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Gaming“It shouldn’t be about making money turning us into a joke”: Inside the Twitch Women’s Guild after Overcooked controversy
Ahead of International Women’s Day, Twitch announced the Women’s Guild Rivals tournament, which would feature the game Overcooked 2. This casual, cooperative cooking simulator seemed like an odd way to celebrate women, who often are met with “get back in the kitchen” taunts when they attempt to enter competitive gaming spaces.
As the controversy grew on social media, it became clear that Overcooked was the Women’s Guild’s choice, although Twitch was the final entity to approve the seemingly tone-deaf event. Men flooded the comments, claiming that women should be allowed to enjoy cozy cooking games. However, that was not the problem.
Esports.net reached out to former Women’s Guild member “NoodleStreamer” after she was removed for passionately opposing the idea of an Overcooked tournament for International Women’s Day on Twitch.
The Problem Begins: Overcooked Becomes Only Viable Choice For Women’s Guild Twitch Rivals
While it’s true that the Women’s Guild voted for Overcooked, it was not as black and white as women obsessively voting for a cooking game. According to Noodle, the options for the Twitch Rivals event included Clair Obscure, Hollow Knight, Ultimate Chicken Horse, and Overcooked 2.
“In my honest opinion Overcooked only won out of all these choices because it was the only viable option. Even the mentors and leaders admitted it won in a landslide,” Noodle noted.
So yes, the Women’s Guild did vote for Overcooked, but not because women prefer a cooking simulator over Marvel Rivals, Overwatch, VALORANT, ARC Raiders, and other popular competitive multiplayer titles. They voted for Overcooked because it was up against two single-player games and a throwaway title. And why was Overcooked an option to begin with?
The Women’s Guild, which appears to be run by “mentors” who answer to a higher, unknown group within Twitch’s organization, admitted they knew it was a controversial choice but reassured guild members that it would be handled appropriately even when multiple members reportedly raised concerns.
Said Noodle: “The ‘mentors’ kept arguing that the guildies deserve to be able to play the game they want to play. I argued that the choice was a setup. Overcooked was the only good game.”
When the announcement went live, the concerns were unfortunately validated. The sexist rhetoric flooded the post, with men making it clear that they felt a cozy cooking sim was the most appropriate game for women (I mean, how can women with periods possibly play something more competitive, if you ask people like Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau). Meanwhile, women were reacting with horror at Twitch seemingly cementing this type of rhetoric against women.
Twitch eventually responded to the ongoing filth on social media, but it only made it worse. Said Noodle: “Anyone could have told them that they would be dredging up the depths of Twitch to have a laugh at the women. Everyone knows that Twitch’s community has been notorious for leaving its marginalized people to the wayside. It was predicted and it happened. Thousands of people liking the nastiest comments under the first Rivals tweet. They didn’t even turn off the comments.
“The same happened under their explanation tweet but honestly it was worse because at that point they had placed the blame on the guildies for picking the game. The comments shifted to ‘Of course the sandwich makers would choose the kitchen! That’s what you get when you let a woman vote’ and such.”
Noodle herself started getting hateful messages after the Overcooked post went live. She showed the nasty comments to the Women’s Guild mentors but felt her experience was downplayed. The tension in the Women’s Guild grew, with Noodle being consistently told to “calm down” and “take a breather.” She was eventually put in “time out” for continuing to voice her frustration with the situation. This led to Noodle being removed later on.
“The leaders should have been deescalating. Mentors should not have been speaking over members and belittling their problems. There should have never been women in the guild calling other women emotional and using sexist language like that in the guild,” Noodle told me.
“If they’re going to ban women who speak against them and who have a little bit of a tone, tone policing people when they’re frustrated that Twitch and Twitch Leaders once again put a target on our back, then they’re being corrupt in their usage of the little power they have.
“Ultimately these guilds can never be what they claim to be. They can’t be for the people while being on the leash of the corporation that has been allowing us to be hurt in the first place. These guilds were put into place to cover up controversy not give voice to the marginalized like they claimed. It’s Twitch’s HR.”
The Problem Continues: Twitch Moves Forward With Overcooked Tournament As Sexism Persists On Platform
At the end of the day, Noodle and other female streamers felt as though it was being left up to them to “educate the vitriolic users of Twitch” after the Women’s Guild “set them up” to vote for a kitchen-focused game. Instead of uplifting women, the Twitch Rivals event has largely felt harmful to women in the gaming community.
“If we look at this scenario I would 100% argue they are actually harming women,” Noodle said. “Twitch literally has women haters on their front page 24/7. They have a literal Nazi on the platform right now. They know what type of community they harbor. They knew that putting Overcooked as the winner would lead to those people coming into the comments and the streams making a bigger mockery of women.”
Despite the disturbing comments from the gaming community, Twitch has pushed forward with the Overcooked tournament. The backlash and misogyny have calmed down, but it’s not shocking to see X’s attention span turn to other drama this fast. However, women haven’t really forgotten the harm that this event has done, especially when Twitch has continuously felt like a troubling place for women in gaming.
“Other than this experience I wouldn’t say [the Women’s Guild or Twitch] ever ‘uplift’ anyone,” Noodle said. “They put you on a ‘shelf’ sometimes on the front page with hundreds of other people. Shelves that don’t always show up. They do glorified f4f, ‘raid trains’ where they all gather and watch a stream for five minutes then follow and move to the next. No meaningful showcases. […] They don’t really have the viewers or women in mind.”
As female streamers continue to be harassed, threatened, and bombarded with sexist rhetoric on Twitch, the platform hasn’t felt very safe — and these purposefully harmful events don’t really help that sentiment. There is no way around it: the decision to celebrate Women’s Day with a cooking game was clearly going to get backlash and nasty comments. It should have never been an option and never approved.
Said Noodle: “I think the people online arguing about being ‘able’ to play these types of games are missing the point. Women are obviously able to enjoy a casual cooking game. Women are allowed to enjoy cooking in general. Overcooked is a fun game; I’ve played it many times before, and I always have a blast with my friends playing it.
“The problem happens when cooking is the game allowed into the main running for the Women’s Guild Women’s Day showcase. Anyone could have told them that they would be dredging up the depths of Twitch to have a laugh at the women.”
Esports.net reached out to Twitch regarding the Women’s Guild event and was just told to check out the tweets that have already been mentioned above.
