Update July 17, 2017: The Gaming Ladies event organisers announced a new date today. This follows the cancellation of the first planned event, which was pulled due to an online backlash about the event being for women-only.
The Gaming Ladies Twitter account broke the news:
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet tw-align-center” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”es” dir=”ltr”>Nos complace anunciar nuevamente la 2ª edición de Gaming Ladies. Evento en FB -> <a href=”https://t.co/Pc3ugqREMj”>https://t.co/Pc3ugqREMj</a> <br>FAQ -> <a href=”https://t.co/3Pcn7DXrWN”>https://t.co/3Pcn7DXrWN</a> <a href=”https://t.co/jgrZR7kHbP”>pic.twitter.com/jgrZR7kHbP</a></p>— Gaming Ladies (@Gaming_Ladies_) <a href=”https://twitter.com/Gaming_Ladies_/status/886893157769777152″>July 17, 2017</a></blockquote><script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
In a Facebook FAQ, the event highlights exactly why it’s women only, as well as explaining why the last event was cancelled – because of threats from sad dudes who couldn’t wrap their heads around the reasoning.
The last event was sponsored by Candy Crush developers King, the mobile gaming giants, until they cancelled it. According to Gaming Ladies, it was King’s decision entirely to cancel, following the backlash. This meant they had to reorganise a new event themselves.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet tw-align-center” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>It was supposed to take place in their premises, and after all the online fuss they decided to step back due to security concerns.</p>— Gaming Ladies (@Gaming_Ladies_) <a href=”https://twitter.com/Gaming_Ladies_/status/886996183742369794″>July 17, 2017</a></blockquote><script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
The event is free and will be held on July 27 in the Auditorium of MediaPro, Barcelona. It’s open to only cis and transgender women.
Update July 3, 2017:Candy Crush developers King have now given reason for their cancellation of a women-only gaming event they were hosting. As you can read in the original story below, it was shut down because of men feeling like they need to be included in everything.
“At King, we’re committed to fostering a culture of diversity and equality and have a number of initiatives in place to support this goal,” King say in a response toGamesBeat.
“In this instance, we agreed to host a ‘Gaming Ladies’ event at the King office in Barcelona and the event attracted a lot of interest, mainly positive but some people had negative feedback to the fact it was an all-women event.”
Still, despite the feedback being “mostly positive,” the mobile giant decided to pull the plug. Why is that? Apparently they wanted to soak up the negative feedback.
“We have decided to put this event on hold for the moment for two reasons. Firstly, we want to consider the feedback we’ve received around the event and secondly, for the safety of our staff and people registered to attend,” they explain.
Original Story June 27, 2017: A Spanish gaming event called Gaming Ladies was announced yesterday, with the aim of highlighting the best female talent in the industry. Today, it was cancelled, thanks to the efforts of angry internet nerds.
The event was due to take place in King’s offices in Barcelona. Four panels were planned to celebrate prominent industry women and for networking purposes. However, the internet did its thing.
People took to Spanish forums to complain about the event not allowing males to enter, and it degraded from there to abuse being hurled at the organisers.
Forocoches – which, from what I gather, is Spain’s 4Chan – was the worst culprit, filling up with men threatening to infiltrate the event.
One thread in particular suggested men pose as trans women and try to gain entry that way, so they could disrupt it from the inside.
It’s all very depressing, and is unfortunately indicative of the international internet and how it reacts when something is built without men in mind. Won’t someone think of the men!
After receiving pressure to cancel the event, King eventually gave in.
Thanks, NeoGAF.