Fair Game: The Ongoing Fight For Inclusivity In Esports
The international gaming community looks after its own. Politically engaged and known for their inclusivity, gamers respect an individual’s right to exist. It’s no surprise, then, that the recent rise in esports tournaments (huge stadium events where in-person and online audiences watch professional video gamers compete) being hosted in countries with questionable standpoints on same-sex relationships, women’s rights and free speech, is causing the community consternation. Saudi Arabia – where the government recently announced a $37.8 billion investment in gaming development – is one. Others include the UAE, Russia and China.
The gaming community’s unease is based on empirical evidence. The 2022 UK Games Industry Census showed that 10% of gamers worldwide – and 24% of those working within the industry – identify as LGBTQIA+. Some 48% of gamers worldwide are female. Saudi Arabia ranks at number 155 out of the 164 countries examined in the 2023 World Population Index for freedom of expression and civil rights. Last year, the UAE government introduced a law prohibiting teachers from “discussing gender identity, homosexuality or any other behaviour deemed unacceptable to UAE society” in class. The Chinese administration routinely cracks down on women’s rights movements – for example, 2023 sees new legislation that insists Chinese women “respect and obey national laws, respect social morals, professional ethics and family values,” while activist Sophia Huang Xueqin remains in jail, having been imprisoned in 2019 for gender rights campaigning. Women in China have taken to holding blank pieces of paper at protests and vigils after authorities banned the use of slogans. The Russian government’s human rights abuses are well documented, and it has recently introduced new anti-LGBTQIA+ laws.
Gamers now fear that oppressive values are seeping into the gaming. China’s government has already implemented controls to regulate the country’s gaming industry. Many believe this is simply code for censorship – for instance, in 2018, authorities in China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt banned The Sims Freeplay game. An EA spokesperson said that the game would no longer be updated “in light of regional standards”. However, this led to fans questioning whether it was due to the game’s inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters and relationships.
The esports community is beginning to respond. US-based gaming team Moist refused to participate in the 2022 Gamers Without Borders event in Saudi Arabia. At the time, team coach Noah Hinder tweeted that he would “not be associating with a country that does not recognise LGBTQ+ people as human beings”. Plans to hold a Rainbow Six Siege gaming tournament in Abu Dhabi in 2022 were scrapped following protests that included a Change.org petition highlighting the serious LGBTQIA+ rights abuses in the UAE, including the criminalisation of homosexuality. Some of the gamers that do compete in regions such as this donate a portion of their winnings to LGBTQIA+ charities.
Despite the backlash, though, some argue that holding tournaments in controversial countries can provide temporary safe spaces for marginalised individuals who live there. Women and girls who are ordinarily ill-treated and ignored. The neurodivergent. The lonely souls who yearn to be in loving, same-sex relationships... For as long as a tournament takes place, they have a community. Their existence is acknowledged.
But one prominent gaming figure speaking on condition of anonymity remains unequivocal about the Saudi regime’s increasing involvement in esports. “Their presence is still a problem due to their rampant human rights abuses and hate-motivated violence.” That said, they acknowledge that this growing debate could be a symptom of a wider problem. “To be clear,” they say, “I feel the same way about the American government and the global military-industrial complex, both of which are heavily involved in the large-scale production of video games in ways that make me physically ill. I think that is something that the industry as a whole needs to have a long-overdue reckoning about.”
Simon Coates is a London-based writer and artist whose work has appeared in publications including The New European and Scottish newspaper The National
