{"id":76892,"date":"2015-06-07T15:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T13:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=76892"},"modified":"2015-06-07T13:01:53","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T11:01:53","slug":"lack-of-female-players-in-football-video-games-is-an-own-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/features\/76892-lack-of-female-players-in-football-video-games-is-an-own-goal","title":{"rendered":"Lack of female players in football video games is an own goal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football video games make it possible to take on the role of one\u2019s heroes. But this is generally possible only if your football heroes are male. FIFA\u2019s Women\u2019s World Cup may start in Canada on June 6<\/a> but women have until very recently remained absent from leading football video games.<\/p>\n

It was recently announced that EA Sports\u2019 FIFA 16 game is to include women\u2019s teams<\/a>. Football Manager, another popular football video game, does not yet feature women but there are plans to include women\u2019s teams in future editions. But don\u2019t let this seeming progression fool you into thinking that the scales are being balanced. This is far from the case.<\/p>\n

The 12 women\u2019s teams present in EA Sports\u2019 FIFA 16 game will include Brazil, England, France and Australia. However, current world champions Japan and former winners Norway will be absent. It\u2019s worth remembering that there were more than 600 men\u2019s teams in FIFA 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And Football Manager\u2019s apparent plans fall behind even this. The game\u2019s creator, Miles Jacobson, said last year<\/a> that women\u2019s leagues will be included when there are ten of them globally with comparable average attendances to the English Championship.<\/p>\n

This may sound progressive, but it isn\u2019t. Football Manager is actually setting the bar quite high when it comes to including women\u2019s teams. The Championship may be English football\u2019s second tier but it attracts larger crowds than the top divisions in most European countries.<\/p>\n

\"Female<\/a>

It\u2019s not time to celebrate yet. Christian Bertrand \/ shutterstock.com. Image courtesy of The Conversation<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

The creators of Football Manager would do well to take a closer look at attendances in top division men\u2019s leagues. The average attendance in the US National Women\u2019s Soccer League (NWSL) last year was more than 4,000<\/a>. This means that the NWSL attracts bigger crowds than the majority of top division men\u2019s leagues in Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Football Manager\u2019s creators argue that it is not commercially viable<\/a> to include women\u2019s leagues, but how commercially viable are certain men\u2019s leagues that are included? What about the second tier of Icelandic or Slovenian football? What about the third tier in Northern Ireland?<\/p>\n

Including women\u2019s teams in games such as Football Manager could make them more appealing to women. This very point has been made by gaming expert Mia Consalvo in a recent edited volume entitled Sports Videogames<\/a>. So: continuing to exclude women\u2019s teams from Football Manager could actually be a commercial own goal.<\/p>\n

When I manage my local team Bangor City in Football Manager, they play pre-season friendlies against teams such as Mynydd Llandygai and Bangor University. Mynydd Llandygai is a village side whose players include a former next door neighbour. Bangor University\u2019s football team has previously included students I teach.<\/p>\n

So I can currently manage a team in Football Manager in a match against my own students but I can\u2019t manage teams featuring the world\u2019s leading female players. Football Manager has the set bar very high when it comes to what women\u2019s leagues need to achieve before becoming part of the game. Unless they move the goal posts, there\u2019s likely to be a long wait before this changes.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More from The Conversation<\/h3>\n

Old videogames given new life \u2013 but can you ever really go back?<\/a><\/p>\n

Gaming improves your brain power \u2013 reality or hype?<\/a><\/p>\n

How gaming can motivate you<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In fact, female players should have been added ages ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":76896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[3180,14292,13868,987,14156],"class_list":["post-76892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-feature","tag-female-footballers","tag-feminism","tag-fifa","tag-opinion-piece"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}