Sexism, Lies & Video Games

Rape threats, cyber groping and sexual insults – Cat Rodie investigates the dark side of gaming

At age 15, Noni Och had no reason to pre-sume she was unsafe as she sat playing a video game in her cosy bedroom adorned with posters. But as she navigated further into the globally popular World of Warcraft, she began to feel increasingly uncomfortable.

Using voice chat to communicate, Och hoped to swap tactics with other players. But when it became apparent that she was the only female in the arena, things took a nasty turn. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prick up as the men began to gang up and intimidate her with a series of invasive questions. “What are you wearing?” “How old are you?” “Are you legal?” After she stopped responding, their aggression increased. Then, one of them told her he was masturbating. “He started moaning and calling my name,” she says. “I felt like I was going to be sick.”

Shaking, she left the voice chat and closed the game. “I didn’t play for a long time after that,” admits Och, now 21. “I was too ashamed to tell anyone about it. I blamed myself.”

The demographics of video game culture have changed dramatically since the 1980s and ’90s. It is no longer an area dominated by young men – in fact, the Entertainment Software Association in the US estimates that, although numbers fluctuate from year to year, women have made up about half of gamers globally since 2014. But despite women now representing a significant stake in what has become a multi-billion-dollar industry, the last decade has seen gaming become notorious for sexism, sexual harassment and trolling.

It’s an issue that has remained largely unchanged for years. A 2012 US study found 80 per cent of gamers think sexism is rampant in the gaming community, and revealed that 63 per cent of women had been called c**t, bitch, slut or whore while gaming.