Know your gamer: Alel (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)

For Nurlelawati Hussain, eSports is a passion that sparked at a young age.

The full-time Web designer got into the first-person-shooter (FPS) Counter-Strike at the age of 12, after being influenced by her brother.

More than a decade later, Nurlelawati, also known as Alel, is one of the trailblazing gamers in Singapore. She had her competitive start at 21, after having trials with Asterisk* when they were looking for team members.

Today, she captains the all-female Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) team, Phoenix, easily one of the top teams in the region, well-known for their accomplishments in the World Electronic Sports Games (WESG) women’s tournament.

Yahoo Singapore sat down with Nurlelawati for a Q&A about her thoughts as a female gamer, as well as her hopes for the industry in Singapore.

What got you into eSports?

I got into eSports from my passion. I started playing CS at the age of 12 and got influenced by my brother. I proceeded to play CS [versions] 1.3, 1.6, and I stopped for a while, but I started to play competitively from the age of 21, when I started playing CS:GO.

Back then there was an organisation called “Asterisk” which were looking for team members. From there I joined – I trialled for the team and eventually got in and from there, we took part in tournaments and surprisingly there’s a big tournament called WESG. At WESG there’s a female-only tournament, and that’s what got me into eSports and going competitive.

What do your family and friends think of your involvement in eSports?

My family and friends are very supportive of what I do because they see that I’m really into gaming, even though there are times they were not really happy about me sleeping late at night.

But at the end of the day, they’re still supportive and no matter what, they are still there for me.

[eSports is] more like a passion or hobby, not a part-time thing. After a long day of work you just want to go home and release your stress or relax.

If your hobbies include reading then you’d go and read. For me, my hobby is gaming – so I play.

How do you manage to find time for both your job and eSports?

It was quite hard at first. By the time you get home from work, you’re very tired. What keeps me motivated to play is because of my team. They are just fun people and also cause of the competitive tournaments and all.

What keeps me going… it’s just a body clock thing. After you get back home, it’s just a habit to go and play. It’s natural and you get used to it, especially after you’ve been playing for some time. As a gamer, you always sleep late. That’s why it’s such a normal thing for me.

I did take leave from my work [to compete]. But my boss understands that I’m representing Singapore so they let me do that.

How is the atmosphere like as a female eSports player?

It’s a small community, so when I take part in tournaments and meet the same bunch of people from different countries, the atmosphere is quite fun even though it’s still competitive.

Apart from that, there’s sure to be drama among girls, I think. But right now, there’s isn’t much to say about the atmosphere at the moment because for us, we’re the only female CS:GO team in Singapore.

What kind of ‘drama’ among female gamers are you referring to?

It’s difficult to say. Let’s say you have an online tournament and for achieving victory in that tournament you get to go to China or something. [Some] girls will try hard to win the tournament and they will ask guys to play in the tournament for them… It also happens in other countries.

Is there a gender gap between males and females in eSports?

Yeah. For my team and I, we’ve taken part in male tournaments cause of the lack of female tournaments. When we took part, we just played a game and we lost easily. The difference in skill is very high between the female and male gamers. That is why, most of the time for us, we don’t really… I mean we will still take part, but we don’t really join any guys’ tournament.

What can be done to have more female players in the community?

I think for a start, maybe to have more involvement in the female community. For example, having tournaments or maybe just gathering as many female gamers into a group, set up an event together so at least we know there are more females around in the community. That’s one way.

I think it’s quite hard to get females to take part in eSports, maybe because of their interests or the interest in different types of games. Maybe they are into “cute” games. I play CS:GO but some find it too manly or violent so it depends on their interest.

What would you say to female gamers that want to get into the eSports scene?

If they want to get into eSports, just go for it. I didn’t expect myself to be where I am now, so I didn’t expect myself to be so in-depth into gaming and eSports. It’s not really a difficult thing to start in the first place as long as you have the passion and the interest. You just work for it, you just increase your skills, train yourself, and eventually, you’ll get to where you want to be.

Don’t be afraid of doing what you want to do. For me, at first I looked gaming as just something casual, I didn’t expect to be playing competitively. If you have the passion… keep on doing what you love. Don’t care about what other people say.

[The most important thing is] to have the interest and just go for it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a guy or a girl, just train hard and don’t be scared to do what you love. Hopefully, with all the participation from more people, the growth in eSports will soon increase.

How has the view on female gamers evolved since you started playing competitively?

When I started, basically everyone was playing casually. I met a few female gamers at the start of CS:GO, then after a few years, I think the skills are getting better and then there are a lot of females together as a competitive team. For example, those from Thailand, from Brunei… so it’s quite a huge leap from the past years till now.

What do you think about the eSports industry in Singapore?

[The government] can support… maybe organisations that want to build teams – provide training grounds for them and… There are not a lot of organisations that are making teams in Singapore, because there’s not much exposure for eSports.

That’s why I think the government can help by aiding those organisations that are interested in building eSport teams, and also making tournaments… eSports is something that is going to be in the Olympics in 2020. It’s something that isn’t just a hobby or a job. It’s just the perspective of how people look at it.

How do you think Singapore players can grow?

[Competitive eSports] in Southeast Asia and the whole of Asia-Pacific is actually different from the EU and other US countries. The level is very different… even though you may be good in Asia-Pacific, when you go for international tournaments against the EU, their level is different.

Some of them are professional gamers who do it every single day, and for us it’s just like we’re doing it part-time or as a hobby, during our free time. It’s definitely something that is very far [in terms of] skill levels.

[International competitions such as WESG] allow us [the opportunity] to travel to China while sponsoring our trip, and the prize money is a very huge amount. With that kind of prize, a lot of teams would be definitely interested, especially in Singapore – I know that a lot of people are more committed to form teams and take part just because of the opportunity from that.

Ganesh Thayagarajan was a mentee from the eSports Journalism course run in partnership by Yahoo Singapore and SCOGA, and now writes as a contributor for eSports in Southeast Asia.