Forty “Valorant” players gathered this weekend in Paris, in front of nearly 300 people. This is “unheard of for a women’s e-sport tournament in public in France”, remind our colleagues at France Inter. And this first has a name: the “Valkyries games”.
Eight teams of five players (they are around twenty years old on average and come from France and all over Europe) will compete for forty-eight hours in a first-person shooter game. The competition will be broadcast live on Twitch (on Samuel Etienne’s channel)
The objective? “Highlight the female scene”, “visibility for French women in the world of video games”. “For the women’s scene, it’s a big step forward. This is the first time that girls will have real spectators. Women have very rarely had the opportunity to have fans, people who support them in real life,” confirms Lou Henguelle, alias Loupiote, 21 years old.
According to the Women In Games association, “if 65% of female players watch streams every week and 34% watch e-sport matches, they only represent 11% of streamers and 7% of e-sport players”. Lou Henguelle confirms: “we observe no women in mixed teams, at the highest level. In ten years, women will be able to compete alongside men who accept them on their teams. Today, we are still far from it. »