In a major step towards promoting Esports to female athletes, the Esports Federation of India (ESFI) is bringing ranking scrims for all the female teams. Around the world, pro gaming has traditionally been dominated by men, but ESFI’s initiative to encourage female participation to build a career in professional gaming is a welcome step to create a more gender balanced and inclusive Esports industry. We reached out to Mr. Lokesh Suji, Director of the Esports Federation of India who had this to say, “Esports in the past one year has taken giant strides as an industry with a higher number of gamers and revenue flow; it has also been recognised as a medal event for 2022 Asian Games and steps are being taken to get it included in Olympics too. And meanwhile Esports Federation of India (ESFI) has in the past few months have also streamlined the way esports is perceived in India, and one of the key features was to introduce National Ranking Tournaments for the Gamers in order to bring forth an authenticated point system that determines India’s best gamers whether it’s a man or a woman. While it was important to initiate the process of identification like any other Olympic Sports in India-it is an evolving process and we hope the feedback from gamers will help us to create a full-proof system in the time to come. However, having a dedicated ranking tournament for women was critical and we are happy that we could start. As per the studies available, almost 33% of gamers are women which in itself is a testament of the potential that is waiting to be tapped and capitalised. We at ESFI want to promote the women gamers as much as their male counterparts. We believe the skill sets regardless of gender outweigh all other parameters that determine the performance of a gamer and want to congratulate all the women who are part of this tournament. May the best woman win!” While the demographics have changed in terms of the number of women watching esports, the gaming culture of the industry is moving at a much slower pace. ESFI’s initiative to introduce National Ranking Tournaments to bring an authenticated point based system is a step forward in the right direction to promote Esports and get more female athletes to participate.