I kinda think it’s a bit of a stupid idea, if the female players were that great they’d draw attention to themselves in the main tournement anyways. It’s a bit sexist having a mixed tournament and then a female only tournament even if it is invitational only. You’re basically giving women preferential treatment because they are worse at SF4. And I think it puts way too much emphasis on gender, who gives a crap if the player has a penis or a vagina? Why does it matter?
If you’re implying that none of the women players out there can’t win any games at all in the open tournament you are sadly mistaken. Can any of these women place in the top 8? Probably not but I could say the same thing about 70% of the field of competitors. A big part of Evo is measuring yourself against the rest of the field, and striving to improve year after year.
Unless you’re a girl, then it’s only about measuring yourself against other girls. I’m aware that this isn’t what this tournament is supposed to be about, but it’s what it actually is about.
Like you said, there are women that can win matches and perform as well as most of the tournament. Since that’s true, how are they inferior/need the help of this tournament?
My first post was more about why the previous thread was mostly negative while this one was mostly positive, when the only information that changed was the requirement that you pay for the main sf4 tournament to get into this one.
Please refer to the FAQ in the first post.
Yeah there’s no point in making a big deal about it anymore. The tournament is already in effect and 95 percent of the people arguing about this thing are men any ways. There’s probably going to be random new girls at Evo next year any ways who may have different opinions about the whole thing. Might as well give it a shot and if it doesn’t work…just like any other Evo game that doesn’t work it gets the boot the year after.
Do I have to look female to compete?
I said I’d let this be because the new format of the tournament is more… I guess… tolerable. Sorry, I tried.
Sorry but I’m a girl and I put up quite a fight against this and failed. Just because a lot of other girls don’t post on here, it doesn’t mean they don’t agree with my stance. I have recieved more PMs than I can respond to in the past week because of all the crap I’ve been posting up here and a lot of them are from girls agreeing with me, but none of them have posted. Also, you have to remember that there are less girls in the community so less girls will post, regardless of the issue.
Also, I’m not trying to imply that 100% of the girls here agree with me, or at least feel the same way I do to the same extent; I’m just saying I know there are a lot of girls who do agree.
Again, this isn’t about the tournament happening or not. Of course I’d like to see this tournament not happen at all, or even the idea to have not come up in the first place… but the debate is really over whether this is politically correct or not. Zaelar and Fadecy both made really good points.
I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to say this tournament is to showcase girls’ ability to play SFIV. Out of all the rants/comments/thoughts/points I’ve posted on this thread and previous ones, if I could make one crystal clear it’d be this:
Girls in the U.S. are not good at fighting games for two reasons:
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Less girls play. Say the proportion of “good” SFIV players is 1/20. For every 20 people, 19 are scrubs and 1 is legit (has potential to place top 8 for example). Now let’s say for about every 100 guys there is 1 girl who plays (this is what it seemed like when analyzing the numbers from Evo last year). So, if I’m doing the math correctly… for every 2000 players, male or female, there should be about 1 good female player. Evo '10 is expecting 2000 SFIV entrants right? That one good female player is Miyuki (my opinion). So because less girls play, naturally there will be less top-tier girls.
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99.9% of the time a guy says “Hey you’re good” to a girl playing games, what he means is “Hey you’re good for a girl” or “Hey I want to get in your pants”… I know this is true because I’m a girl and I hear it a lot (and I’m not really good at Tekken), and also because I have a lot of guy friends who have confirmed this. If someone is constantly reassured they are good at something, there isn’t much incentive to push yourself to get better. Girls in Japan push themselves because they know they’re expected to compete with guys, and they understand the first sentence in this paragraph. This is why there are more girls in Japan who are good (in addition to the fact that more girls play/take up interest in games). Girls in America, especially the pretty ones, are given false titles of being “the best” at SFIV, Tekken, 3S, etc, when they’re not even close to getting out of the scrub-league because guys love handing out compliments to girls. It’s sweet and charming, but it’s also ridiculous. :[
So if you’re still with me on those two points I hopefully made, let me apply them to the tournament. 1. Showcasing that girls are “good at games” is just embarassing, since they’re not. It’s like the special olympics (if I may be incredibly non-PC for a sec, sorry, it’s just an example)… Like “hey you’re a great runner” when in reality, because of your disability you don’t have the motor reflexes and/or physical capacity to run nearly as fast as a pro athlete let alone some normal people. The only difference here is disabled people can -never- run as fast as those people, whereas girls DO have the capability of reaching that level, the level of an average or pro male player. There is no reason they don’t. But as things are now, girls just aren’t par with guys, saying they are is just a little insulting, and also hindering because of 2. When you say girls are good at games and they’re not, they’re not going to work to improve.
So if your goals are to help girls improve and/or show how good they are, I’m not with you on that one. If your goal is to get more girls to play, I still don’t see how this tournament will do that (especially since they have to pay to enter the regular tournament to enter this girls’ thing… they probably woudln’t be new players)
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE try to understand what I’m saying! I know a lot about this because I’ve dealt with it my entire life, in and out of the fighting game community. Very few people on this forum can say the same so I hope my thoughts hold some weight. u__u
I understand what you’re saying though if your ultimate goal is to not have the tournament happen period…I know Evo. I can almost guarantee you that’s not going to happen without a miracle or taking Evo to court. Evo likes to test the waters each year with new things whether they are great ideas or ideas that several members in the community scoff at. At best you’re gonna have to let this ride out and if it doesn’t work then the next year it will be obviously removed.
I totally agree with you on the stance that girls have been kinda babied with getting better at games and felt I’ve had some successes with teaching some of my friends who haven’t touched much SF in their lives how to be at least competitive. It’s just something that hopefully will pan out with time and the right decisions being made to the scene after Evo.
I said in my last post “Again, this isn’t about the tournament happening or not. Of course I’d like to see this tournament not happen at all, or even the idea to have not come up in the first place… but the debate is really over whether this is politically correct or not”
I know the tournament is going to happen. Very very few people have any influence on what the Evo staff does and I know they will not, and haven’t in the past, listened to what all the players want (since it’s not really possible). I’ve only been to Evo last year and the year before, but I know it’s important for them to keep sponsors and they’re always trying to push new games out there, which I think is great… except sometimes it comes at the expense of older favorites. I think Evo staff offering a players’ choice spot was more generous than I thought they’d be, honestly. I’m going off on a tangent but anyway my point was I’m hoping maybe they’d reconsider if people have similar views to mine about how this tournament is completely useless and kind of damaging to the ladies’ progression in this community, but my goal isn’t to change the current situation. I’m certain, and have been reassured, that’s not possible. The idea that this is a good thing is what I’m trying to kill.
The reason is… SoCal and maybe some other places have held smaller ladies only tournaments. I thought these were stupid and said so at the time, but I figured they were harmless since they were small and only local. Someone thought this was a great idea and decided to take it to the next level at Evo, although I think it’d be held a little more professionally here, it’s still not a good idea… in my opinion. Since this idea keeps growing, what if it becomes a permanent thing at Evo? Or what if other major tournament series begin to pick this up? I’m trying to kill this idea because I know it’s not good for the community. But this is my opinion. If things go otherwise, I can’t do anything about it except be disappointed and say I tried my best to keep things the way I thought were best for the FGC.
Mmmhmmm…yeah it seems I missed that part of your post but, the only way it seems what you’re looking for on an immediate standpoint is going to take place is if the tournament doesn’t happen period. That’s what I was trying to get at. Evo staff is not in a situation right now even if they had a sudden change of face and thought “wow what are we thinking this shit is dumb” they are not going to come out and tell you that. That would jeopardize what little chance they have already to have the ladies tournament have more than 10 entrants. Just like how Seth Killian can’t just come out and start saying some shit that they added in Super SFIV that he isn’t a particularly big fan of. That would just kill the purpose of something that is already set in stone to occur with zero chance of reversing until after Evo itself.
If there’s one thing that I can see and maybe you can’t see off the bat is that the Evo staff probably already has the idea in their heads that this shit just overall isn’t what they should be looking for to put women out there in the scene. If my senses are correct sometime after Evo you will hear them saying that this will be the first and last time they do this as it was just a test experiment and they will have realized by then that they should have gone about it differently. Especially with the apparently strong female objection to the event. I can’t even begin to to see why you’d think that this would become a permanent yearly thing with all of the objection you’re getting.
Sure…Evo does change a lot of things but this is concerning whether or not the female sex takes interest in the highest level of competitive SF ever again and they most likely will not jeopardize that should the ladies event be deemed a failure in either its purpose or execution. Whether or not other events will try to take from this idea…who knows. Maybe some RTS or FPS tournament will just be reassured of what they’re doing though the fighting game community looks at Evo for a lot of things. If they see Evo themselves drop an idea that hard they are most likely going to follow suit at most local and major events. I think u can be almost assured either way that females at some point will pointed out the way you would best like them to be at some point.
Besides the way I’ve seen it…it’s more like every major tournament series BUT Evo has done this already. I thought we were kinda the guys straggling along in the video game scene finally adopting this idea for the first time. Maybe I’m mistaken and Pokemon card games haven’t done this yet or something but I thought this idea was already whored out everywhere else?
I have been reading all the posts here and this is my take on it:
I have been a long time EVO player (since 2k2) and am used to playing against the guys. To me,if I can’t make it to the top 8 or 16 in the main tournament,then I need to practice to get better.It does not matter if I play against man or woman. I have been in a all woman’s tournament for DOA4 and didn’t like it. Me and the other girls were stared it,harassed and made fun of. I trust in the staff of EVO to keep the guys under control and run it smooth 
I hope it works out okay for EVO. I would love to see more girls enter fighting game tournaments like I have for the past 14 years. Over the years I have noticed more girls entering which is nice to see.
I am going to be at EVO this year for sure for SSF4,Tekken 6,SSF2 HD remix. I will enter the Women’s Invitational if my friends want me to 
Hi to Watson,Ink,and Cole
It’s been a long time since the 3S days old friend. 
Super_Yan, I do see some of your points, though I hope you will see that the tournament does not seem to be entirely a bad idea. It is chancy and certainly controversial, yes, but I think that how it will benefit the community (or won’t) will really depend upon how the tournament goes. Evo seems to be doing this with the right intentions in mind, and the scenario is such that it might work out as they have planned it. The event just needs support, and for people to look at it in a certain light, as opposed to getting the wrong impression of it or looking at it too pessimistically.
As it has been suggested, it seems either the event will go well, and maybe that sort of thing will happen more often, or it won’t, and the community can just move on.
Also, I think there are more good female players than people think. (Players who are not just good “for a girl”.) And certainly some of them are not players that many people know.
I’m hoping the event will do several things – show that there really are some very good female players (who will hopefully they’ll do well in the main tournament as well), destroy some misconceptions, help out with comradery amongst the FG ladies, bring more people to the scene, and hopefully help women be welcomed in to the scene at large.
Maybe the current situation and the idea for the event are not entirely perfect, so to speak, but I think ideally, people will make the best of them and will make the best of what the event has to offer.
Long post again.
Based on the above quote, I think that the women who play in the invitational should be polled about whether the people broadcasting the video for the live stream will include video captures of the players themselves. (They probably also should be polled about whether they want to keep the area for the invitational closed to non-participants; such a decision is so controversial that, again, it’s probably politically suicidal to make ANY kind of decision here without polling the community first.)
A good argument for player introductions by a camera crew holding interviews is that the players will know that their public image is being broadcast to the world through the filter of decently semi-professional media management (i.e. amateurish but well-intentioned spin.) The argument against this is that, other than the fact that amateurish but well-intentioned spin will never be anything more than amateurish but well-intentioned spin, many players might not want the publicity no matter how well it’s done anyway. (I wouldn’t want my scrub ass interviewed at EVO either.) My feeling on it is that if it can’t be done well, it shouldn’t be done at all, and that the players (both male and female) should be asked about how they want EVO staff to handle this issue, the same way EVO staff held a poll to discuss what would be on the live feed last year.
It might even be a good idea to drop the idea of having commentators for the invitational and broadcast the matches over the live feed “bare bones” with no player introductions and no commentary. Having men interview the players and commentating on the matches, no matter how professionally done, has inescapable connotations that would best be avoided. I don’t think there are any female commentators out there anyway that both male and female viewers think of as “theirs;” the situation would be mitigated somewhat if there was a male-female duo doing the commentating, but where you would be able to find a male-female duo who both have the charisma and the experience with the scene to pull something like that off, I have no idea.
Also, I’ve always cringed at media outlets where newscasters have to ask experts from a diverse racial backgrounds to look more “culturally diverse” and I similarly cringe at anybody who frames this discussion as getting “more diversity” into the fighting game community, even trying to get “the female perspective” into the commentator and announcer’s box at the tournament. (The very idea! I all but gag whenever I hear about people getting more “diversity” into the community–the point of all this in the first place is to get more people involved in the community, period, diversity be damned.) Therefore, I don’t think this idea has much hope for a success, considering how people nitpick and whine about the commentating enough as it is; all this can be avoided just by not having commentating altogether for the invitational, and let the match play speak for itself.
IMO, the best way for EVO to to make appropriate trade-offs between good publicity and hype is, as long as there continues to be little to no female gamers among the EVO staff itself, to always favor good publicity over hype as far as the invitational is concerned. Not everybody thinks about hype and good publicity as trading off, since sometimes, they go hand-in-hand, but I think there have been enough instances in the community’s past where hyping the hardcore came at a detriment to good publicity to make this point, IMO, obvious.
awwww my post was deleted 
I am so sad.
But anywho, I GUESS i could sorta be for real and say I really do understand what the girl with the teradactile avatar is saying. I agree, for real.
But my original post was so much cooler
My boyfriend was lucky enough to catch your post before it was deleted and relayed it to me. u__ It didn’t really seem to be in agreement with mine but thanks anyway.
It actually concerns me why your post was deleted… Honestly if people are posting semi-semi-offensive jokes like that, I think it gives us a glimpse of how seriously people are taking this tournament, and if those thoughts/comments are deleted on-spot, it’s kind of ignoring that. I’ve posted about experiences (and I think queen of combat had similar experiences) of people making rude jokes during tournament and SRK is just going to delete all rude jokes and pretend like they aren’t happening. That’s fine but when Evo comes, please remember you can’t delete people’s words from the air.
I agree with runaround, especially the 2nd to last paragraph… I kinda laughed a bit haha. About the broadcasting. I don’t know who is confirmed for doing the stream and things like that but if I know from experience iplaywinner has always done tasteful streams. If they’re doing the stream I wouldn’t be worried about that Devastation stalkercam crap happening. Then again it’s equally important how the crowd reacts, and that can’t really be controlled.
i had something to say about this too but my post was also deleted from the first page of posts. i thought it was just me but i guess not. With the risk of getting deleted again, i’ll just say this.
i agree with runaround assessment of “amateurish but well-intentioned spin” as someone who ran one (and a half) female sf4 tourneys, i’m just gonna say the success yield is far lower than what evo staff hopes for it.
I don’t see why you feel anything has to be proved by winning this tournament. In my opinion, and I’m sure others will agree, tournaments like EVO are about the competition, meeting new people an having fun. Why does anything need to be proved, especially in the female tournament? I will most likely be entering, and not because I want to prove I’m better than a bunch of chicks. I would be entering for another chance to compete and grow as a player. I think this would be a great way for me to meet new girls to play with, who share the same interests. Also, being in a tournament and getting a win can give you such a huge boost of confidence. I think that’s why tournaments really help players get to the next level. It’s just another chance to gain that experience, just with a different group of players. I know there’s girls out there that can kick my ass, and that will help me just as the main SF4 tournament would.
I know how you feel concerning guys looking down on us because we’re female. At NEC I got a ton of compliments on how well I played. Do I think I’m good at Street Fighter, yes. Do I think I’m as good as they made me seem, no. I think you shed a negative light on the females of the fighting game community. Sure, there are probably girls who keep getting compliments on how good they are, so they lose motivation. But when I hear a guy compliment me, I never let that keep me from stopping my growth as a player. And any girl who does well in this tournament or any tournament at EVO shares with me in that. The girls who are entering this tournament with the intention of “HEY BOIS LOOK AT ME I CAN PLAY SF TOO HEEHEE ^_^” do not concern me at all. Who cares about them, they’ll go two and out and then chat with shallow guys for the rest of the night. We may be a very small group, but we’re out there, and we can let guys know we’re serious. If I only make it to the third round in the regular sf4 tournament, no one hears about it. To them I’m another scrubby girl who doesn’t take the game seriously. But having a tournament like this can raise awareness, and help eliminate the stereotypes we have to deal with.
Now I do know how guys act. There will be jokes, there will be some negative attention drawn to us. That’s just something we have to deal with if there is a female-designated tournament or not. I think the ideas about having this tournament in a separate room is a great idea. We won’t have to deal with the few jerks who will call names and heckle. The girls who are just entering the scene will not be intimidated by the big hype EVO tournaments can get. We don’t need our tournament to be on the main screen with everyone watching. But, the ones who do make it to Top 8 should be shown. I know EVO understands this could go worse than expected. But it’s their reputation they’re protecting, and I’m sure they will do all they can to make sure nothing goes wrong.
Conclusion: This could be a really fun and interesting tournament. Why ruin it with the politics?
sums up exactly what I was feeling. I was listening to the SRK podcast and they said that one of the reasons that they are holding this tournament is to help facilitate the girls that can’t play at the same level as the guys.
actually there’s NO REASON girls can’t play on the same level as guys. There just aren’t a lot of girls that want to play a fighting game, or willing to take the first step or care enough to. It’s not a handicap.
It’s like you’re saying we should run a DDR Tournament then we run another DDR Tournament on the side for white people.