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Here is my hope for November's Canadian Open in Toronto, unveiled this week as the first event in a new, professional video-game circuit called Major League Gaming Canada: I hope an all-female squad kicks all the guys' butts.
The games on the schedule are currently all Xbox shooters - Rainbow Six: Las Vegas, Halo 2 and Gears of War - and if you play these things online you know the reception a female voice often receives: It can get downright hostile, and watch out if she frags, or shoots, a macho male gamer. Voice communication in many multiplayer games, especially over Xbox Live, Microsoft's integrated online service, too often degenerates into misogynist, homophobic and racist trash talking. Players hide behind nicknames and the knowledge that few offenders have been punished for transgressions.
Bonnie Burton, a 16-year-old electronic sports, or e-sports, pro from Pennsylvania, has heard plenty of that. In a promotional video on MLGcanada.com, she offers tips for other young women - and it's a little sad.
"Whenever you're online, guys comment, 'You should be at the mall, you shouldn't be playing this, you must be really fat and ugly,' and that's not true," says Burton, who is more widely known as Xena, her gamer tag or nickname. "So I guess, just hang in there, it really is fun once you get to the tournaments. Sometimes practising isn't the best, but coming to the tournaments and beating guys is so much fun."
Microsoft and other game companies should pay special attention to that "practising isn't the best" sentiment. And they should note what Major League Gaming president Sundance DiGiovanni told me this week in an interview: Female players are "the fastest growing constituency" joining the online ladders and qualifying tournaments that could eventually earn gamers a pro contract in his league.
"We don't have a women's division. They play on the same playing field as the guys do. There are co-ed teams and that's the way they want it, they want it to be head-to-head," said DiGiovanni, who co-founded MLG in the United States in 2002. "The great thing is, as we get more popularity and exposure, we're getting a lot more gamer girls in there. There's something really special when a girl beats a guy and stands up and gets to shake his hand. It beats any trash talking I have ever heard."
And yes, DiGiovanni means girls, as in preteens. Burton started on the pro circuit when she was 12 years old playing Halo, a Mature-rated game suggested for those 17 and over, as are Rainbow Six and Gears. MLG requires a parent's consent if a competitor is under 16, and DiGiovanni calls the league "a community of kids at the core, and those kids all have parents.
"The last thing I want," he says," is a parent of any our attendees or pros to be concerned with the environment that we're creating. We will always be transparent in that area and very supportive of parental wishes."
Besides worried parents, MLG also has to conform to television standards now that coverage of its events appears on the USA Network south of the border and, soon, on two Canadian channels, The Score and G4TechTV. The latter outlets will fill Sunday evenings with MLG Canada content for 15 weeks leading up to the November Open.
Some hard-core players may scoff at this sanitization as gaming, rebranded as e-sports, gets dragged into a wider spotlight, but I'm all for it. Major League Gaming and competitions such as the World Series of Video Games, which will bring World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero II showdowns to CBS this year, are providing a space where players can compete in and watch video gaming without the ugliness that has sadly come to define online play for many.
Editing out the idiocy, the rude, vocal minority online, will give players like Burton a chance to test their skills and hopefully score a few points for inclusiveness along the way.
DiGiovanni said other games - a non-shooter would be nice and you can bet on a hockey title making the cut - and platforms such as Nintendo's popular Wii console might pop up in the 2008 season. For now, Canadian Xbox 360 players and teams can start qualifying for Major League Gaming's first foray here in special online tournaments beginning next month.
