Just a genuine question to the community. Inclusion and diversity is very important to me as I’d want anyone including women to feel welcome and apart of our community. But when it comes to something like joining a pro team it seems a pure meritocracy is the only way to ensure not only an entertaining product but a legitimate competitive organization.
The issue however that I noticed lately is my research into reaction time of men and women. The vast majority of the studies I’ve seen show that men on average have a faster reaction time than their same aged female piers. The most shocking came when i read studies that compared male and female professional athletes and saw an advantage in males as well.
So I’m all for getting rid of sexism that women experience in gaming as I know they do, as I have sadly personally witnessed. But given the date we have, especially on male/female athletes, It seems this may somewhat be genetic. This would largely skew the likely-hood of being a pro in OW or other FPS games in men’s favor when reaction time is extremely important not just in getting the first shot on enemies but also when it comes to tracking.
If the goal is to get more women in OWL which is a very noble one I’d support strongly, I don’t know how we can overcome this discrepancy in male-female reaction time. If anyone has any ideas please share. This is something I’ve been thinking of a lot the last few weeks.
There’s one I added in the links and another I couldn’t find again but It seems that reaction time wasn’t all that different for children. In some cases I saw faster female reaction time but I couldn’t find that many others that showed children under 18. If that is true maybe the better strategy to get more girls in Esports at a very young age where their reaction time seems to be at their peak. Though practically I’m not sure how great that would play out.
I’m curious how much environmental/social factors play into the development of children. Men and women have historically been raised differently where men are encouraged to play sports, or have been more common consumers of video games. As a result this could produce a difference in the data not due to inherently physiological difference, but simply developmental ones.
That’s very true. Most of the studies I read that tested under 18 had much more similar reaction times. But I noticed the ones that compared male and female athletes had a male advantage. So it’s hard to say if there is a societal component or if something happens after puberty that causes male reaction time to become faster than female.
I’m no expert at all on the subject so maybe I’ll come back to this one day after I read a bit more on it.
Passive culture plays an infinitely bigger deal than biological factors. There’s just not many female players compared to male players, even fewer when it comes to people dedicating time and effort to become pro. Especially since becoming a commentator, presenter, streamer, coach or analyst is an easier path.
Excellent point, that’s a good perspective to consider. I do think men tend to on average be more competitive in nature, so I wonder if that could be a driving force (i.e. to try and improve and gain a competitive advantage over others at an earlier age). I always find these types of studies interesting. Unfortunately it’s also one of those things that is really hard to truly understand due to all of the potential variables in place.
Unfortunately most of the ones involving athletes where auditory reaction with sprinters. I tried finding visual reaction because that’s probably more relevant to esports but I’ll try to find some later. I’m sure it’s possible for the highest athletes there would be a different gap between AR and VR but I can’t think of why lol
I think reaction times in OW are pretty lenient compared to other games too. There’s very few situations where a 50ms difference would ever matter outside of hitscan duels.
I think when it comes to tracking, reaction time is very important. You have to make many tiny adjustments within a short span because of enemy movements and any delay will be displayed in “bad aim.” But I’m sure there are other games more intense than OW.
Something interesting that might add to the conversation:
`https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/’
According to this, tactical shooters and sports games are overwhelmingly populated by males.
The survey doesn’t address the link to player reaction times.
Games in these two genres are typically constructed in a way that rewards faster reactions, however it’s also worth noting that they’re both genres that have traditionally been geared towards a male audience.
It factors in, but I don’t think there’s enough of a difference between the sexes for it to matter for tracking.
Due to the lack of movement momentum in OW and the very generous hitboxes there’s a level of prediction required that I think smooths over the differences.
Look at Geguri’s POV when she plays zarya with her 12000 edpi, it’s extremely jittery but she has really good target acquisition so the actual tracking being smooth isn’t super important.