This week, ESL Counter-Strike has unveiled a pretty wide-reaching new initiative. #GGFORALL is a program aimed towards women in esports. It will contain a number of measures, but most notably a new ESL woman’s CSGO circuit. The initiative is aiming to build up a women’s CSGO scene, with regional leagues and LAN events. This will be supported by a woman’s council and talent development program. This is what’s going on with the ESL woman’s CSGO circuit, and how some of the reactions have been:
#GGFORALL by ESL
ESL Woman’s CSGO Circuit
The main element of the #GGFORALL announcement is the CS GO woman’s circuit. This is going to be an entire circuit for the game with a prize pool extending up to $500,000. There will be online regional parts of the league to foster new talent. These will then lead into two global finals. They’ll be held at DreamHack Dallas and DreamHack Winter. These are two of the DreamHack 2022 events already announced.
This will be a standalone pro league, with different teams competing. On top of this though, more competitive events have been announced. These include online cash cups and smaller tournaments at events like DreamHack Valencia.
The League will be beginning with its first split in March. This part is going to last through May. Then, the top teams will move forward to the League Final at DreamHack Dallas in June.
>wants to tackle discrimination
>announces women only tournaments— retro (@coleboyya) December 21, 2021
#GGFORALL is the hashtag!
Alongside the events themselves, the ESL Woman’s CSGO circuit is having some infrastructure to support its efforts. One element will be a new woman’s player council. This will provide feedback on how the project is going. The aim is to help make sure this initiative is longer lasting than previous efforts, and hopefully with better results.
The #GGFORALL initiative will also be including a talent development program. This will aim to find new woman casters and on-screen talent for future CSGO events.
Reactions to the #GGFORALL initiative
Reactions to the ESL women’s CSGO League have been a bit mixed. This could probably be expected given how previous schemes to involve more women in esports have been received. Some people have taken issue with the idea that esports is gender-segregated at all. For the most part, most games aren’t male-only, it just kind of works out that way. Segregated Leagues aren’t appreciated by some elements of the fanbase who would rather talent programs worked to foster female talent without dividing them up into a separate league.
Did I miss where #ggforall is suddenly something new? I’d take the $500,000 and bet that it still doesn’t pave the way to mixed rosters in a meaningful fashion.
— iBones (@iBonesTV) December 22, 2021
Another issue that ha
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