[Feature] Women in Web3 Gaming: Lack Thereof or Standing Out

The gaming scene is constantly evolving ─ once there was only traditional gaming but now, Web3 gaming is standing at the forefront. At its very core, Web3 is about creators being paid for their work. Any kind of intellectual property can be turned into or is somehow attached to NFTs, so the work can be certified, tracked, and transacted on a blockchain. With each wave of the arrival of new technology, transformation can be seen across different industries, and Web3 games are part of the Web3 revolution.

What is Web3 Gaming?

The concept of conventional gaming platforms is definitely different from that of Web3-based gaming as the latter offers an innovative perspective for participating in games through decentralised approaches. In layman’s terms, this means that all activities, and ownership of in-game assets and experiences in Web3 games or gaming ecosystems, are beyond the reach of any central authorities. Rather than the pay-to-play model in traditional games, Web3 games afford the innovative benefit of play-to-earn games.

The Women of Web3 Gaming

Men may still be dominating the metaverse but female creators and gamers in Web3 are gradually on the rise. Case in point, Beryl Li Chavez, CEO and Co-founder of Yield Guild Games (YGG), a global gaming guild for play-to-earn blockchain games, believes that blockchain-based games like Axie Infinity have started to see an uptick in female players.

As members of Yield Guild’s Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO), games that members want to play are collectively voted on, and that includes voting on what virtual assets to invest in and how to use them in-game.

Fashion League, founded by serial entrepreneur, Theresia Le Battistini, is the first-of-its-kind female-led blockchain mobile game harnessing the power of NFTs and gaming to bring Web3 to the masses. As of early August 2022, an all-star advisory board has been appointed that includes industry leaders in entertainment, gaming, and crypto from Unity, Milk Makeup, Riot Games, Animoca Brands, Yield Guild Games (Beryl Li Chavez as mentioned above), and others. By the end of 2022, a beta version will be available on mobile and desktop with a global launch planned for Q1 2023*.

*Launch date may change. Visit its official website or social handles for more details

Robby Yung, CEO of Animoca Brands, who is also on the advisory board, had this to say, “Combining play and earn game mechanics with opportunities for user-generated content and fashion-led community building are a great way to engage a new generation of Web3 gamers across both genders and geographies while building the open metaverse.”

The first Web3 play-and-earn and free-to-play mobile game that lets you run a fashion empire. It simulates a mobile fashion shop where players can build and expand their own clothing store and become virtual 3D fashion designers.

Founded by Gizem Mishi McDuff in 2012, the House of Blueberry empowers self-expression through digital fashion in the metaverse. Blueberry also partnered with Roblox, a leading metaverse platform with over 43m daily active users, for an immersive shopping experience known as “BlueberryXWorld”. This 3D boutique shopping experience was created entirely by female designers and developers as well.

Although the game can be enjoyed by all, McDuff believes that this element ensures that female creators are able to have their views heard as she went on to explain, “In most traditional games, you see women represented in such an unrealistic way: no cellulite, no stretch marks, no body fat. Our avatars have love handles, stretch marks, and all the other things that make us human.”

To date, Blueberry has sold over 20m units of virtual clothing and has worked with brands including Jonathan Simkhai, a brand providing luxury ready-to-wear for the modern woman, to launch the first Metaverse Fashion Week

A women-first game platform for creators, streamers, and players, Dorian is led by native Ukrainian founder Julia Palatovska and created with the goal of furthering women as creators and as participants in the global gaming industry. Dorian prioritises giving authors control over monetisation and facilitating collaboration with other creators and fans. In an otherwise pre-dominant male community on many gaming platforms, Dorian prides itself on serving an almost entirely female-identifying user base.

Users can create choose-your-own-adventure games based off new or existing fiction, and these games can be played on stream alongside friends and collaborators.

Dorian enables creators to turn fiction into games with zero coding. That means with simple visual creation, cutting-edge audience insights, and cloud-based collaboration, its mission is to empower females and diverse creators to unlock their vision in a game format and run their own game businesses.

A virtual universe created specifically for girls, Royelles’ play is anchored in a collection of the fiercest female personas that inspire you to create, connect, learn, and have fun! Being a parent of two, Royelles CEO and founder Múkami Kinoti Kimotho noticed her daughter and her daughter’s friends transitioned from playing with toys to mobile devices. She was concerned about young girls spending most of their time playing on mobile devices and in digital worlds, and understood how their experiences there could contribute to mental health issues, cyber bullying, body shaming, and other problems.

Hence the birth of Royelles: to reimagine how girl gamers learn through interaction with inclusive narratives, inspiring personas, and real-life role models.

The Royelles Revolution, a global community of girl gamers who understand that the qualities and the characteristics that set you apart as different, is exactly what you need because your difference is your superpower

Bottom Line

Not just ladies leading the Web3 gaming scene, the number of female gamers are rapidly on the rise with nearly 50% of all gamers being women. But if you do a quick search and take a cursory glance at the results, there are not as many female-led Web3 games as its counterpart.

As Web3 continues to develop and evolve, it is crucial to inspire more women to shape the digital future, after all, that is the direction we are all headed.

Written by: [Coinlive] Catherine