-Yo [bleep] women, honestly.
-Where's my [bleep]
-Please refrain from being a [bleep] [bleep] nagging [bleep]
-I've heard go make them sandwiches.
I've heard to go back to the kitchen.
I've heard that I am not good because I'm a girl.
-Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to day number one
of the "Fortnite" DreamHack tournament.
-Oh! [Bleep]
-People want to watch people who are good.
So if you play a lot and you're practicing,
people want to see that.
-Because there's no existing support there,
a lot of female gamers don't want to go pro.
Nobody wants to be the nail that gets hammered back down.
-I've seen a lot of girls at the top
of male competitive environment quit.
-Looking good. You got it. Good luck.
♪♪
-eSports is a quickly emerging form
of professional video game playing
where individual players or teams
compete to win cash prizes
sometimes in the millions of dollars.
In 2020, the eSports industry is predicted
to surpass $1 billion in revenue.
Popular games like "Overwatch" and "Fortnite"
are attracting a very wide audience.
Still, despite this, the competitive gaming world
is known to be incredibly male-dominated.
-So just out of curiosity,
is this how you guys treat every girl
that comes into your comp games?
No, no, I'm just wondering.
-Hey. -[ Laughs ]
-There's no comment that can turn me away from this game.
I still want to play.
-Chassidy, also known by her gaming handle Cupcake,
is one of five members of Team Paradox,
an all-female gaming team trying to go pro.
Each member of Team Paradox ranks in the top 1%
of players for the game "Overwatch."
-Kyliee! -Hi!
-Nice to meet you.
-You're so small. -[ Laughs ]
-This game, when it came out like three years ago,
I fell in love with it immediately,
and it quickly became, like, a big part of my life.
Currently, we are one of the only female teams.
A lot of our team would love to see one of us go pro.
We are practicing so, so hard.
So maybe, like, the whole team
maybe gets looked at and picked up by an org,
or maybe one of our players is scouted and brought up.
That would be amazing.
We want to push not only our team forward,
but our players forward.
-I do really enjoy playing with women
'cause I believe that the layer of gender really doesn't matter.
It's just out the window.
My name is Stephanie Harvey,
also known in the gaming industry as Miss Harvey.
I'm a professional "Counter-Strike" player,
and I won in 2007, 2010, '11, '12, and '15.
What I've learned throughout my career,
if you want to become pro, you need to work extremely hard
and kind of fight for this by yourself.
A lot of the people in the community
thinks that you're stealing a spot
or that that money should go somewhere else
or that you're not good enough to be sponsored.
There's so much attention when you reach the top of a top game
and so much pressure that a lot of the times,
these girls don't really want to continue or pursue
or feel like it's worth it.
[ Keyboard clacking ]
-How I'm feeling? Hungry.
I think that's, like, the number-one thing on my mind
right now is getting food.
But in terms of playing, I'm feeling pretty calm.
I'm not feeling anxious yet at least.
Maybe when I get there I feel a little more nervous.
Tonight is DreamHack Anaheim,
so they're doing a solo tournament.
So everybody's just playing against each other.
There's 1,200 people competing
and only 100 people in the grand finals.
I'm Madison Mann.
Nickname's Maddie, and I play for Gen.G Esports.
I got signed in 2018.
Probably roughly practice lately about six to eight hours a day,
and that's pretty much every single day.
I have a lot of pressure.
The last solo tournament, I didn't do as well in Australia,
and I went on Twitter,
and I was just getting flamed for no reason.
And I feel like the extra pressure of just being who I am
can take a huge toll on even my performance,
'cause I don't want to let anyone else down,
let alone myself down.
I don't want to make any mistakes
because the whole world's watching.
That's kind of stressful.
-You want the left one?
-Yeah.
-All three. Eat them.
-That's a big carrot.
-Yeah, you just have to eat carrots.
-Okay.
I think I knew the harassment I would face
'cause I've always experienced it being just a girl online.
Like, I've heard everything since I was 9 years old.
It's definitely gotten more personal
because it's like my everyday job
and I have to hear harassment from other pros,
and it's pretty annoying, but at the same time, I'm like,
someone has to take the bullet in order for things to change.
-Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to DreamHack Anaheim.
We're at the Anaheim Convention Center.
I'm Ballatw, joined by ShyoWager.
And today is the "Fortnite" DreamHack tournament.
-This is a $250,000 prize pool, grand prize of $30,000.
-So it's simple -- You last longer, you get points.
You eliminate people to make you last longer, you get points.
-It's all about survival, all about winning that game.
-Those mats you found, like, mid-rotation were huge
'cause you had no mats.
You're playing well. Keep it up. Keep it up.
They've been practicing for months.
So once we're here, my strategy is more
to just make sure they're comfortable,
go get them, you know, an energy drink, some water,
just really do everything outside of the game
so they can focus on just the game.
-In eSports right now,
there aren't any female players at the top level of play.
It really hasn't been explored, I think.
My name is Barry Lee,
and I'm an eSports agent with Evolved Talent Agency.
I represent a variety of pro players in different eSports.
If you look at the marketing for video games in the late '90s
and even in the early 2000s,
a lot of it has been directed to boys.
That had a large swing towards,
like, skewing the gaming population
way more male-dominated.
What we're seeing now is clawing back against it.
So until teams are saying that,
"We want the best female gamers,"
then, you know, develop them, find coaches, you know,
coach up these female talent, scout them out,
and then really just make it worth their while
to be the nail that sticks out.
-You're playing well. Keep it up. Keep it up.
-Gen.G has been making strong efforts
towards building a program of female gamers.
It remains to be seen whether Gen.G
has a top all-female "Fortnite" team.
You know, I wish them the best.
-In "Fortnite," you can play well
but still do poorly, so it can be really frustrating,
like, mentally when you're playing really well
but things just aren't going your way.
It's all good. She's still got tomorrow, too.
Nothing to stress over.
It is indeed annoying, but it's "Fortnite."
"Fortnite" is annoying.
That was a good game.
That guy had a sniper RPG.
I didn't even know where it came from.
-If I didn't get hit by that, I would have been perfectly fine.
-Oh, you still have three matches remaining?
-Yeah. -Oh, you're good.
-Yeah. -You're good.
♪♪
-There was a power outage, and I was 8 points away
from qualifying top 200,
but they didn't give us an extra 30 minutes
so I could play my last game.
So I guess I'm just ready for tomorrow
'cause I know what to expect
and I know I'll qualify if nothing else goes wrong.
-There's kind of this masochist loop when you are a woman
in gaming trying to get better.
You're trying to be a better competitor.
So you have to play more.
You play more, so more chances that you'll be harassed
or insulted while you're gaming.
You're kind of depressed, but you want to be better,
so you play more, it makes you more depressed.
So it can be a little bit challenging.
It really affects you in the early years.
-It is actually insane that every single person on this team
is acting this way.
No! I'm not going to,
because I've put up with it for too many fucking games.
-I went to university full time last fall.
I got the eSports scholarship, which was quite a bit.
I played for their "Overwatch" team.
I captained their team and I was going to school full time
and I was also working a part-time job.
So I was doing that all at one time,
and things started to go really, really sour
with my mental health.
At the end of February this year,
I ended up in the hospital for an attempted suicide.
And, yeah.
My one escape, which is "Overwatch" and gaming,
isn't exactly the most fun and safe environment.
Obviously, the community is toxic to everyone,
but a lot of the things that were directed to me
were sexist and not great.
[ Laughs ]
And I've had people since then,
they have brought up my suicide attempt in game
and told me I should have done it better, basically.
So I did take a break from competing,
but I love "Overwatch," so I did eventually come back.
No matter what happens in my life, like, mental illness,
this game is going to be there for me.
♪♪
-Welcome back to the Anaheim Convention Center.
It's now day two for the DreamHack tournament.
There's some people who missed yesterday
who are coming back again for more.
-I mean, yeah, it's a second chance,
but it's a last chance at getting a shot at that title.
-So much is on the line, and the reputation
from winning one of these tournaments is huge.
-Alrighty.
This is the one. This is the one.
-There's a lot more high expectations as being a female
on the professional field.
It definitely takes a toll
'cause I don't want to disappoint not only my coach,
myself, and then the people that support me.
And then I don't want to hear the negativity
that comes with it.
-40 seconds. You ready?
Good luck.
Let's go, Maddie. Let's go. Let's go.
You're good.
Today she's struggling more so than any other day.
It's 10 games, so you got to have
the right mental fortitude for all 10.
Oh, yes!
Maddie might actually clutch up.
She's got four kills, 14 alive.
This is her last game.
Way to finish strong, Maddie.
You're going to be really, really close.
Really, really close.
So you're in, what, 164 right now?
So you got 36 slots.
Go, like, below you.
Yeah, it's just going to come down to the wire.
I mean, I know you don't want to hear it,
but you would have qualified yesterday.
I mean, you would have.
It's not fair.
♪♪
-I would say I'm here to kick the gates open,
but I'm also here just because I want to win.
Even though I'm not the best right now, I want to get there.
-It probably will be difficult,
and right now, the only tool that you have to help yourself
is really building that shell
and creating a support system around you
to help you face adversity.
♪♪