Women make up almost half of the world’s gamers, but only a small fraction of its professional esports competitors – a gap Prince Faisal bin Bandar says the industry still has time to change.
The chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation believes women already have the talent to compete at the highest levels. What they need, he says, is the chance to see where they belong before esports grows into another global industry with entrenched gender imbalances.
“If we are not bringing them along with us, we are losing half the opportunities we have,” Prince Faisal tells The National in Paris, where the Esports World Cup is being held for the first time outside Saudi Arabia.
“They are just as important as anyone else in this industry. They have to understand that they already have the talent, but they need to see that the effort is there.”
The imbalance is clear in the numbers. The Entertainment Software Association’s 2025 Global Power of Play report – based on more than 24,000 players in 21 countries – found that women make up 48 per cent of video game players worldwide. Newzoo’s Global Gamer Study found that 76 per cent of women in the global online population play games.
But the numbers fall sharply in esports.
Women in Games estimates that women account for about 5 per cent of people working in or competing in esports, while research group Bryter says less than 5 per cent of professional players at world championships are women, even though more than a third of the female gamers it surveyed said they were interested in entering an esports tournament.
Saudi Arabia has started to narrow that gap. When he joined the federation in 2018, Prince Faisal says, the kingdom had one professional esports team, six professional players and one games development company. Today, Saudi Arabia has more than 200 Saudi-based teams and more than 2,000 esports players, with women accounting for about 20 per cent of them.
A report published last year also put women’s participation in Saudi esports at 20 per cent, compared with a global average of 5 per cent.
Prince Faisal says the difference came from building visibility while the industry was still young. When Saudi female players began winning, the federation made a point of putting them on television, in magazines and in front of the wider community.
“I firmly believe that it should not be me telling them what the opportunities are,” he says. “They need to see and feel it from their own community. They need to see it from other gamers, from other young women in this industry.”
Perception is key. For women in the Gulf, esports and gaming in general are viewed as more accessible, which encourages more women to participate, according to Prince Faisal.
“One of the things they said to me was: ‘We saw the games industry in Saudi as not a male-dominated industry, and therefore we have an opportunity,’” he says. “Which is interesting to me because the games industry globally is very much a male-dominated industry.”
That, he says, gave Saudi Arabia an opening. A nascent industry had fewer fixed assumptions about who belonged inside it, and early female success could become a signal to others.
One of the most visible examples is Modhi Alkanhal, known as Madv, the in-game leader of Saudi Valorant team Team Falcons Vega, who was named Best Female Player of the Year by the Saudi Esports Federation three years in a row. Prince Faisal also points to Falcons Vega as one of the teams showing the level of female talent emerging in the kingdom.
“For me, it was a matter of showcasing the talent and letting them be the role model for the next generation,” he says. “We see a tonne of them coming out now, and many more coming into this industry. I expect that number to go up very soon.”
In the UAE, too, the scene has also begun to produce more visible female players, from Emirati esports athlete Amna Al Ameri, known as Moki, to the country’s first all-women esports team, which made its global debut at the World Esports Championships in Riyadh in 2024.
The barriers outside the Gulf remain substantial. Bryter has found that many women interested in esports face a lack of resources, fewer opportunities, limited support for women’s teams and harassment in online spaces. Women in Games has also identified toxicity and abuse as continuing obstacles in gaming communities.
The drop-off also appears before the professional level. Esports Insider, citing Deloitte, reported that women made up 46 per cent of gamers in 2024, but only 33 per cent of esports viewers. That gap suggests many women are being lost before they reach tournament systems, team structures or professional pathways.
Brad Hisey, senior director and general manager for Riot Games EMEA, says the need to make those pathways visible became clear when he took his daughter, 12, to a Valorant Masters event in London.
“She turned to me and she said: ‘Daddy, where do the girls play or do the girls have the tournament too?’” Hisey says. “And it just struck me.”
Riot launched Valorant Game Changers in 2021 to create more opportunities and exposure for women and other marginalised genders in Valorant esports. The publisher has also expanded the Game Changers model into League of Legends in EMEA, with the 2026 League of Legends Game Changers: Rising competition running from May to October.
Hisey says the exchange shaped how he thinks about programmes such as Game Changers.
“I think a lot of people at Riot feel that in a personal way,” he says. “We take it very seriously and try to evolve that and elevate that as well.”
Publishers are central to the issue because they control the games, tournament structures and competitive ecosystems around them.
“What we do at Esports World Cup with the games is up to publishers. We can only do what they want to do with their IP,” says Prince Faisal.
There are signs that women’s esports can draw audiences when it is given larger platforms. Esports Charts reported that female esports had fewer events in 2025 than the year before, but average concurrent viewership increased. The same report said female esports prize pools reached a record $3.3 million in 2025, with the Middle East and North Africa contributing 20 per cent of the total, largely because of Saudi Arabia and the Esports World Cup.
The EWC x MLBB Women’s Invitational was also one of the most-watched women’s esports events of 2025, according to Esports Charts, with millions of hours watched and one of the year’s highest peak audiences in female esports.
Prince Faisal says women’s participation is already part of the Saudi esports community, and that wider industry growth will be limited if women are treated as an addition rather than part of the structure.
“That growth is part of our community,” he says. “Women have earned the right to be there alongside anyone else in this industry.”
