Twitch streamer Alyska and the feminine players defying stereotypes

Alyce Rocha makes her dwelling working from dwelling – however she does not have a traditional 9 to 5.

Forget countless Teams conferences, she’s spent current weeks dwelling the (digital) lifetime of an formidable Mafia upstart in 1900s Sicily.

Such is life as a online game streamer.

Known on-line as Alyska, she has made gaming her full-time profession, by broadcasting herself enjoying video games stay, to her mixed 585,000 followers.

The enchantment, she says, is “sharing an experience together”.

“If you’ve played the game yourself then you want to see someone else’s reaction,” she tells the BBC’s Woman’s Hour.

Once considered a male-dominated pastime, at the moment girls make up round half of the game-playing public, according to the UK Games Industry Census.

Alyce says a part of her position is difficult perceptions over the sorts of video games girls take pleasure in.

Statistics recommend girls largely play puzzle and strategy-style games. These non-violent titles, together with life simulators The Sims and Animal Crossing, are sometimes grouped underneath the label of “cosy gaming”.

But Alyce says she, like many ladies, additionally enjoys role-playing motion and fantasy-adventure video games.

“I used to hate horror games,” Alyce explains. “However, my audience loved to see me suffer, so I would play more and more, to the point I actually love them now”.

The make-up of her viewers displays this. While nonetheless predominantly male, she’s seen feminine viewership bounce to round 10% in recent times – a small however vital enhance.

Alyce earns what she describes as a “respectable” wage – at the same time as one of many smaller names within the scene.

Not that it is simple work. Gaming could also be enjoyable, however the problem to not solely develop, however preserve, an viewers is relentless.

“I’m always grinding,” says Alyce, solely lately chopping down from 12-hour days to six-hour streams, alongside morning admin, seven days per week.

She must juggle a number of accounts streaming on fashionable platforms like Twitch and YouTube, to make sufficient revenue from issues like paying subscribers, income and partnerships.

It’s a activity difficult by many platforms requiring a reduce of broadcast earnings. Twitch, for instance, takes half as customary.

This competitiveness displays an trade that’s now price greater than music, TV and movie mixed, with income this 12 months projected to reach £13.7bn in the UK alone.

Although figures present young women now play games just as much as men, the streaming sector viewers remains to be predominantly male according to YouGov. Blockbuster titles like Fifa and Call of Duty mirror this.

Frankie Ward, an eSports gamer and presenter, says it is a lot about who video games are being marketed to.

“In the past gaming has kind of been this protected identity that men have held on to very strongly.

“Women are being much more vocal about the truth that they’re players, they usually’re turning into loads prouder to say so.”

In the industry, there’s also been a noticeable departure from the over-sexualised, female characters of yesteryear, toward more rounded portrayals.

Games like The Last of Us, partly moulded by writers like Halley Gross, boast layered female characters at their core. Elsewhere, Life is Strange and Rage and Bloom have woven the realities of teenage life and womanhood – from periods to sexuality and body image – into their wider narratives.

Reflecting on the shift, Alyce says there have always been women gamers, but they’ve just been “quieter about it” – till now.

“I’ve been gaming since I used to be a toddler.” she says. “I did not know anybody in my college who was a lady who performed video games, whereas now it is really easy to seek out communities and streamers who’re girls who you may discuss to and recreation with.”

Black Girl Gamers are one group that are bringing women together through gaming. What started out as a small Facebook group in 2015 has grown into a community of over 10,000 black female players worldwide.

Speaking to BBC Women’s Hour, community member Iesha says that gaming with the group has helped her meet like-minded people who share her background – some of whom have become her closest friends.

“When I used to be youthful… I did not know there have been different black feminine players like me.

“I thought I was a bit of an anomaly. I like the fact that I’m not.

Fellow member Deanne has become a close friend. She playfully compares meeting lesha online to a “attempt before you purchase” situation. Hours spent chatting while gaming meant they got to know each other so well that their first in-person meeting felt entirely natural.

Deanne says that gaming with the group offers her “an escape” from daily struggles, including those unique to black women. “It’s an entire universe of people that simply get it; all people understands – it provides you a calmer mindset,” she says.

This will help when coping with the poisonous parts of the broader on-line gaming group that persist more than a decade on from GamerGate.

Adaobi, another Black Girl Gamer, says the camaraderie buffers the times when she joins public online game sessions outside the group and faces misogynistic or racist abuse.

“I do know if I activate my mic and I open my mouth [to talk during an online game], any person’s not going be pleased with it,” she says. In response, she’s begun telling men who abuse her to simply “do higher”.

Others, like Deanne, opt to mute interactions. “I simply flip it off. I do not take heed to them. The scoreboard will inform the whole lot,” she quips.

To help combat these shared negative experiences, the community has launched a ‘venting’ channel on its Discord social media platform. A safe, member-only space for discussion and support.

Gaming then, is no longer a solitary experience, but an online world that can be a positive gateway to real-world understanding and connection.

For Iesha, be it playing online with others or watching a stream, gaming has also become an emotional refuge to navigate feelings.

“Gaming has helped me by some robust instances, together with household loss and grief,” she says. “Some of those video games assist you to expertise these feelings in mild methods.”

And, as she emphasises, the shared journey makes all the difference. “I’m going by stuff…they are going by stuff – however we are able to get by it,” she says. “That’s gaming”.