With International Women’s Day upon us, we are highlighting some amazing women in the esports world – and Kelly Chiew is the focus of today.
Kelly has been a huge part of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang community for several years, and in that time, has made some massive strides forward for the game and women in the industry. With it being International Women’s Day on March 8th, we caught up with her to find out more about how MOONTON Games is working towards creating a brilliant ecosystem within esports for women.
How do you see International Women’s Month 2024 contributing to fostering a more inclusive environment for women gamers?
The month-long event sparks discussion, discourse, and action amongst publishers to not just do good but walk and talk the part to their gaming communities. This is important as everyone, including developers, has an equal part to play in improving inclusivity and making gaming, or even esports, a safe space where anyone and everyone can be themselves.
Back in March 2022, we released “Tear It Off” - a genre label “breaker” that defied typical gamer conventions of women; some of the comments that we have observed online were on women not choosing support, or expressing surprise that a girl could be good at games. Using those conventions in mind, we made a music video to deliver a message on embracing inclusiveness and to “tear off conventional labels.”
On the esports front, women's tournaments are not just pivotal to the growth of our ecosystem, but to encourage more diversity. MWI, the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Women’s Invitational is one of the most-watched women's tournaments worldwide, which left many fans raptured by the performance of the participating teams. We can’t ignore the force of women in gaming, and collectively we all bear a responsibility in helping to break stereotypes for this industry, to move forward in inclusivity.
How can esports organizations support and empower women gamers/ personalities?
There is still a lack of growth opportunities from an amateur to professional level, namely: support on a grassroots level to develop more women leagues or hosting professional courses to enable women on their transition towards becoming a professional player.
We have seen many mentorship programs supporting women, but there needs to be more education on mentoring gamers themselves on inclusiveness. Simply put, the problem is not really on women or diversity itself, but the whole issue of gaming toxicity. There should be a complete mindset shift to protect the welfare of women gamers and personalities, which can be as simple as filtering toxic comments or banning them, to becoming advocates for a collective voice in promoting diversity.
How do you envision the future of women's representation and participation in competitive gaming?
According to a report by the Entertainment Software Association in 2022, women gamers now make up 48% of the players worldwide. The same currently does not account for the ratio of professional esports male to female players. However I believe we are going in the right direction - MDL Indonesia recently announced the inclusion of two women's teams for Season 10, five years since its inception. They will be joining from WSL Season 8 and the upcoming WSL Invitational 2024.
It is with hope that one day, there will be an all-women team that can take over the M Series throne. It’s only a matter of time.
As mentioned by Kelly Chiew, there is still a very long way to go for women in esports, but with the help of people like her, the climb seems extremely easy. With this year’s MWI already being a big step up as it becomes part of the Esports World Cup – as well as the inclusion of two women teams in the MDL ID event, the progress is being made in the right direction.
