A new study from Women in Games Argentina is looking into the female gamer experience. In order to show the contrast between what men can expect in online team-based PvP games versus what women have to deal with, Women In Games got several Argentinian streamers to play Valorant first using their natural voices and then using a voice modulator that made them sound more feminine. The differences between each experience was like night and day.
The video is entirely in Spanish, but Google and DualShockers were here to help with translation. First we hear a few testimonials from women gamers, with one saying they don’t get taken seriously in online matches and another saying she often feels panic before using in-game voice comms. Then the male players stroll out to play a few matches of Valorant with the modulator turned on.
What follows is a montage of each male streamer enduring belligerence, insults, and downright rudeness. Google refused to translate some of the words uttered during these matches, but they sure sounded a lot like the curses shouted by NPCs in Far Cry 6. And those were probably the least misogynistic comments heard in the video. One person told the male streamer to leave the game and return to the kitchen, while another said "all women" should just die.
It’d be bad enough to deal with constant insults, but being perceived as a woman made a tangible difference in the way each match was played. Valorant is a team game, and if your teammates don’t want to cooperate, it’s basically impossible to perform well. A streamer named Alfredito basically reversed his in-game performance with the voice modulator turned on, going from a match where he achieved 15 kills and two deaths to a game where he got just three kills and 16 deaths.
"I don't even want to imagine having to live an experience like this every day," commented Alredito after playing his matches. Similar sentiments were offered by streamers Lucius and Tasher as well.
Women In Games Argentina hasn't published the study yet, but if this preview is any indication, the full report is going to be very eye-opening.