How female Indian gamers are slowly but surely striving to achieve gender equality

From being called “hackers,” experiencing sexist biases to  bagging lucrative endorsements and business deals, female gamers in India are revving to equal the stakes for themselves

Growing up with brothers ensured that Mansi “Magsplay” Gupta had early exposure to games. But during the pandemic-induced lockdown, she took to Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, or PubG, and started gaming much more. “I would play for eight-nine hours at a stretch. I was hooked,” says the 23-year-old. The pandemic was a pivotal time for the gaming industry in India. According to gaming market intelligence website Niko, platforms such as Gamerji (an esports platform) and PayTM First Games  have witnessed a surge in user traffic since 2020. But while India has always had a considerable number of male gamers, namely Naman Mathur’s MortaL and Ajey Nagar’s Carry is Live, female gamers were few and far between. However, the last couple of years have seen a significant change even as a recent article on Business Insider pegs the number of smartphone female gamers at 43 per cent. 

Tough beginnings 

Take Kaashvi “Kaash Plays” Hiranandani, for instance. The 25-year-old launched her professional YouTube profile when “a prominent international Call of Duty player” called her a “hacker” on his stream. “I put up a video of my POV, showing that I am not a hacker, and that video went viral on YouTube in mid-2020. The Call of Duty audience thought just because a girl was playing well, it must be a hacker; I wanted to prove them wrong,” says Hiranandani, who quit a job in finance in 2021 to take on gaming full-time. And today, the risk has paid off for both Gupta and Hiranandani as they have 685K and 675K subscribers on YouTube, respectively, along with brand endorsements and lucrative contracts. 

Gupta has come a long way—from stealing time at the computer when her elder brothers were not playing to becoming a pro gamer. Just out of college, Gupta took to gaming because of the time the pandemic afforded her and soon realised that she could make a career out of something she was passionate about. “I spent a lot of time trying to perfect gaming and made at least 20 practice videos before posting anything on my profile. I would record and edit all the time till I felt confident enough for the camera,” recounted the Varanasi-born Gupta, who now lives in New Delhi, where she has converted her house into a studio to record and edit videos. “I watch many editing videos online to improve daily,” she adds. 

For Vinnie Gill—who has 4.07k subscribers on YouTube—her foray into gaming began after she started following the content of gamers she liked. “I always followed gaming channels/pros or content creators and would diligently consume what they shared. When making my profile, I had to make it look like me and my life, so I involved my cats, hair, and personality. This was the idea for my overlays and banners as well,” says the 33-year-old. 

Prejudice against female gamers

Meghna Golder has been playing games since she was a kid. However, when she opts for multi-player games, she prefers not to bring up her gender. “I don’t talk about being a female gamer unless it comes up specifically, or until towards the end of the game because gaming rooms can potentially get biased. I don’t want my fellow gamers to come to my rescue or treat me differently because of my gender,” she says. 

Recognising that female gamers’ identities as women will be exceptionally and stereotypically underrepresented by the games they play is important. Most female gamers are encouraged to use their voice via the in-game chat or switch on their cameras. “Some of my female friends will go as far as requesting their male friends to use voice chat to tell a stranger a strategic command for coordinating the round, simply because they don’t know how the stranger will react if they hear their voice,” says journalist and gaming enthusiast Khumail Thakur.For

Golder introduced me to a Reddit thread where she spoke about how men in the game room for Valorant, even while “trash-talking each other,” would use language aimed at each other’s mothers and sisters. “Even though it’s not directed at me (my mic is off), it’s uncomfortable to see the kind of violence or language/disrespect aimed at women related to the other players,” she wrote on the thread earlier this year. 

While one solution is to have more female gamers enter the male-dominant industry, game developers are responsible for ensuring women gamers are protected against sexual harassment and gender biases. “Riot Games and Ubisoft have collaborated for the ‘Zero Harm in Comms’ project to take steps to make online gaming safer for everyone by using Artificial Intelligence. Ubisoft India is also working with IIT Bombay to develop processes and systems within the in-game chat to keep it safer for everyone,” adds Thakur.

Other roadblocks on the path

Aanya, who goes by Girl Gamer Don on YouTube with 29.8K subscribers, realised that her love for PubG could amount to much more when she started doing well competitively. “I played competitive games and won titles in e-sports tournaments. That’s when I realised I wanted to make it my career,” she tells me. She started with posting videos and then moved on to gaming on live streams. “Gradually, the audience started loving me back. The biggest challenge was how to get started, be regular, have patience and be mature enough to handle all situations,” says Aanya. But she waited until she turned fairly successful to “explain” to her family what she did. “The biggest point I had to explain to my family was that it was my passion, and I am really happy doing it. Female gamers have had to face hatred from audiences, but as a creator, you gradually learn how to deal with people,” she adds. Aanya was echoing Hiranandani’s sentiments of many not being accepting of female gamers doing well and often deriding them as hackers. 

For Hiranandani, the biggest challenge was balancing her day job and streaming at night. “I was getting burnt out. I figured I couldn’t have my feet in both boats, so I took a plunge,” she explains. Initially, her parents did not understand why she was spending all her time online, but later, her mother became her biggest fan. “Though my family initially wanted me to join my family business, they are now happy with what I do, and I have been fortunate. My mother watches all of my content and videos daily,” adds Hiranandani.  

Similarly, Gupta had to let go of lucrative placements offers after her college when she decided to give gaming a try. "I was under immense pressure but decided to make 100 videos, and if those took me anywhere, I would pursue this full-time. I don't have 100 videos on my channel, but it somehow worked out for me," says Gupta, who built her online presence two months after creating her channel. She amassed 100K subscribers within four months. She says her parents have been her biggest support. "They still don't exactly understand what I do, but they are super supportive."

Making a living out of it

"I have been doing several brand deals, travelling to different cities every month, and meeting people. Meeting and playing with the best people and associating with several brands has been such an amazing experience for me," shares Hiranandani, signed by S8UL esports. She also underscores the importance of not paying importance to negative comments online. 

According to Gupta, brands are becoming more open to recognising female gamers. "There was a mindset that females can't play. On YouTube, nine out of 10 gaming profiles belong to men, so most brands would gravitate towards them. But now, many people watch our live streams, and brands also ensure equal representation. Gupta, who has recently worked with brands such as Bingo, was also roped in as a chief business officer for gaming agency OpraahFx. 

But both Gupta and Hiranandani believe it's time for gamers to drop the tag of "female" and "male" to ensure gender equality. "We are so few of us, but that's been changing, and there is always room for more. Things are changing, and female gamers don't like the tag of being ‘female’. We cannot ignore the fact that it is a male-dominated space. Still, I see the scenario changing, and eventually, we will be at a place where there are a lot more of us," says Hiranandani.

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