Athletes are asking Valve to add free skins for female characters to the shooter so that girls would want to play more often
The Counter-Strike 2 women's cyber-athlete team, representing the Danish e-sports organization Astralis, accused Valve of sexism because CS2 features only male character appearances. The athletes wrote an open letter to Valve, in which they asked the company to add free female characters to the shooter so that girls would more often want to play.
“Using a female Operator skin requires additional costs, whereas all standard skins are male. We don't know why this is so, but it seems both unfair and a little unkind to us. We also feel that in some way it perpetuates the sexism that we unfortunately still face.”, the letter says.
Commentators on social networks reacted with jokes about women's sports and cuisine, but some still supported the girls.
Some also reminded the athletes that given their performance, the Astralis women's team has much more to worry about than the lack of free female skins.
What is noteworthy is that streamer Dona, a Counter-Strike broadcaster, reacted negatively to the request, and believes that that Valve should be doing more important things than adding free female characters.
“I’m least concerned about female skins. Valve should focus on improving the game, fixing the problem with subtics and creating a proper anti-cheat – this will attract more new players.”.
Dona also believes that if Valve implements a system in Counter-Strike 2 that punishes toxic players, then this will be much more helpful in attracting girls to the game.