It won’t work with the low volume of female participants. Maybe in future, but not now. And again, it should be a request from the female player’s corner rather than EVO imposing it on them.
What’s next? A tournament for physically disabled players?
ps it’s not my intention to cause a poker vs chess debate, i wanted to counter your argument for justifying a female only tourney
Just because I’m anal about overblowing someone’s accomplishments, this was 7th in an offshoot WSOP event, not the main event. Still fairly impressive but not as impressive as when I first read. I was about to be all excited that a female had placed so high in the main event. (I only mildly follow poker)
Girls still have a long way to go there too.
Why are the female opinions being taken in higher esteem (PM me, and etc)? There is no reason that a female human being cannot compete with a male in this arena. Lots of new players are developing their game on the internet. Access is not an issue here - pressure from the sexes may even promote performance, which is the most important thing.
“So you think Evo should be “the best in the country competing”?
so we might as well just have a tourney with JWong, Daigo, Sabin, David Choi, Chris Hu, Sanford and whoever else playing. . . .but not the rest of the people who can’t be considered the ‘best’ ?”
I suppose what she meant - which is the general point the majority of the people here is - anyone from anywhere can show that they are the best period. this does nothing but create more names to remember as now they’ll be a, evidently, medicore female evo winner. I am against anything that smells of a ploy to put asses in seats rather than promote high level play.
If this does happen the girls that enter the weak tournament should not be allowed to enter into the main.
I hear you Brutal, it’s sort of cool to just have females run their thing, but, to me, not for something like Evo.
I feel where your intent is Annabelle, keep doin it
Not really sure if this is a compliment or insult
I think joining a clan, which is an inherently voluntary decision to dedicate oneself to improving in a game, is a lot different from entering a tournament, which is a voluntary decision to play some matches on a certain day with no further obligation. There’s no girl’s SF fight club being formed here. It’s not a group of girls dedicated to competing. I suppose that could be a side effect, but I’m not particularly convinced it would be that much more likely than it is already. Do the girls teams compete in gender neutral events, or do they stick to female only?
I think the scene definitely could be more accommodating to new players in general, including females, but I don’t see this tournament idea as a solution at all, primarily because it doesn’t look to make a difference in getting girls active in general.
I basically agree with what you’ve said–although I happen to think that women’s events will become part of the scene eventually. And don’t laugh–if fighting games became so mainstream that it was featured on ESPN, I think there would be tournaments for physically disabled people too. Everybody would find them ridiculous except for the actual participants, (just like for special Olympics,) but there you have it–the point is that the participants would derive meaning from it, and at that point, it wouldn’t even matter what everybody else thought.
Anyway, the point about physical disabilities is moot anyway, as females don’t have any natural disadvantages for playing fighting games (like someone who was, say, missing an arm.) It’s a question of how attractive the sport is for young people starting out (and hence have the best opportunity for leveraging their natural talents to the maximum.) (And even if it was the case that women actually were “naturally disadvantaged” for playing fighting games, there would be just as many reasons, if not more, to have a special tournament for them anyway.)
The question is of making fighting games attractive to both boys AND girls, so that ten years down the line, the next Alex Valle might be an 80 pound Latina who has played fighting games at Denjin Arcade or some other Mecca for US SF, for ten years, five hours a day, before she turned 21. It’s not just about getting women gamers to stop playing guitar hero to pick up street fighter–it’s about STARTING them when they’re just out of the crib, when perceptions of “boy games” and “girl games” actually do make a lot of difference in whether they’ll pick up a game or not.
Ah. I didn’t catch that. Thanks for the correction.
There are too many people to respond to in this thread, some I’m just gonna post an e/n post like everyone else.
The problem of interest among girls is simply a much bigger problem than an event like this can solve. More men are interested in SF, and a smaller percentage of them will take the step to become competitive in it. I’d say its probably about the same percentage of women who are interested in SF actually take the time to become competitive, and an event like this seeks to reach out to people who would never want to take the step to become competitive in an attempt to increase female heads at SF tournaments. It seems kind of desperate to me.
So to kinda reword it, instead of trying to increase an overall female interest in SF, I think this event just tries to make a grab at girls who are passively interested, which is why previous attempts at this stuff doesn’t work. I think trying to include those people cheapens the importance of the girls who already play seriously, and stresses a value of people simply showing up to tournaments instead of people practicing to show off their strongest game.
Girl/Women in the FGC:
I can understand that some girls might be shy/a little scared to compete against guys at first, but isn’t that how players get better in the first place? I mean, sure I used to get really nervous when I put my coin in the machine to play, or when my tournament match was about to start; but alot of it was just all in my head… I later on realized that when I played better people, and entered more tournaments… I also understand that in order to get really good at something, you will need to practice, alot! Unfortunately, alot of females are not as dedicated as males to fighting games - they sometimes tend to play because their BF got them into the game, or just play for fun. I’m not saying there are not any serious females players, I’m just saying that they sometimes lack the devotion by choice. IMO, I do believe women can be just as good as men at fighting games, if they put the time and dedication in it.
When EVO 2010 was announced, I was very anxious to see EVO 2010’s Game Line-up; having competed and supporting it for years now. But, when I saw the “All Female SF4 Tournament”, I just couldn’t believe it… Throughout the years of playing fighting games competitively, there was always this one saying that would not only make me feel bad about my still level, but would also make me feel like I’m some sort of charity case - it was: “You’re good for a girl”. And in my opinion, this is EXACTLY the kind of message the “EVO All Female Tournament” sends! when I found out it wasn’t just a joke, it felt like a big slap in the face… Why do they have to seperate females from males in the first place? Why do they have to baby us up by giving women their own tournament? this is so disscouraging… it’s almost like EVO is saying female gamers will never be on the same level as males - no matter how hard they try; thus, they need to seperate them. I know the EVO staff didn’t mean any harm by adding this extra event, but I do believe this will attract more attention whores than serious female players…
Though, this is just my opinion…
It happened last year at Evo. They had the main SF4 tourney. And then there was a US-only regional team tourney. Was the team that won the strongest in the world? Who knows! There wasn’t a Japan team, there wasn’t a UK/Euro team, etc. But it was still fun. And it didn’t impact anything because it was a side tourney…much like this one.
It’s all about obtainable goals. You can only practice so hard for so long until you buckle. Reaching goals helps motivate you. The first Evo I went to, my only goal was to not go out 2 in a row. Over time, I felt more confident, trained a bit harder and upped my goals. Last year at Evo I finally made it into the semi-finals. And hopefully this year I’ll go further.
I created made-up goals for myself, and that certainly helped a bit. But if there was a tournament I thought I actually had a shot at placing, or winning, you better believe I’d kick it up a notch. That’s why I think this tournament could help motivate people.
Well, they’re an extremely small minority in the FGC. So maybe awareness or showing that we welcome them? Maybe to build up some female role models in the community? Or…maybe its just a fun.
I’m sure we are all pretty intimidated at the first big tourney we go to. Now imagine that you’re a 1% minority there. Probably even more intimidating, right? It seems like an event that doesn’t make you feel completely out of your element could help you to feel welcomed, doesn’t it?
I mean, let me ask you this. If they had a beginners-only tournament at Final Round, would you have played in it?
You find out who’s the strongest woman in the world :wgrin:
Link to where it say females can’t compete in the MAIN tourney, please. It’s a side tourney, and stuff like this has been going on in Japan for quite sometime now. I’m pretty sure they don’t get all pissy about it.
So, 5 on 5 regional exhibition = 1v1 open tournament?
I think this would be A good idea for a side event.
Why have a tournament that actually bans players on the main stage?
I think you should just have this as a casual or BYOC thing, but I would rather have another real game up there instead of the same game with less entrants to the tournament.
Wow. This is still going on? I still stand by my original post that gender separated tournaments are stupid. They only give people more excuse to troll stuff like this. The one I saw at Triple Threat made me want to troll those girls (actually, in the thread I think I did… they were pretty abysmal, especially that female Marn).
Gender doesn’t separate skill and making a gender separated tournament won’t convince more girls to join. Instead, it just makes them public targets for trolling. Worst part is even if you win, that doesn’t validate skill because opponents were screened based off a really retarded criteria (X versus Y chromosome in a non-sporting event). So even if you win it’s like- “PFFT. You won a girl tournament. Who cares?” Anyone who remotely cares about the competitive scene wouldn’t be interested because this is just a giant target for ridicule.
It’s constructive, but it’s a step in the wrong direction. It smacks of discrimination against men (if women pay a lower price, they are the advantaged party) and then you are basically dealing with the same issue but just a different facet: discrimination against some party or another.
Another idea along these lines would be to basically pay an amount inversely proportional to skill level (assuming there was some sort of measurement). Unfortunately, that creates a pyramid-like scheme where those that contribute the least to payouts stand to gain the most, so I would definitely say no to this.
inkblot, another suggestion: what about discounting/waiving the signup/tournament for first time EVO-attendees? Either waive the $30/$50 signup and pay for tournaments they enter, or have them pay the $30/$50, and let them enter as many tournaments as they want for free (or something in between). It negates the issue of a discriminator based on anything that might be seen as discriminatory.
At worst, it would look like an “introductory offer” and is something you can do every year to accommodate the people who are on the fringe of attending these events who you want to draw in.
If they can’t fight their way to the top ten, then they don’t deserve the spotlight, vagina or no vagina.
While a novel concept, i think it would sort of be unfair to the players who have stayed loyal to evo for years.
My comments are extreme? You’re the one who brought in affirmative action, of all things. I’m over here trying to explain that kind of extremity away.
stop being soooo EXTREEEEME!
it’s funny, because not only do most of the male community dislikes this idea of the female tourney (and with good reasoning too), but most of the girls who have posted on it and have been in the fg scene (except for 1 girl) dislike it too.
I agree. (Disclaimer: I would not get that discount, as I’m a past Evo attendee)
I also don’t want to suggest that any sort of introductory offer be so incredulous so as to raise hell amongst the majority of past Evo attendees.
However, it does show the willingness of the FGC as a whole (at least those who go to Evo) to expand it’s ranks, to encourage those who haven’t been a part of it to do so. The sacrifice is ours to make, and ours alone. No one person who has been to Evo is discriminated against, nor is anyone who is coming to Evo for the first time (or considering it).
It’s not perfect, but I think it helps to eliminate the issue of discrimination and reduce the “touchiness” of the whole situation.