YOU WAIT, rifle in hand. An enemy appears. You kill him, and whoop for joy. Welcome to VALORANT, a popular video game that some people play professionally. This year the VALORANT Champions Tour, a series of contests that ends next month, will offer $1m in total prize money. Eighty players are competing; all are men.
Some 42% of gamers who watch e-sports (at least occasionally) are female, and women often commentate on tournaments. But of the 300 highest-earning e-sports players, not one is a woman. Why so few women make it to the top is poorly understood. E-sports do not require physical strength. But they do require dedication, and the pool of avid female gamers is smaller than the pool of males.
It may be that girls are on average less keen than boys on…
