Women who play video games have detailed the horrific sexist abuse they have received as the industry cracks down on online harassment.
The gaming industry faces a reckoning with female gamers fed up with verbal abuse and misogyny while developers scramble to create safe spaces for women.
Across Australia, just under half of the people who play video games are women according to the 2020 interactive gaming and entertainment report.
However, a horrifying survey into female gaming in the UK revealed the extent of the abuse women cop online, including rape threats and misogyny.
The Young Gamers and Gamblers Education Trust (YGAM), created the report to detail the experiences of many young women who participate in internet gaming. YGAM submitted the report to parliament in hope of MPs taking action on the issue.
One gamer, Mollie Baker, 21, detailed some of the abuse she had received in the She Plays, He Says report.
“The first time I experienced a threat [online] I was 14 or 15. It was the first time I had ever opened this game and the first time I had played it online. After that, I didn’t play online again for two years,” she said.
“If you’re a woman, and you’re not very good at a game. It’s ‘you’re a b**ch, go make me a sandwich. Why are you gaming? You shouldn‘t even game’ and it’s just like, you can’t exist as a woman in the space.”
The report found rape threats were relatively common online.
“It’s just so normalised and there are so many rape threats just casually thrown in there. On top of generally sexist comments, there’s an extra layer where it gets a bit more toxic. There’s general abuse that we’ve all received, like, ‘go kill yourself’ or really awful things like that,” Lisa Kelly said.
Major gaming developers implemented major changes to try and prevent online abuse.
Over a 12-month period, Call of Duty developers banned more than 350,000 accounts for toxic behaviour. A large portion of the abuse was found through new technology that monitors text-based chats.
Most developers claim to have a zero-tolerance policy to abusive or harmful behaviour but it can be hard to track.
At last month’s 2021 Game Developers Conference, Intel unveiled an AI-powered program created called Bleep to cut down on harassment.
The program is controlled via toggle and slider features which allow users to decide at what levels they choose to hear hate speech.
It covers a wide array of categories, such as “aggression, misogyny, LGTBQ+ hate, racism and xenophobia, white nationalism”, although the program is still in its early stages.
Australian gamer Stephanie ‘Hex’ Bendixsen has been at the forefront of the industry for the last decade.
The streamer first became a public figure on The ABC’s Good Game TV show. Before that, she had been immersed in video games since the early 2000s.
She told news.com.au that the industry has seen a dramatic change for women in recent years.
“Harassment has long been an issue in games where it is competitive and people remain anonymous, but like society, everything is changing and evolving,” she said.
“Video games are these very close knit communities. For example I don’t experience harassment because I choose to not engage with people who are not my friends.
“Yes you may come across a player behaving like that but then you have an opportunity to block them.”
Ms Bendixsen said there has been a new-wave of female gamers and women working in the industry which is helping stamp out misogynistic views and abuse.
“I’ve had young girls write to me telling me that it was cool to see another girl involved in games. I lot of girls said it seemed like games were just for boys and I’m hopeful that cycle is starting to break,” she said.
“There are a lot more women involved in making games now too – which helps. One of the best examples of this was the Lara Croft remake. When the character was first made she had this unattainable body shape that was made in the male gaze.
“In the remake, she actually looks like a normal woman.”
She is also a Lenovo ambassador and said the tech company is creating safe spaces for gamers.
“Programs like Legions of Valkyries, which is a female-only competition, is a great way for women to transition from casual gaming to something a bit more competitive,” she said.
Originally published as Rape threats and misogyny: Female gamers detail online abuse as industry tries to make amends
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