Gaming
esports
Meet the Kenyan law student making a name for herself in gaming
Sylvia 'QueenArrow' Gathoni won the Safaricom Blaze Esports Tour‘s Tekken competition in 2019 and has steadily become a new player to watch in the popular fighting game.
Sylvia 'QueenArrow' Gathoni hails from Nairobi, Kenya. The 22-year-old-law student has steadily become a new player to watch in competitive Tekken, with her long term goal being to mesh her love for gaming and esports with her law degree. This is her story:
When she was three-years-old QueenArrow says she remembers playing the old school duck shooting game and it would definitely be her earliest gaming memory. She soon joined her older brother playing 8-bit games like Super Mario and Contra. Very soon holidays were spent with her older brother and cousin playing the likes of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. QueenArrow says the worlds gaming opened to her were what got her hooked:
“I loved how immersive these fantasy worlds were and how I could pretend to be some of these characters in the game, like Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat, Chae Lim in King of Fighters and Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. Moreover, games taught me some of the virtues and values I deeply cherish to this day, such as loyalty and courage. I also think gaming taught me things I’d never have learnt from school, like about the Nephilim race, the Shahnameh and the like.”
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The fighting game genre hooked the young gamer though. She says seeing strong women in game found her drawn to the category: “I’ve always loved martial arts since I was a kid. Seeing badass women like Sonya Blade, Kitana, Mai Shiranui, Chase, Christie Monteiro, Ling Xiaoyu and Asuka Kazama made me love it even more. I didn’t see many women in video games at the time so these characters were inspiring to me. I loved the challenge fighting games had to offer. I was determined to be good and I practiced a lot.
Some of my fondest memories from my childhood were using these characters and beating my brother and his friends at the game.
Fast forward a few years and QueenArrow began to compete in esports tournaments while in university. She looked up competitions in Nairobi and found the Easy African Gaming Convention. They were hosting a Mortal Kombat XL tournament and she decided to enter. She finished in fourth place and the competitive bug had bitten. Since then QueenArrow has finished 19th and 17th respectively in the annual Tekken 254 Season One and Two Placing. She won the Safaricom Blaze Esports Tour in 2019 and earlier this year finished 8th in the Tekken 254 Circuit Qualifier Two Season Four Placing.
QueenArrow doesn’t dismiss some of the struggles she has had to face in esports. Trying to help her mom understand that her time poured into gaming wasn’t a waste was one of her biggest hurdles to overcome. Being a woman meant she also has had to deal with sexist remarks from people who feel she has only experienced the level of success she has because she is a woman and not because she has worked hard to be where she is. A common struggle for ladies entering competitive gaming. However, she highlights her biggest struggle as learning Tekken from scratch: “I realised I couldn’t get far by just button mashing. I had to learn things like frame data, punishment and movement. It hasn’t been easy. Tekken is a game that rewards legacy gameplay (meaning the more experienced players will have an easier time at it). There were days where I was so frustrated because some of these concepts were so difficult for me to grasp. I stuck it out.”
As she continues to pursue competitive fighting games, the Tekken player says she has only just fallen in love with esports more. Meeting more experienced opponents has made her not only just want to be good at the game but also be the best there can be. Her progress from 19th place to making Top 8 and even winning in local tournaments has driven her to train harder.
While QueenArrow’s esports goal is to be among the best players in the region and on the continent - she still is a full time law student. Career wise she wants to put her studies to use in the field she is most passionate about: “I plan to use my law degree to help create regulations (or at least the theory) for microtransactions in Kenya. I realised there was an issue when I saw the glaring gaps in the law. The law hasn’t caught up with technology, especially in the protection of consumers. Gaming in Kenya is synonymous with gambling, in the eyes of the law. It has been difficult to have the scope of gaming expanded to include video games. This makes it tough to have it recognised as a product that needs to have regulations to protect the consumer. I want to play a role in changing this.”
From gaming with her brother to slowly moving up the competitive ladder, there is no doubt QueenArrow’s drive and determination will ensure she is a Tekken player we watch for the next few years. More importantly, she could very well be a new voice in the African gaming scene that can make very real change. She has a bullseye in sight and once released, there will be no stopping Sylvia “QueenArrow” Gathoni.
