eSports around the world is rapidly developing, providing opportunities for both male and female gamers. However, it must also be acknowledged that the opportunities for male gamers in esports always outweigh those for females. Many still believe that not many girls can play games and have the courage to participate in professional esports tournaments.
However, it cannot be denied that the allure for girls in eSports is still significant and garners attention from audiences as well as organizing bodies. Thus, there are still tournaments specifically for women. The Legion of Valkyrie is a small CS:GO tournament organized by Lenovo, with a prize pool of $1,000, and of course, this tournament is not for men.
As this is an online tournament, there is no easy way to verify the identities of the participants. Therefore, female players are required to perform a video call to avoid cheating. The call can be made via phone or PC and must connect 15 minutes before the match starts.
An Asian guy thought he could easily make some money by signing up and join by pretending to be a girl. In reality, this guy dressed in a girl’s outfit, wore a wig, glasses, and a mask to avoid detection. However, this gamer’s effort was not enough. Usually, people would question why someone wears a mask while indoors, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, no one questioned it. The guy in disguise seemed to have evaded the first round of checks.
However, all of this guy’s efforts went down the drain when he was caught for a ridiculous reason. Perhaps due to being too focused on the game, this gamer accidentally pulled down his mask to… breathe, forgetting that he was still on a monitoring call with the organizing body.
This incident quickly spread within the CS:GO community. It is still unclear what Lenovo will do about this incident, but it is likely that the guy and his team will be disqualified. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many on-location tournaments have been canceled and replaced with online tournaments. This requires many additional measures to combat cheating from gamers.