd out etc.

Outside of nerd circles not really.

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But still, why keep them separate?

Female gamers who compete in "gender-neutral" events would, by and large, be beaten into the dirt and largely disappear (or not qualify for high level games, Dota2 hasn't gotten a single female player at the highest levels I think). It's better to nurture female participation in separate events.

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Outside of nerd circles not really.

At one point, basically every 14 year old boy was a Counter Strike player in Sweden, so I dare say it was fairly mainstream at least here and probably in a few other places across the world. Those same boys were very immature towards female players (and outnumbered them 10 to 1), making it very unappealing to enter this space for young girls.

And also, I think boys in general have more of a competitive mindset and are, in general, more interested in digital violence, computers and technology in general.

Quote from Puddy

Female gamers who compete in "gender-neutral" events would, by and large, be beaten into the dirt and largely disappear (or not qualify for high level games, Dota2 hasn't gotten a single female player at the highest levels I think). It's better to nurture female participation in separate events.

I understand your point but i don't think we do female gamers a favor in the long run by having them compete in special olympics. Unlike athletic sports there is nothing that puts females at a disadvantage physiologicaly. The Danica Patrick of e-gaming will pop up eventualy.

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At one point, basically every 14 year old boy was a Counter Strike player in Sweden, so I dare say it was fairly mainstream

The things 14 year olds bother about arn't mainstream. It's a subculture. And CS and its players frankly had a very bad reputation in the public.

Quote from Steppenwolf

The things 14 year olds bother about arn't mainstream. It's a subculture. And CS and its players frankly had a very bad reputation in the public.

We're not talking about mainstream in that it appeals to demographics age 0 - 100. For the mentioned age and gender group (14yo boys), getting knee-deep into gaming is totally okay, a lot of people are into it in that demographic and they "control" that subculture. Young girls are not represented and it's a bit of a threshold to enter that subculture for them. That's the hurdle and you can't ignore that any way you look at it. Predominantly, you have same-sex friends and if you are girl, the odds are that you won't have many friends who are into gaming, reducing your incentives to enter the space.

Quote from FrieChamp

Why not set up some ground rules on sportsmanship (re: immature behaviour) in eSports so girls can join/enjoy the game, too? I'm not denying that that there are different tendencies to like one type of game more than the other between genders. But if a girl likes e.g. Dota2 and she's good at it, not allowing her to compete against the top players simply because they have different genders seems ludicrous to me. It would be outright banning the possibility that a girl is equally or god forbid - better - skilled in a male-dominated eSport. I'm going on a limb here and say that this is a possible scenario...even if their brains are so much smaller than ours

It's not the manners in organized tournaments that's the problem. It's the general attitude within the cultural space of gaming. Before you even can play against well-mannered professionals, you have to start at the bottom and face pubescent little shits, asshats, trolls and similar in public games/lower ranked games etc. You don't become a superstar overnight. Most of the current CS players have played CS on and off for around a decade or more. You have to spend a lot of time within the space and if you're constantly barraged with sexism and shit like that, you might shy away from it altogether.

A girl who likes Dota2 is currently free to join any top team. The International doesn't, as far as I know, place any restriction on gender. Yet, female competitors are wholly non-existant. Also, I'm all for having tournaments being open to all and then having female tournaments as well (this is currently the case in Starcraft 2). In fact, this is probably the best approach. You aren't excluding any female players from top-tier tournaments, like Acer Team's Scarlett who's really good at SC2, yet you are nurturing female participation as a whole by making the barrier of entry more accesible.

Quote from Puddy

We're not talking about mainstream in that it appeals to demographics age 0 - 100. For the mentioned age and gender group (14yo boys), getting knee-deep into gaming is totally okay, a lot of people are into it in that demographic and they "control" that subculture. Young girls are not represented and it's a bit of a threshold to enter that subculture for them. That's the hurdle and you can't ignore that any way you look at it. Predominantly, you have same-sex friends and if you are girl, the odds are that you won't have many friends who are into gaming, reducing your incentives to enter the space.

You don't remove a hurdle by putting a wall instead is my opinion. My approach to equality is to give everyone the same opportunities, rights and duties unlike the sort of SJW's who are more into prohibition, regulation and faux solutions.

Attitudes towards female gamers are not gonna change by putting them away safely in a box. It's hard for them sure. But they are pioneers, same like the first blacks who went to formerly white schools.

Quote from Steppenwolf

You don't remove a hurdle by putting a wall instead is my opinion. My approach to equality is to give everyone the same opportunities, rights and duties unlike the sort of SJW's who are more into prohibition, regulation and faux solutions.

Attitudes towards female gamers are not gonna change by putting them away safely in a box. It's hard for them sure. But they are pioneers, same like the first blacks who went to formerly white schools.

I'm not a leftist person in nature. But part of leftist people's approach and analysis to some questions like "opportunities" is compelling. For example; in Sweden, every Tom, Dick and Harry can study to be whatever the fuck they want. But there's a tendency that kids in families where the parents are rich academics go on to higher studies whilst working class kids don't. Parents in the upper middle class and above tend to A, more actively take a part in choice of school and curriculum, B, be able to support their children with their school work and raise any issues they see with their childs education and finally, C, encourage their children more to go on to higher studies. Would you say that all kids have the same "opportunity", in reality, to go on to higher studies? The answer is pretty clearly no. The part that leftists get wrong are usually the solution, where they go ape-shit and do all kinds of weird shit in the name of equality. True equality is a lie of course, but that doesn't mean a society shouldn't pursue some level of equality (leftists usually fuck it up though). On paper, eSports-tournaments are equal opportunity (you can sign up, qualify, play, win regardless of gender), I dare say that in reality things become a bit skewed. That's why it is potentially better to create a more inviting environment for female competitors.

Here's an article which basically brings up my view point (and counters to my view point). They bring up chess as a parallel because it's a sport which is not physical in nature yet still sees leagues divided by gender. As the article says, the community ultimately has to decide what's best and I think we will see a mix of different approaches in the near future. http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/11/5870…-female-leagues

Bump, anyone playing?? I just reached rank 13 for the first time! Wohoo, so happy! New expansion, wrath of the old gods is really nice!

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Played on my phone on my lunch-break. Won agains this guy and i even tho i don't fully understand his saltyness it was kind of funny. i won a 3rd report. yay, where do i collect?

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20475356 Exciting!!! 3 full expansions! New hero! Make sure you craft the cards that are going to the hall of fame since you will get a full dust refund for them later!!

I'm playing since Year of Kraken, so what I experienced most is: People who have played for pretty much since the game was out, had a big advantage because they had more of the legendary cards that were used in top tier decks and guaranteed the most wins. But it's F2P and so it's kind of okay, I guess. I rather enjoy a few rounds of arena lately than climbing the ladder.

Is there a release date for the Year of Mammoth? I didn't see any in the news article.