Ever since she was a kid, Jasmine Nguyen has been fascinated by video games.

Key points: Reports show 52 per cent of video gamers are female but eSports dominated by men

Reports show 52 per cent of video gamers are female but eSports dominated by men Female players say long way to go before they gain financial equality with male counterparts

Female players say long way to go before they gain financial equality with male counterparts Female competitors still face bullying and sexism

Now, 21 and working full-time as a digital editor, she's clocking up 45 hours a week playing first-person shooter Counter-Strike — one of the world's most popular games.

What's more, she plays for an all-female team for eSports organisation Dark Sided and is one of an increasing number of Australian women who play games professionally.

Players traditionally make money via sponsorships from computer, clothing and energy drink companies and through online streaming services like Twitch.

While it's a sport dominated by men, women like Ms Nguyen are changing the landscape.

"It's something good and I think there's a lot of money there … but even across the world, female eSports are not as big as male eSports. But it's definitely there and I feel like it's definitely going to grow," Ms Nguyen said.

The eSports industry in Australia is still in its early stages. And even though reports show about 52 per cent of video game players are women or girls, female competitors say they still face bullying and sexism.

The problem reached a dangerous level in 2014 during the so-called Gamergate, where a number of women who worked in the industry received death threats and were the subject of a vicious trolling campaign on social media.

It's so bad some women even change the tone of their voice through their headsets to male ones to avoid other players talking "smack" — slang for verbal abuse.

Women-only league aims to attract more girl gamers

But now, female gamers have their own arena — the all-girl gaming league WPGI.

"The amount of girls who have come out and started publicising themselves as female gamers (and who) want to be picked up by teams and sponsored, has just grown immensely since WPGI came up," Ms Nguyen said.

"We came up with the idea of creating a female-only league in the hopes that there was less volatility to what the girls are used to in the competitive environment," said Peter Souvlis, director of esports at Australian eSports Media Group, which runs WPGI.

"What we wanted to try and do was not necessarily work out why the discrepancy is there, but how we go about converting more of our female community into eSporters, because they do make up less than 1 per cent of the world's total eSports paid gamers."

But WPGI has also struggled with bullying, according to those who participated.

Players said they were still subject to harassment and abuse, and some said they would not be returning to compete.

"After WPGI we came second and after that we've got a lot of sponsors and people who are interested in taking us on, but for me the whole experience was quite off-putting," Nguyen said.

"I think their ideals are good, what they want out of it is all good, but I think they really need to take the time to look back over the first season, really iron out any kinks."

Players in women-only leagues 'setting sights very low'

Another player, Mads Brown, said women-only leagues created an environment where female players segregated themselves from main competitions.

"It's easy money and they don't have to try very hard to be successful," she said.

"So it's resulted in many female players setting their sights very low and wanting to be the 'best female team'."

According to Ms Brown, that creates resentment in the scene. And teams are forced to look specifically for female players to complete their roster to be eligible to play, even if the player chosen isn't a good fit.

"Leagues and eSports organisations alike should be raising the profile of female players so there are female role models for new players. The general community should be encouraged to be more accepting and less resentful of female players. All of these things can be achieved without female leagues," Ms Brown said.

Loading...

Sarina Bruno, team captain of eSports team Athletico however, said WPGI is helping the female gaming community to grow, something that wasn't readily happening.

"I feel because WPGI has been the first kind of ever to bring all the women together kind of like a girl power thing, make the community a bit bigger, get more women to playing - it's going in the right direction."

Athletico is owned as a subsidiary of WPGI.

When approached for further comment, WPGI's Mr Souvlis acknowledged the bullying issues during season 1 of the league but said players who were conducting themselves in that fashion were stripped of prize money and match fees.

"Of course bullying will occur — we are dealing with a demographic of competitive teenagers with access to social media. However, the league has a zero tolerance policy on it."

eSports to grow to $1.5 billion by 2020

The eSports economy is expected to grow to $696 million this year, with expectation the sector will grow to $1.5 billion by 2020, according to the latest report from Amsterdam-based firm NewZoo, which tracks data in the gaming industry.

Brands are expected to spend $517 million altogether, with $155 million on advertising, $266 million on sponsorship, and $95 million on media rights.

With so much money flowing in the sector, companies are increasingly eyeing women's teams to sponsor as well.

"Bringing everyone together is kind of bringing more sponsors as well to other teams, because they're seeing that the female community is growing and they're looking more at the marketing side as well as the competitive side, and they're seeing they're getting more numbers," said Ms Bruno.

Sponsorship in sports is part and parcel of an athlete's life, paying for gear, equipment and the ability to travel to attend competitions. The same can be applied to eSports athletes in terms of computer hardware and other needs.

"The talent can be there and the willingness to compete can be there but if the investment and the funding and the support and the infrastructure isn't there, it's very difficult for the girls to succeed," said Mr Souvlis.

Ms Bruno recently returned from overseas where her team was the first female team in Australia to compete overseas at the Copenhagen games in Denmark. Her team is sponsored by companies including ASUS, BLK, and AMG.

"I think at the moment there are a lot of younger females who are starting to get far more into video games than they are 20 years ago. They're much more accepting to the idea that hey I can go play this professionally and hey I can go do this full time. I think it's sort of slowly edging across," said Jenny Williams, team manager of Abyss eSports club.