Women in gaming: Twitch streamer Alyska and the female gamers defying stereotypes – BBC

Women aren’t just ‘cosy gamers’ – I play horror games and 600,000 watch Alex Taylor Reporting from London Alyce Rocha Video game streamer Alyska is part of a burgeoning wave of women claiming a space in gaming Alyce Rocha makes her living working from home – but she doesn’t have a normal nine to five. Forget endless Teams meetings, she’s spent recent weeks living the (virtual) life of an ambitious Mafia upstart in 1900s Sicily. Such is life as a video game streamer. Known online as Alyska, she has made gaming her full-time career, by broadcasting herself playing games live, to her combined 585,000 followers. The appeal, 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 thought of as a male-dominated pastime, today women make up around half of the game-playing public, according to the UK Games Industry Census. Alyce says part of her role is challenging perceptions over the types of games women enjoy. Statistics suggest women mostly play puzzle and strategy-style games. These non-violent titles, including life simulators The Sims and Animal Crossing, are often grouped under the label
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