the 1990s. “I changed my name to t0nka, because I was
like, I don’t need [this harassment],” she says.
“There was a lot of hate,” Harper recalls – men simply
didn’t want to get beaten by a woman, and sometimes
didn’t even believe she was a woman. “Like right now you
can say fine, I’ll livestream my game right now with you.
We didn’t have that technology back then,” she says. Case
has spoken openly about the harassment she faced.
“People would dig up old pictures of me in high school...TOXICIT Y NOW
It’s clear that the AFT was a milestone for women and
helped to legitimise female pros in an industry
overwhelmingly dominated by men. But in talking to the
women who were there, sexism in the early days of pro
gaming feels like something that either had to be ignored
or endured. In Fitzgerald’s eyes, the main issue was that
the 1990s were “peak misogyny”. What she saw and
experienced online was simply an extension of what she
saw and experienced in real life. “I didn’t have TV until I
was like 13,” she says. “I’m the same age as Chelsea
Clinton... and the way they would talk about her on
television... I was like, ‘Mom, what is television?!’”
When I tell Kornelia about the kind of harrassment
that women in games face today she’s visibly shocked.
So much has changed since then, and yet so very little.
With social media and far more ways to harangue and
expose people, harassment has arguably become more
dangerous. In 2016, professional League of Legends player
Remilia publicly quit due to anxiety and mental health
issues stemming from sexist and transmisogynist
harassment, and in 2019, died in her sleep. One of the
world’s best Overwatch players, Geguri, considered using
software to deepen the sound of her voice, and the subject
of women’s-only tournaments is hotly debated as either
unnecessary or a painfully slow stepping stone to eventual
progress – 90% of esports scholarships still go to men.
“People are brands now,” Fitzgerald observes of the
modern gaming landscape – there are so many different
factors for why people choose to get into esports now
beyond simply having fun. Women’s game tournaments
today are a far cry from the days of one woman, Anna,
hitting the bricks to bring a totally unprecedented
tournament to life. And yet the AFT, for its unique place
in history, still remains a bright spot not just in women’s
gaming history, but gaming history overall.STILL AT IT What are the finalists playing in 2021?
“I’m not very
good anymore,
but we just play
for fun.”“You’d think with my
history and everything
I’d be all-out battling...
but I’m more like a
farmer.”“I don’t wanna kill
anything anymore...
[though] if someone gave
me Halo, I would probably
play it for 12 hours
straight.”KORNELIA
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3TEMPERANCE
Raft and Valheim with her kids, World
of Warcraft with her husbandT0NKA
The Legend of Zelda:
Breath of the Wildand new pictures and write these
elaborate multi- page teardowns of
every aspect of my being,” she says in
a 2016 interview with the Techies
Project. “At one point an ex- boyfriend
posted a lengthy, insulting, derogatory
post on one of the biggest gaming
blogs at that time.”
On the other hand, Takacs says
she didn’t really experience negative
treatment for being a woman.
“Neither for being a left-handed
gamer, a Hungarian-born gamer, or a
female gamer,” she says. “Back then I
was not out of the closet, but I
assume that would have been
accepted as well by most gamers.”Making History
FE ATURE
“I CHANGED MY NAME TO T0NKA,
BECAUSE I WAS LIKE, I DON’TNEED [THIS HARASSMENT]”Listen, Kornelia
was the one with
all the photos.