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Hearthstone tournament rescinds ban on female players
Yesterday, it was revealed that the International eSports Federation planned to bar women from its upcoming Hearthstone tournament in Finland, under the belief that gender segregation would add legitimacy to the idea of video games as a proper sport. Following a flurry of online controversy, the IeSF has opened its doors to all players. However, this does not mean the IeSF has entirely reversed its stance on sorting Hearthstone players by gender. Instead of merely opening all tournaments to everyone, the games which were previously open only to men will now be open to all players, while the female-only tournament will remain sans dudes. "The IeSF Board addressed its reason for maintaining events for women, citing the importance of providing female gamers with ample opportunities to compete in e-Sports - currently a male-dominated industry," reads a notice on the IeSF website. "Female gamers make up half of the world's gaming population, but only a small percentage of e-Sports competitors are women. The IeSF's female-only competitions aim to bring more diversity to competitive play by improving the representation of women at these events. Without efforts to improve representation, e-Sports can't achieve true gender equality." In addition to altering the structure of its Hearthstone tournaments, the IeSF has now opened its Tekken Tag Tournament 2 tournament to all players. Previously, Namco Bandai's 3D fighter was reserved solely for the ladies. [Image: Blizzard Entertainment]
IeSF changes its mind, opens all tournaments to women
Following the enormous outcry of gamers angry that International eSports Federation had forbidden women from some of its tournaments, including Hearthstone, the organization decided to open up the playing field to both genders. "Upon hearing these concerns, the IeSF convoked an emergency session of the IeSF Board to respond," the Federation posted on the official site. "As a result, IeSF shall have two event categories: 'Open for All' events and events that are reserved for women. The events which were initially set aside as the male division will now be open to all genders, and the events which were initially set as the female division will remain as they were." The IeSF defended its former rationale for segregating men and women in the event, saying that it did so to encourage female players to engage in the tournaments: "The IeSF's female-only competitions aim to bring more diversity to competitive play by improving the representation of women at these events. Without efforts to improve representation, e-sports can't achieve true gender equality." [To clarify since there's some confusion in the comments: Men can now participate in all five games. Women can now participate in all five games on the same teams as the men. Women can additionally play in women-only brackets for SC2 and Tekken Tag. Those two games are included in the games men can play in the mixed gender lineup (Tekken Tag wasn't available to men originally, just as Hearthstone was blocked from women, but this has been rectified). Neither men nor women are now barred from any game in the tourney.]
No girls allowed in IeSF-sanctioned Hearthstone tourney
If you're female and you're interested in competing in a Finnish Hearthstone tournament called the Assembly Summer 2014 Hearthstone IeSF Qualifier, you're currently out of luck. PCGamer reports that the IeSF, a global e-sports organization headquartered in South Korea, stipulates male-only participants "in accordance with international sports authorities, as part of our effort to promote e-sports as legitimate sports." Assembly Summer 2014 administrator Markus Koskivirta says that the event's other tourneys are open to all genders. "We would also like to point out that the Finnish eSports Federation is currently lobbying for the equal rights of male and female players in the IeSF tournaments," he said. [Commenters have pointed out that women are barred from four games in this tournament, including Hearthstone and Dota, while male players are barred from two, including Tekken Tag, in the IeSF's attempt to create gendered brackets for e-sports. Both genders can compete in StarCraft II, but only in gender-segregated divisions. Thanks to CrowingOne especially for the extra details.]
