Firstly, yes, I am female. Yes, I have a masculine name. I love playing FPS games, especially team based ones like Overwatch and Valorant, which often require team communication in order to win. However, I rarely talk. Why? Because I am female. Just look up videos talking about or showing the female gaming experience on YouTube and you’ll know exactly why. Rude remarks, people making a big fuss just because I sound like a girl and people blaming me for doing badly solely because of my gender and not because of my lack of skill. The list goes on.

After two years of the pandemic, we are already used to the disruptions that happen on a weekly basis. It's like the cha-cha — two steps forward, one step back — when it comes to rules and regulations.

As a young boy growing up in the Netherlands, Roby Hormis often wondered about what his true identity was. 

Okay we get it. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the next biggest thing. More exciting than Instagram and certainly more profitable than Pokémon cards, it’s hard not to notice them when 15 year-olds are made millionaires by trading them on virtual auction houses.

The turn of a new year usually brings resolutions and new goals. People generally aim to better themselves in the following year. Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda didn’t get the memo though.

Square Enix’s president, Yosuke Matsuda, recently released a New Year’s letter, emphasising that more gamers should be ‘(playing) to contribute’ than ‘(playing) for fun’ if they want to fully enjoy the scope of NFTs that are being released.

Say goodbye to toxicity! The President of Indonesia Esports Association (IeSPA), Ibnu Riza, recently uploaded a picture of himself shaking hands with the representative of Indonesia cyber security division, Siber Polda Metro Jaya, to fight toxicity and provocation in esports together.

As we make our first steps into 2022, we look back at 2021 as Riot Games managed to keep us sane during tough times. Eat your heart out Blizzard-Activision because Riot Games are coming up with new things one game at a time while you only rely on nostalgia trips and scrape the bottom of the barrel.

Match-fixing is rampant in the world of pro-sports and keeping organised crime out is a perennial problem. Will it be the same for pro gaming? With the rise of esports comes a huge growth in esports betting, giving rise to organised syndicates muscling into the gaming arenas and looking to rig some of the biggest tournaments to earn some quick and dirty cash. And just like how the pandemic has forced businesses to adapt to the new normal, match-fixers have quickly moved into the exploding esports scene, after the pandemic shuttered professional sports in early 2020.

From gaming’s early, experimental days (think Doom 1993) to gaming becoming a multi billion dollar industry today, first-person shooter (FPS) games have always been a popular staple. The FPS scene consistently graces us with iconic games and franchises (who DOESN'T know Call of Duty?) and has constantly evolved, becoming a hub for game developers to innovate and create new experiences. As we usher in the new year, let’s look back at what FPS games have impacted us the most in 2021.

With Spider-Man: No Way Home indefinitely taking the world by storm ever since it hit the theatres on 16 December 2021, Marvel has undoubtedly got many things going for it, especially with its numerous popular shows exclusive only to Disney Plus. Fans are now collectively looking forward to the next much anticipated movie, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. For those of you that caught Spider-Man: No Way Home, its trailer was featured in the post-credit scenes, and is scheduled to be released on 6 May 2022. 

The 2021 Vietnam Championship Series (VCS) Winter Season which took place on 26 December last year, boiled down to a fierce competition between GAM Esports and Cerberus Esports for the highly sought after title of VCS champions. After competing with seven other teams in a round robin group stage and emerging as one of the top four teams which successfully continued on to the playoffs, Cerberus had managed to secure their win with a final score of 17-12.