All-female LoL Tournament May Threaten Fabric of Gaming Society

Concerned male gamers believe that KeSPA’s 2014 Amateur Challenge Ladies, a women’s only League of Legends tournament, may unravel the entirety of gaming society and culture.

“First they wanted tribunal suffrage, then equal gold and xp, and now they want their own tournament,” said Reddit user niceguy143. “What’s next, refusing our pic requests?”

Several critics of the league have expressed concerns at the idea of 5v5 all-female matches, citing a lack of ten viable support champions for the players to choose from and the difficulty of fitting so many cams and donation links on the OGN broadcast screens. Additionally, fans are concerned that modifying player booths to add room for boyfriends to sit in the back may bankrupt OnGamenet.

Others are concerned about psychological motivations for female professional players and the deeply disturbing thought that if fans watch women play, they may one day have to actually listen to what women say as well.

“Even though a woman may play thousands of hours to reach Diamond 1, she still might be in it for the attention,” said a Twitch chat participant. “The Olympics test for steroids and HGH, why can’t we test for ATT-W?”

Perhaps even more unsettling is the realization that women may already be competing in League of Legends right now, and men could be playing against non-men without realizing it. According to reports released by Riot in early 2013, 90% of the LoL player base is male, indicating that a frighteningly large 10% of all players are women, and rising.

“If I don’t know which of my teammates is a girl, and more importantly whether she is attractive, how can I know who to be nice to?” said user redpillgaming. “You can’t just go around being nice to everyone.”

While some argue that those against the new tournament may be sexist, critics of KeSPA’s new league are quick to dispel that notion.

“I’m not sexist, some of my best champions are women,” said one male League player. “I’m just concerned that exposing delicate females to the harsh world of competitive eSports may shatter their fragile sensibilities.”

Many male players are afraid that if the women’s league is a success, Riot may take their rape jokes away, callously undoing decades of hard work by gamers everywhere to normalize sexual assault in gaming culture.

“If they had polled the LoL community about what they’d rather have, rape jokes or gender equality, I’m pretty sure rape jokes would rape gender equality,” said an anonymous fan. “You know, like in the poll, not in real life.”