aeightBee

It's hard to justify in 2026, with the VRS system, but women's CS should have been better integrated into the wider competitive circuit as much as 10 years ago. Prior to VRS, we had so many bullshit invites to big tournaments that showed up on name value alone without winning a game. How many ESL and BLAST tournaments did you see where EG or OG took a spot without actually being competitive what so ever. How many random-ass local qualifiers have you seen for Dreamhack Opens where they go out in last place. What's the key behind Valorant's success in women's esports? To me the key difference is that Game Changers is integrated into the wider scene which adds viewership and incentives to compete. I'm not saying we have to have an invite for them all the time but if we'd had opportunities like last year's Imperial Valkyries run at Blast Bounty happen intermittently at S- and A-tier events for the last 10 years, I think it would be very different. Wouldn't you rather have seen a game like Imperial Valkyries vs NAVI or FURIA a few times per year than having had to sit through another generational loss streak from EG at EPL? Unfortunately I think it's impossible to execute properly in the current VRS ecosystem without significantly more controversy than what was the case in the late 2010s and early 2020s. But that's what I think could have made a difference. In a broader sense, I think in 5-10 years it will naturally improve as the female playerbase grows in pure numbers. Today's female players got introduced to CS in the early-mid 2010s, and since then the gender split in CS and gaming in general has definitely gotten a lot more even among young people that will enter the competitive scene in a few years. So naturally, more players means more and better players, and a bigger market that makes advertising more attractive, meaning more and bigger tournaments, more viewership, etc. Long reply, but there you go :>