Electronic Arts chief operating officer Peter Moore said he was sad to see the “misogynistic vitriol” following the EA Sports announcement today that the upcoming FIFA 16 game will include female players from the women’s national teams.
The game series has been around since 1993, but for the first time, EA is incorporating the animated likenesses of some of the best women soccer players in the world. The decision is a sign that female video game players are becoming a larger part of the market, and diversity of content has become a more important issue on the radar screen of the male-dominated game industry.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1738483,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"D"}']So sad to see the misogynistic vitriol following @EASPORTSFIFA announce re. women in the game.We are better than this pic.twitter.com/RufIVjPJVW
— Peter Moore (@PeterMooreLFC) May 28, 2015
The anti-female messages on Twitter and the rest of the Internet are one more example of the tensions raised by Gamergate, the gamer rage movement that started last August and continues to generate criticism of diversity efforts in the game industry and attack women developers, critics, and journalists.
The news comes on the heels of a host of arrests for corruption among FIFA leadership earlier this week. The arrested officials were in Switzerland and are being extradited to the United States to face charges.
EA’s is adding women’s national teams from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, and the U.S. The women’s teams gameplay will come with modes such as Kick Off, an offline tournament, as well as Online Friendly Matches.