Females can play video games too

Fortnite is an online game that currently has around 250 million active players.  The game has three different game options, Save the world, Battle Royale, and Creative. This game first started with save the world around July of 2017 but later on added battle royale into the game in which it got its success. Fortnite was first available for PC users only until they added it to consoles around September of 2017. Fortnite is represented by seasons and it is currently in season 9. I personally didn’t start playing until January of 2018 which was mid-season 2.

At first, I found the game confusing since it wasn’t just a shooting game but a building game as well. Once you queue into a game you start off with 100 players and the goal is to be the last man standing and earn the #1 victory royale! Getting a victory royale is challenging and hard for the majority of the players I have met and asked. It took them a couple of weeks or even months! In my case it wasn’t really, it took me 4 days after downloading the game to get my first victory royale and even with 4 kills. I was proud that I won at a fast rate and gave me confidence and motivation to keep playing the game and improving myself to become a good player.

At the beginning when I first started playing Fornite I would mainly play solos since I didn’t really have anyone to play with if I would play with someone else it would be my cousin since he really enjoyed the game as well. As I kept playing I kept improving and surpassed my cousin in his skill and I felt pretty proud since he was pretty good at the game back then. My cousin began to notice how good I was getting and decided to introduce me to some of his friends to show them that a female player can beat/be a better player than them. I would not really talk when my cousin invited his friends since they would treat me a certain way if I did. My gamer tag is misleading and people think I’m a dude when they first “meet” me online. My cousin’s friends did not believe I was a female until I decided to talk to give callouts while playing the Battle Royale mode of Fortnite. They were shocked and surprised that I was actually a female player that played pretty good and wasn’t lying since my gamer tag/epic tag started with Angel which throws people off.

As time went on I decided to make an Instagram page dedicated to Fortnite and my Fortnite gameplay, I also created a Twitch channel since I wanted to stream my gameplay and hope to get my own fan base. On Instagram I posted a clip or video of me winning a game and I have reached four thousand views in just one day and I was shocked by the results, I also have had people message me to play with them since they personally thought I was good. This one player named Jupiter messaged me and I added him and personally did not play with him for over a couple months since I usually preferred playing by myself since I don’t really like communicating, because once a guy hears my voice they act different and start treating me like I don’t know how to play the game. When I got to talk to him and actually play with him I asked him how he found me on Instagram and he said: “I saw one of your posts in my discovery page and saw that you hit a nasty snipe and decided to follow you.” I was honestly shocked and surprised that one of my videos was on his discover page and he actually decided to follow. Jupiter also mentioned that he honestly thought I was a guy when he followed and decided to support me, once he heard that I was a female player he was surprised but did not treat me as less of a player and actually complimented on the way I play.

I noticed myself growing and currently still growing but Jupiter gave me the confidence to push myself and to put myself out there, to show other players that I’m a pretty good player for my gameplay and not just because I’m a girl. Jupiter has even helped me improved and in a way, he is like a little fan. On instagram, I’m almost at 300 followers. On twitch, I reached 50 followers and met the requirements on becoming a twitch affiliate! A twitch affiliate is a “program that supports streamers in making a living from doing what they love to do; streaming. Available globally, the affiliate program allows streamers to Earn on Twitch with Subscriptions. Start Earning on Twitch with Bits. Earn revenue from the sale of games or in-game items on Twitch” as the twitch app itself mentions it. I felt accomplished and that my hard work and dedication to the game actually paid off.

As soon as I mentioned that I was invited by Twitch themselves to participate in the twitch affiliate program some of the people I play with and talk to they were happy for me and have told me to keep going, others not so much. Other players and friends, I played with before just simply said that I have met the requirements and standards by just simply being a girl. “People watch you because you’re a girl, people follow you because you’re a girl” is what some of the people I use to play with would tell me. In which I strongly disagree because when I stream my gameplay I simply just stream my gameplay, I don’t show my face or anything. The only way people notice I’m a female is when I talk in my streams. It doesn’t make sense to me why people would think that someone would accomplish something by simply just being a girl. Females can equally be good at video games and not because they’re a “girl”. I have seen on Twitter how some female players are honestly better than some Fortnite pros and very surprised on how they haven’t been noticed and blown up. Even if the female players are thriving and succeeding, people still blame it on the fact that they’re girls and that’s why they’re getting “noticed”. Also that they only have followers because they show their body in which some cases it isn’t true for every female player.

All I’m saying is that females can reach a high level of success by being good at the game and skillful. People assume some female gamers get noticed just by simply being a girl and don’t recognize the hard work they have put into the game while some don’t even try yet get jealous of others success.