If yesterday’s article (that can be found here) about the Hearthstone qualifier in Finland with access restricted to only the male sex made your blood boil then be angry no more. The International eSports Federation have changed their mind and the male-only tournament will now be open to both male and female players. Result!

The scandal began on Tuesday when a flier for the event was passed about online, specifically on a sub-Reddit with the entry restrictions highlighted. The Finnish organisers then replied to the criticisms by revealing that they were only in place due to the IeSF’s own rules that split tournaments between male and female players as an attempt to get eSports taken seriously as sport. Upon hearing the outcry from the gaming community and the gaming press Blizzard themselves got involved, making it clear that they wouldn’t stand for such restrictions of entry and would in fact prohibit any event that tried to as they wouldn’t want to be seen to promote the exclusion of women from the gaming community. Upon hearing the opinions the IeSF held an emergency meeting of their board to make a decision on what should be done.

“IeSF shall have two event categories: “Open for All” events and events that are reserved for women. The events which were initially set aside as the male division will now be open to all genders, and the events which were initially set as the female division will remain as they were.” read the statement that they released declaring the change of the rules.

They further justified that the female-only events were staying as they were to encourage more women into eSports with the hopes that they would eventually grow in confidence enough to move to the Open for All events and make eSports less a less male-dominated industry of the gaming community.

Just shows what we as a community can do when we seek to go against the sexist stereotype that gamers often get tarred with

An eSports group has been forced to justify their decisions when people noticed that their listing for a Finnish qualifying tournament for the popular card game Hearthstone specified that only MALE Finns were allowed to enter.

The organising group, the Finnish eSports Federation have pointed to the organisers of the event the tournament is a qualifier for – a South Korean group called the International e-Sports Federation – as they are the people who are responsible for the restrictions. As part of their efforts to get eSports taken seriously as ‘real sport’, IeSF separates their tournaments between the sexes – guys against guys and women against women.

“In accordance with the International e-Sports Federation’s (IeSF) tournament regulations, since the main tournament event is open to male players only. This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things.” said head admin of the qualifier Markus “Olodyn” Koskivirta in a statement made to PC Gamer. He then went on to say that the reason the entries are restricted is because if they allowed the tournament to be for both sexes, the winner could ultimately be female and then unable to progress to the next stage of the competition because of the IeSF’s rules.

The problem is that if you look over all of the qualifiers being played, there IS no Hearthstone tournament for the female players to compete in. Only two qualifiers are being run for women – Starcraft 2 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2, while men get the afore-mentioned Hearthstone, Starcraft 2, Ultimate Street Fighter IV and Dota 2. It all just seems very strange.

Koskivirta adds that they are actively campaigning to get both sexes involved in tournaments together, but for now the Hearthstone tournament is remaining male-only until the IeSF changes their policies.

As a female gamer and a Hearthstone player myself, I can’t say that the idea of segregating the sexes in eSport makes much sense to me. It isn’t a necessary thing required for it to be taken seriously, and how can someone truly be the ‘best’ in a tournament if they haven’t had all the opportunity to play against everyone able to compete at that level of play? Gamers and the gaming community are often seen as being very sexist towards women and stories such as these don’t really help to dispel that image.

Another snapshot has just been released in the lead-up to the release of Minecraft 1.8. This time it adds a lot of Survival content and a new mob, rabbits, to the game.

The rabbit mobs are passive as you’d expect (with one exception), with their AI set to flee from the player if they get too close. They come in a variety of shades and with a few different eye colours and have a range of items they can drop upon death as well as being tameable and breedable with carrots. As of 14w27a the breeding seems to be a little bugged though, in that they sometimes won’t automatically seek out another rabbit with breeding mode triggered upon carrot being administered.

To the new drops, a rabbit can drop one of three things (and sometimes multiples of one thing/more than one type of drop per kill) – raw rabbit, rabbit’s foot and rabbit hide. The raw rabbit is like any raw meat, cook it for a cooked version and edible to restore hunger. The cooked rabbit can also be used to make rabbit stew with a bowl, uncooked potato, mushroom (red or brown) and a carrot. Four rabbit hides can be put together in a 2×2 formation to make one piece of leather and the rabbit’s foot is a potion ingredient used to make a potion of leaping.

Other additions include the addition of mutton, raw and cooked, which is now a drop from killed sheep and the small chance of a spawned rabbit actually being a killer rabbit ala Monty Python – hits hard but goes down with a few smacks of a sword.

Remember Sony VAIO laptops and tablets? While Sony may have discontinued the brand as part of its exit from the PC market some time ago, the VAIO brand itself lives on. Tonight, VAIO will officially launch as its own independent computer manufacturer – or “small” PC maker company, as their Japanese blurb describes them – with a launch event in Tokyo. Teasing its relaunch online, the company says that it’s free and that things are going to change, with its new-found small-scale status being one of the catalysts.

That small-scale thinking extends to its current production line. While the new VAIO eventually aims for international success and brand recognition like it once somewhat had under the arms of Sony, a spokesperson said that it’s focusing on success in Japan first, with no plans to launch laptops outside its homeland.

What laptops, though?

Well, if you’ve been following VAIO right up until Sony ditching them, you might find its debut range a little familiar. The two debut models, also launching today in Japan, are identical to the Pro and Fit models its parent company launched almost exactly one year ago – minus Sony branding, of course. To the new CEO’s credit, Takayuki Sekitori admitted that the two initial models were very well received — and that was part of the point. The company is focusing on establishing a foothold first in its new independent status; but all new PCs will hopefully be making it out of the doors in the near future.

VAIO claim that the new company has a clear focus, and its future work will be based around that focus while also presenting consumers with choice. To that end, the the company plans only to make PCs going forward; and it vows that all the new PCs it will make going forward will show an attention to detail and the VAIO DNA we’ve all grown accustomed to. We at Sanitarium.FM wish the company all success for the future.

Wildstar has been out for about a month now. Rather than take a break and recover from the massive effort of launching an MMO, Carbine Studios is forging ahead and bringing even more content to players in the form of the Strain Ultradrop. We’ve been talking about it for a while now, and now Game Design Producer Stephan Frost has given us a new trailer that details the ways in which various types of players can enjoy the pox infested landscape of the Strain. Enjoy!