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More women are playing Fortnite Mobile but a lot of guys don't seem happy about it

Indeed a battle of the sexes

More women are playing Fortnite Mobile but a lot of guys don't seem happy about it

Earlier today I came across an article on Kotaku where I read that Fortnite is becoming increasingly popular with women as well as men. While this initially made me happy to hear, upon reading further down the article I grew more and more disappointed that this wasn't the progressive news I'd been hoping for. It's a bit of a mixed bag.

People out there who've been gaming for a while will know that while this industry and community is a fantastic one to be a part of, there's also a darker side to it that really is a bitter pill to swallow at times.

A lot of tweets about girls playing Fortnite were just harmless jokes about the surge causing the WiFi at their school to crawl and how now it's the boyfriends trying to get their girlfriends' attention, but there were also some more typical ones further down the article:

"Just because you got Fortnite mobile or played PUBG once you're not a gamer girl"

"The bums i see standing still on Fortnite mobile must be the girls tryna play huh? ??"

"Girls started playing Fortnite mobile and for some reason now i feel like i should never play that game again"

And more which I found on Twitter today:

"why are girls trynna play fornite now like no... stop ?????????"

"girls that play fornite are annoying"

"What’s up with girls playing fornite now?"

"Fornite is not a game for Girls ."

It feels like the recycled conversation about 'fake' gamer girls and this weird denial about girls and video games can just never be put to bed.

While I've gotten more thick-skinned about this sort of ridiculous ownership, I hate that I've stopped being surprised by it. Though I've been addicted to Fortnite on PC, I went off playing competitive online games a little while ago just because I was sick of the abuse I got trying to join in the fun.

I know by nature these sorts of games get people more riled up, but when I was still using a less gender-neutral tag I got more hate, more female-specific insults, and was included way less than others on my team.

One of my favourite incidences was at a gaming expo a few years back. I'd queued up for about an hour and a half to play The Division where I was then separated from my friend and put in a team with two random guys. Play sessions were only about 10-15 minutes long, but I played five minutes before someone shot me in the head and my two teammates just ran past me, leaving me to die. When I asked them for a res (they were sitting next to me) they ignored me.

But, I guess this type of argument was bound to come out eventually. Just like whenever a video hits YouTube's trending page, the comments are usually meaner and the people are usually more ridiculous.

I'm glad to see Fortnite Mobile doing well, and pleased to see the majority players including and accepting each other in such a fast-paced, competitive game. The reason we play is to have fun, after all, so let's have it.

Emily Sowden
Emily Sowden
Emily is Pocket Gamer's News Editor and writes about all kinds of game-related things. She needs coffee to function and begrudgingly loves her Switch more than she lets on.