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Yvonne Scheer read could gamble again. At the bottom of the entrance hall, where a young guy in the black Hoodie waving a plastic gun around, a Virtual-Reality glasses in front of the eyes. Or a floor above, where the Kids gamble with the pokemon mask Super Smash Bros. About 80,000 mostly young people visited last weekend* the Game City on the Viennese town hall square, a mix of computer-game trade fair, and folk. Manufacturers advertise their latest games, visitors at Super-Mario-costume get a Burger at the food truck, on the big stage the best console players in the country fight a duel. A Paradise for video game Nerds. But Yvonne Scheer is not just a Gamer. You should now be a role model. And role models have a lot to do.

Something away from the hustle and bustle, in a wood-panelled room in the side wing of the city hall, Scheer behind a Desk. The presenter has a presentation, to E-Sports, and women in the Gaming scene announced, but the PowerPoint presentation, the bitch, is a classic, even at scientific conferences by and for computer specialists. Scheer, casual dressed, the way smiles at the Situation, she slowly gets used to the performances in front of an audience. On this day, before you gave your first press conference, on this day, you brought the interview to a television and a photo shoot. “This is all pretty crazy,” she says, “with so much resonance I would have expected.” It is a lot patters on the 27-year-old woman, since she was appointed in the summer to the gender officer of the Austrian E-Sports Association.

Globally, the discipline is long since arrived in the middle of the digital youth culture. The IOC even discussed whether E-Sports is soon to be Olympic. The Austrian Association is trying, meanwhile, to professionalize the Gaming scene, so they, too, benefited from the Boom, the Austria has not yet fully recorded. The characters are on growth: Telekom-group-A1 has a League of its own on the legs and plans to do with the private TV stations ATV and Puls4 television broadcasts. On-trend, Red Bull-funded events such as the Planet One in November in Vienna and in Germany also a Team of your own. More and more sponsors jump on in, the prize money will rise. How much money the companies in E-Sports is stuck, remains a commercial secret, A1 says: “E-Sports is an up and coming mass phenomenon, and thus to us as an advertising platform interesting.”

On the Game City in Vienna, the phenomenon can be watch live. The Austrian E-Sports Association has organized a huge tournament in Fortnite, the Tetris of our time. 125 million people play the computer game, it is so popular that France’s striker-Star Antoine Griezmann a goal in the world Cup final in Fortnite-acclaimed style: He put a characteristic dance passage as the virtual alter Ego in the game. At the latest since there are a Smartphone-Version of it, also play a lot of girls and women.

In the long queue in front of the E-Sports Arena, a kind of marquee in the city hall of Vienna, on the other hand: nothing. As the helpers give the entrance free, sprint only guys to the 120 monitors are set up. The main prize: a weekend in a luxury hotel, including accompaniment.

This article dates back to the TIME no 44/2018. Here you can read the entire issue.

Pro-Gamer would not compete for it in the first place. The Fortnite manufacturer equipped its tournament series in this season with a total of 100 million dollars in prize money. The world record for a single tournament since August, the game Dota 2. In Vancouver, 20,000 people filled Rogers Arena and tracked on the video cube, as 18 Teams to 25 million dollars in prize money zockten. There are Golden times for Computer Nerds: professional Gamer, this is now a legitimate Career choice, such as Influencer or YouTuber.

Yvonne Scheer to ensure that this mass phenomenon, women have part. So far, E-Sports is a male-dominated scene in which Gamer-Girls are often ridiculed or in the worst case, to be bullied. Why this is so, many scientists have developed theories. However, women remain Outsiders in this Macho world, even if you are like Yvonne Scheer, multiple state champion in Call of Duty. This is a First-Person-Shooter, a Computer Game, which is referred to in excited media as a “ball game”.

Scheer, it is a bit like a boxer: The cliché is that the blood not dripping shooting orgies even to women, to MadHat even the dainty, always friendly Yvonne Scheer, which has, as any in the scene as an Alias name:, Miss, a character from Alice in Wonderland. The cliché is deceptive, of course. Surveys show that female gamers kill in Play as much virtual as their male counterparts. The “delicate” woman on the trigger – just a prejudice of the many. “When a woman plays well, she must be ugly and if she looks good, she can’t play” speaker Scheer, the prevailing opinion. “It’s always about looks.”

*note. d. Red.: The event took place from the 19. to 21. October 2018 will be held in Vienna.