Saturday, September 03, 2011

Of female divisions and sideshows

i've been asked about what i think about competing in a competition divided by gender.
i have to admit that competing in an all-female division sounds pretty good to me.
before you judge me, here's why -

the dota market is saturated right now with highly skilled players
i echo the sentiments of chawy and hyhy when they spoke about considering switching to LoL as their main game. the top players have already marked out their territory, and the rest will just not be able to reach that standard and skill level. the game has been around for so long now, that the top players know who they are, and they've banded together to form unbeatable teams.
Playing against a normal guys team is fine, when we meet those, we normally beat them and progress. its playing against a serious competitive guys team which we have problems with.
because of the time and money involved, non serious teams will take part on an adhoc basis, and only the guys who are seriously competitive will actually take part regularly.
can i add that the standard of DOTA here in singapore is high. its very high.
and trust me, after first round out-ing and second round-outing most of the competitions for the past few years, its actually sounds very tantalising to compete against other female teams whose standards aren't as high as a competitive guys team.

there are only so many girls around
YES, we've been around as 5 for a while, but more out of neccesity than by choice. not that i don't love the girls, i do. but if you take a look around, how many other female dota competitive gamers are there, and how many of them located near enough to us here in Singapore?
Let's take a look at the number of female gamers who have entered and left the competitive scene in Singapore. i daresay that 4/5ths of them have left the competitive scene and are playing casually, if at all, now.

so why stick together?
then again, you might ask why we choose to play as an all girls team, instead of playing in mixed teams?
simple, most of the guys we've started out playing in mixed teams with have gone mia, switched to other games, because dota's been out for so long that they've lost interest in it. Yes, we used to compete in mixed teams, and depending on the line up, the performance varied - from reaching 1st/2nd place to first round out.
as 5 girls, there's a better bond, and it lasts longer.
guys are all cool with trashtalking and back smacking each other, but when it comes down to sticking together as 5, there are lots of ego problems, power struggles...
not that we don't have that now, but i guess as females, we're already used to putting up with that sh1t from the guys around us.

and yes, i know about how people view female divisions - its like watching soccer in slow motion, its like watching 2 awkward people face off each other, its just a b00bs and t1ts fest.
yeah ok. how you want to view it, is up to you.
but i'm pretty sure that no guy team out there has worked as hard as my team has on marketing, publicity, and picking ourselves up when we get pwned in training and competition. and we've done this ON OUR OWN.
also,
what other guy team out there has survived years of getting pwned and still tries?

if you want to comment on our make up, and how we bother to dress a little nicer, then tell your girlfriend to just wear your boxers and t-shirt when you're going for a movie date with her. every date with her, for that matter.
oh, and make sure you don't style your hair and put on contacts instead of spectacles either.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey tammy, as a fan of PMS* , I just want to say that a lot of us can see the efforts that PMS* has put into , be it in publicity or in game. In fact i was fortunate enough to have a game with you yesterday. I also understand the constraints that PMS* is facing currently in the electronic sports industry. I guess the main problem is that there aren't enough female gamers out there in Singapore , Also the electronic sport is a very new market that is still grooming... but i certainly do want to take the chance and wish the best of luck for you and the team. Good Luck :)

Tammy. said...

thank you for your encouragement! i do wish people would leave their names/akas when they comment though. ^^*

Anonymous said...

Hi I am PMS Aztecxcore and I would just like to say if you want to move on to League of legends I would love to see you guys come play with us :)

Anonymous said...

I could actually fulfill the last paragraph. But I think make-up is a wonderful wonderful beautiful thing.

I've always held respect for teams that stick together. I think it's preposterous that no team can stick together for more than 3 months.

That being said, teams that stick together generally show significant improvements in performance. In this case, the lack of choice (for players) might have contributed a lot to you girls sticking together for so long.

You all should try smurfing. See how you all stand as players by yourself, and see how long most of you can last without exposing your true identities (I know this sounds like it has horrible connotations, but this is an innocent sentence! curse the interwebs).

Every other view I have about female gaming will get ignored/screamed at, so on another relevant topic.....

I think that given a chance, GO FOR GENDER-DIVIDED COMPETITION. There are A LOT of female gamers out there. I REALLY HOPE that there can be enough of a competitive female gaming population to constantly have all-female competitions. That will do A LOT of good for the gaming community.

So maybe constant all-female competition will encourage more female gamers to go competitive, and more females to play games. I mean, demographically, male gamers don't actually significantly outnumber female gamers.

-Ant