Support NeoGAF

[Mory Dunz]

Let's be clear.

Generally the women's game is dismissed because it's perceived as a men's game. A game not suitable for women to play. It not taken seriously regardless of the actual levels on display.
.

So it has nothing to do with the skill level?
Ok.

I actually think women's tennis is a better game to watch due to how aces are way too prevalent in the men's side. Matches being shorter also helps.

http://time.com/3273225/why-womens-tennis-most-popular-womens-sport/

Interesting comment here.

..ugh that men's balls into other men's holes thing made me roll my eyes.
Middle school was fun, but a long time ago. Was that really in the article?

Disregarding that though, I guess males designed most sports based on male capabillities. So would Gymnastics fit what he calls a more female oriented sport?

Do girls follow gymnastics enough to warrant large marketing pushes and sponsorships and even a game? I guess you get the Shawn Johnsons or Gabby Douglass's, but would that transfer into potential video game sales? EDIT: or really sales of anything. I wonder how Subway did.

 

[FuturusX]

So it has nothing to do with the skill level?
Ok.

Perhaps...but can you say has nothing to do with sexism and perception of women playing sports that were traditionally male dominated?

 

[Cat Party]

Umm...no? Even women greatly prefer male football. So introducing female players isn't appealing to women, but appealing to fans of female football, which indeed are a "very small minority".

It's fairly obvious the minority he's referring to are the people who want to play as the women teams.... Not women in general....

Also, even though the second quote wasn't directed at me... he obviously means that women that care about women's football are a very small minority.

Where are you guys getting this idea that because women like men's football (as if they have a choice in most parts of the world), they aren't going to be interested in creating players that are women?

Let me ask another way: when you were kids, did you ever play these games and create a player with your name and (if possible) likeness?

 

[samuraidino]

I actually think women's tennis is a better game to watch due to how aces are way too prevalent in the men's side. Matches being shorter also helps.

I'm definitely with you on enjoying women's tennis more for those reasons. And in fairness.... My favourite tennis game

 

[Sceptic]

A lot of the arguments I can't get behind.

For instances about the skill level, this is a video game. The bloody halves go for 4 minutes. This isn't real and yes they are trying to stimulate a sport, but the rules already bent. I mean in the world cup version I play as some pacific nation and knock out Brazil. That's not going to happen in for real but it's a game.

Just swapping the skins and keeping the same animations is fine. Sure it'll be a bit wonky but that's a shit reason to keep it out.

Saying all that I don't know about licenses and all that and for the extremely small amount of people who want it, I don't see it worth doing for EA. But if I was one of the woman leagues or clubs I would pay money to get in the game. Get some exposure and good will and for the extra joy of beating my little brother as a woman's team when he plays as Chelsea.

 

[Vermillion]

Where are you guys getting this idea that because women like men's football (as if they have a choice in most parts of the world), they aren't going to be interested in creating players that are women?

Let me ask another way: when you were kids, did you ever play these games and create a player with your name and (if possible) likeness?

Okay, so are we talking about a create-a-character feature? Because that's irrelevant to the main game and the main teams.

 

[Mory Dunz]

Perhaps...but can you say has nothing to do with sexism and perception of women playing sports that were traditionally male dominated?

Well, judging by your avatar can I assume you're English?

If so, it's kinda weird, but in the US, soccer is actually seen by a fair majority as a women's sport. Most girls play it growing up in the youth leagues, and if you asked the average person to draw a soccer player, they might draw a woman.

So in a country where soccer is sometimes has the perception as a women's sport or female dominated (or at least closer to 50/50 than anywhere else), shouldn't the viewership of the men's and women's national teams be at least equal here, according to your statement?

 

[Le_Samourai]

This is true.

But despite my teamwork comment, I agree with the person that said that women's sports usually fare better outside of team events. Individual athletes get more attention.

Tennis, Golf, MMA...

It's kind of interesting, actually.

But most of the time is because they are perceive as sexy.

 

[Draxal]

Well, I am too a tennis fan and the general--no, the very vast majority--of the fans in *all* tennis communities that I know of think otherwise. And for good reason: you can't honestly say that folks like Federer, Djokovic, Murray, Nadal etc are inferior skillwise compared to their female compatriots... you just can't.

I didn't say anything about skill in my comment. I enjoy college football over the NFL, sometimes overtly dominant skill ruins the viewer experience of a game. Women's tennis is the only sport where the female value actually comes within a striking distance of the men's game in monetary value.

 

[Mory Dunz]

A lot of the arguments I can't get behind.

For instances about the skill level, this is a video game. The bloody halves go for 4 minutes. This isn't real and yes they are trying to stimulate a sport, but the rules already bent. I mean in the world cup version I play as some pacific nation and knock out Brazil. That's not going to happen in for real but it's a game.
.

The skill level comments by whoever were about real life women's soccer popularity. The discussion has been switching a lot.

If someone said that about the game, that'd be dumb. The women wouldn't be scaled to men's skill overalls or else it'd ruin the whole point.

 

[samuraidino]

Where are you guys getting this idea that because women like men's football (as if they have a choice in most parts of the world), they aren't going to be interested in creating players that are women?

Where are you getting this idea that that's what wer saying?

This isn't women wer referring to. This is a minority, which features both male and females, who are fans of women's football, and would consider the inclusion of it to be the major selling point for a new fifa game.

 

[Vermillion]

But most of the time is because they are perceive as sexy.

A lot of their exposure deals with their accomplishments, though. That's a pretty good thing, imo.

 

[Cat Party]

Okay, so are we talking about a create-a-character feature? Because that's irrelevant to the main game and the main teams.

I mentioned earlier that the NHL series added a few female heads to create a player and a few real players as well. I asked why FIFA couldn't do something similar.

 

[Vermillion]

I mentioned earlier that the NHL series added a few female heads to create a player and a few real players as well. I asked why FIFA couldn't do something similar.

I suppose that they could do that, yeah.

 

[Totobeni]

isn't it better to ask Konami instead?

I mean PES is now 2nd place and it seems like it losing popularity and they might benefit from the demand on women football to sell more copies. for EA this might seems pointless as FIFA sell damn good anyway but for Konami this might help their franchise.

 

[Mory Dunz]

I mentioned earlier that the NHL series added a few female heads to create a player and a few real players as well. I asked why FIFA couldn't do something similar.

Eh, sure, but for soccer they'd have to do new body presets too.

Wait...do NHL commentators not say "he"?

In FIFA they use "he, boy, lad" a lot so they would have to redo all of that as well. And FIFA keeps the same commentary for years lol.

 

[FuturusX]

I mentioned earlier that the NHL series added a few female heads to create a player and a few real players as well. I asked why FIFA couldn't do something similar.

Because the license is too expensive.
It's too complicated to model female players.
The entire game engine would require a complete re-write.
Nobody cares about women's football and for good reason - they are not good / skillful enough.
Too few people would even use the feature.

All of which is not true for NHL.

 

[Sceptic]

The women wouldn't be scaled to men's skill overalls or else it'd ruin the whole point.

I would think the point would be simply including woman. You don't need to create a whole new game mode.

 

[Laughing Banana]

I didn't say anything about skill in my comment. I enjoy college football over the NFL, sometimes overtly dominant skill ruins the viewer experience of a game. Women's tennis is the only sport where the female value actually comes within a striking distance of the men's game in monetary value.

Well, "better game to watch because there are too many aces in Men's side" kind of implied that. Anyways, yes, Tennis is perhaps the only major sports that I can think of where, financially or in terms of popularity, women's side is not doing bad compared to the men's side. Still noticeable, but not huge.

Not soccer though. The difference is just enormous.

isn't it better to ask Konami instead?

I mean PES is now 2nd place and it seems like it losing popularity and they might benefit from the demand on women football to sell more copies. for EA this might seems pointless as FIFA sell damn good anyway but for Konami this might help their franchise.

Considering that for all intents and purposes the potential target for the feature is insignificant in numbers, I think it would be best that if this is to happen, it's happening from the guys who have more money to throw around.

 

[Mory Dunz]

I would think the point would be simply including woman. You don't need to create a whole new game mode.

Game mode? I'm confused. I was just talking about player overalls.

Like if they included the US Womens team, if they scaled it according to men and the best players were like...in the 40s, then it'd be lame and no one would want to play as them.

 

[spwolf]

Well, I am too a tennis fan and the general--no, the very vast majority--of the fans in *all* tennis communities that I know of think otherwise. And for good reason: you can't honestly say that folks like Federer, Djokovic, Murray, Nadal etc are inferior skillwise compared to their female compatriots... you just can't.

regardless, women tennis is awesome to watch... plenty of sports where women do great. Watching tennis i dont see their skill being any less.

 

[JABEE]

Because the license is too expensive.
It's too complicated to model female players.
The entire game engine would require a complete re-write.
Nobody cares about women's football and for good reason - they are not good / skillful enough.
Too few people would even use the feature.

All of which is not true for NHL.

The style and speed of women's hockey is just as different as women's soccer, yet EA managed to incorporate women hockey players into their Create-a-skater mode.

Not many people in the grand scheme of things cared about that addition, but plenty of girls who play hockey surely did. It's a nice thing to do, and I doubt it took much time to do it. It's probably a cool thing for families.

If you went through every feature you could probably eliminate it for one reason or another. I don't see the issue with adding a way to play as female soccer players. There are plenty of popular women soccer players in the USA. I'm sure girls across the country would want to play as Alex Morgan with their brother.

 

[Draxal]

Well, "better game to watch because there are too many aces in Men's side" kind of implied that. Anyways, yes, Tennis is perhaps the only major sports that I can think of where, financially or in terms of popularity, women's side is not doing bad compared to the men's side. Still noticeable, but not huge.

Not soccer though. The difference is just enormous.

Considering that for all intents and purposes the potential target for the feature is insignificant in numbers, I think it would be best that if this is to happen, it's happening from the guys who have more money to throw around.

The too many aces on man's sides is a result of serves reaching up to 150 miles per hour, if anything it shows that the game wasn't designed for the modern male tennis athlete. Trust me it wasn't a knock on their skill.

 

[Squirrel Killer]

Let's be clear.

Generally the women's game is dismissed because it's perceived as a men's game. A game not suitable for women to play. It not taken seriously regardless of the actual levels on display.

Let's be rational.

The women's game is dismissed in large part for the same reason MLS, Scandinavian, non-League, and college soccer are dismissed, the same reason Single A baseball, semi-pro American football, junior hockey, and the D-League get such abysmal attendance figures, the same reason amateur theater actors, municipal politicians, lounge singers, and business interns are largely ignored. The participants may be very good at what they do and may have tremendous amounts of time invested in their fields, but they're not fast, strong, skillful, knowledgeable, or artful enough to command another person's attention.

Are there people who dismiss it for the reasons you claim? Sure, it's a big world and there's always sexist, racist, homophobic, etc... jerks out there. Fortunately, I agree with what you mentioned, that those attitudes are softening.

Many a business opportunity was missed under the weight of this backward thinking. New markets are created every day in-spite of the strength of the old ones.

Sounds like a great opportunity for a market disruptor (PES anyone?) to come in and steal market share.

 

[Laughing Banana]

regardless, women tennis is awesome to watch... plenty of sports where women do great. Watching tennis i dont see their skill being any less.

1st bolded: never said otherwise.

2nd bolded: I guess I just have to disagree. I think the guys in the 6-10 ranking in tennis can destroy--not just defeat, destroy--women in 1-5; I can't even begin to imagine what would happen if, say, people like Djokovic or Nadal or Federer or Murray are to compete directly, no limitations, free for all, competition with the players of the WTA.

 

[Draxal]

I do think the licensing argument is bullshit as well, I'm pretty sure the NWLS would do anything to get it in the game and do it for minimal cost.

 

[FuturusX]

The style and speed of women's hockey is just as different as women's soccer, yet EA managed to incorporate women hockey players into their Create-a-skater mode.

Not many people in the grand scheme of things cared about that addition, but plenty of girls who play hockey surely did. It's a nice thing to do, and I doubt it took much time to do it. It's probably a cool thing for families.

If you went through every feature you could probably eliminate it for one reason or another. I don't see the issue with adding a way to play as female soccer players. There are plenty of popular women soccer players in the USA. I'm sure girls across the country would want to play as Alex Morgan with their brother.

I was being sarcastic. It's inclusion in NHL proves that EA has history of doing and it could be done for football just as easily.

 

[Wiktor]

Where are you guys getting this idea that because women like men's football (as if they have a choice in most parts of the world), they aren't going to be interested in creating players that are women?

Let me ask another way: when you were kids, did you ever play these games and create a player with your name and (if possible) likeness?

Ermm..what? This thread is about EA recreating female leagues in their game.

Also....if EA would give you option to create a female player and then join male games I doubt any women would use it, considering such virtual player would be pretty much useless in male team.

 

[Jackson]

2nd bolded: I guess I just have to disagree. I think the guys in the 6-10 ranking in tennis can destroy--not just defeat, destroy--women in 1-5; I can't even begin to imagine what would happen if, say, people like Djokovic or Nadal or Federer or Murray are to compete directly, no limitations, free for all, competition with the players of the WTA.

The Williams sisters played a rank 200 man and got whooped. WHOOPED! Both Serena and Venus, in the same afternoon.

SOURCE: http://observer.theguardian.com/osm/story/0,,543962,00.html

A top tier male tennis pro would do so much more than absolutely destroy a top tier female tennis pro.

 

[Le_Samourai]

1st bolded: never said otherwise.

2nd bolded: I guess I just have to disagree. I think the guys in the 30-40 ranking in tennis can destroy--not just defeat, destroy--women in 1-5; I can't even begin to imagine what would happen if, say, people like Djokovic or Nadal or Federer or Murray are to compete directly, no limitations, free for all, competition with the players of the WTA.

Fixed.

 

[Kozak]

I do think the licensing argument is bullshit as well, I'm pretty sure the NWLS would do anything to get it in the game and do it for minimal cost.

You'd be surprised...

League is usually fine with it. Its the damn greedy clubs.

 

[Mory Dunz]

Fixed.

You didn't go nearly low enough lol.


That's getting kind of OT though. The gap is there, everyone knows. I still enjoy watching S Williams though.

 

[Squirrel Killer]

I mentioned earlier that the NHL series added a few female heads to create a player and a few real players as well. I asked why FIFA couldn't do something similar.

If changing the heads on the player models and adding a women's league or two is what we're talking about - no changes to the full player model, animations, or game flow logic - then this is a no-brainer and EA should do it post-haste. They could just make the hair longer on the Gareth Bale and Christiano Ronaldo heads

Spoiler

(it's a joke)

, have the commentary guys record 20 more names ("Alex <awkward pause> Morgan,") throw a couple more spreadsheets at the poor intern inputting the Icelandic league's rosters, and pay the buck fifty to get the much sought after NWSL licensing rights. Boom, crisis averted. However, I think such a quarter-assed attempt would get them worse PR than just leaving women out. Of course, I've never worked on large scale IT and media projects, so what the fuck do I know?

 

[Afrikan]

I don't know if it has been mentioned, but EA used to have Women teams in their NCAA Basketball game.... I think it was the PS2 era.

but that's when EA used to take chances and have soooo many features in their Sports games.

like the NFL Europe Teams in Madden 2004.

 

[Mononoke]

I'm not sure anger is the best way to describe the negative reactions in the thread. I'm assuming the poster was generally reacting to the general dismissive nature of 'some' of the responses.

In a larger sense it's always interesting to hear people who love football (soccer) dismiss the women's game as if it's so technically different from the men's game to be unwatchable.

I can agree it's not fair to dismiss the sport. But you have to admit, it's not popular in a larger sense. That doesn't mean the sport isn't as good as Men's, or isn't something worth caring about. Obviously these are very skilled athletes and they work really hard. It has every legitimacy as any other sport. But it doesn't change the fact that it's not a very popular sport in general. *shrugs*

You can't force things to become popular. It is what it is. As someone that wants things to be more inclusive, and wants more equality for genders (especially in sports), there is no denying the huge disparity in popularity between women's football and men's football. It sucks. But that's what it is.

EDIT: I don't know enough about Development cost, and how much time/money it would take to make a women's league option in a FIFA game. If was actually doable, and they are just being lazy, then I could understand the criticism. Or rather, I could understand fans showing their voice that they WANT the feature. But if it actually took a substantial amount of time + $$, then I can't blame EA for not focusing on this option, when it's a popularity issue. When the demand isn't high enough to warrant it.

 

[DrunkDan]

Women's football is generally of poor quality in comparison to the men's game, so the gameplay would suffer if they tried to go for realism. Add to that the fact that there is potentially no market for it and it seems like a pointless inclusion.

The money spent on licensing could be used better to improve the core game.

 

[grosvenor_92]

It'd be interesting to see but I don't EA or Konami would be willing to spend the time or money it would take to add it to future games.

 

[KHlover]

Would Women's National Teams be the first zero star teams in FIFA?

When considering that our German Women's National Team (one of the best in the world!) often loses against the youth division of Bundesliga teams or 3. Bundesliga teams in test games it wouldn't be fair to give them more than one star all across the board. The results of FIFA games might be unrealistic, but the star ranking of each team is pretty accurate for what it is.

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

Where are you guys getting this idea that because women like men's football (as if they have a choice in most parts of the world), they aren't going to be interested in creating players that are women?

Let me ask another way: when you were kids, did you ever play these games and create a player with your name and (if possible) likeness?

Are we talking about creating players or actually spend money and time licensing real people/teams? Two completely different things.

 

[NEO0MJ]

It would be a nice gesture and a chance for EA to win more people over but I have to admit I have no idea how much it would cost and if it would be worth it for the company. I don't think any company would try and license a female only football game, either.

But most of the time is because they are perceive as sexy.

Some of my friends used to like watching female Tennis just to ogle at their breasts ( ._.)

 

[Into]

If it was financially worth doing, they and other makers of sports games would have done it already.

Tennis games usually feature female athletes, and that is no surprise, because female tennis is very popular and has a huge audience. I prefer watching female tennis because the matches are more exciting ten fold than the mens

If there is a demand, it will be made. It wont be made out of "niceness" however. It is someones money, and they want to see a return on it afterall. Sports games are star driven, its why i think including European clubs in NBA 2k15 this year is a waste of labor and money, and i live in Europe but dont care about those teams.

 

[Sniper McBlaze]

This would be like if Bungie had spent 500 mirrion dorrars on an ecchi VN.

 

[Eyemus Lutt]

Would the people who want women's teams in Fifa be upset when all the teams are ranked less than half a star? The best womens teams in the world wouldn't be able to take on the average 4th tier English men's team.

 

[GhostTrick]

While being a good idea, I don't see that happening for a good reason:
Huge lack of profitability.

This time, it's not about sexism or such, it's just that the game industry is so unfair that we can't have what we want.

A football game is a difficult thing to do. There's so much players to model, and there's more commentaries to record. Women soccer is just not popular enough. Case in point; it's difficult for a lot of people to tell a name for a player.

Profitability is what prevents other sports to be made into video games and it's not about sex. Do we have a true Rugby game ? A boxing game ? Handball ?
Profitability is what makes people asking for a new Shenmue game, yet it wont happens.

So, while I'm definitely supportive, it's not happening unless that sport itself becomes more popular.

 

[Bishop89]

While being a good idea, I don't see that happening for a good reason:
Huge lack of profitability.

This time, it's not about sexism or such, it's just that the game industry is so unfair that we can't have what we want.

A football game is a difficult thing to do. There's so much players to model, and there's more commentaries to record. Women soccer is just not popular enough. Case in point; it's difficult for a lot of people to tell a name for a player.

Profitability is what prevents other sports to be made into video games and it's not about sex. Do we have a true Rugby game ? A boxing game ? Handball ?
Profitability is what makes people asking for a new Shenmue game, yet it wont happens.

So, while I'm definitely supportive, it's not happening unless that sport itself becomes more popular.

This has nothing to do with the game industry. The real world doesnt care about womens soccer.

 

[Card Boy]

Absolutely do not care, and it would be a huge waste of development money & resources

It's not like they do anything with their development money and resources.

 

[GRW810]

I've never thought about this but now I think it absolutely should happen.

 

[chico]

i dont want it. i dont need it. women´s football is terrible.

 

[oti]

Two days later it surpassed 1000 signatures. I think it got mentioned by Swedish media too.

 

[vasametropolis]

This has nothing to do with the game industry. The real world doesnt care about womens soccer.

This is it. Right here. I'd argue the world will never care, too. If it did care, sure, put the teams in the game. If they include them now though, virtually nobody is going to pick those teams. It's a waste.