Sports have never really been a woman-friendly space, typically reserved for "guy time." The same goes for sports video games, which cover most games but don't really feature any women characters.
This might be excusable, for example, in hockey which is almost an exclusively male sport, but it seems a bit odd in soccer, which is generally split down the middle.
So why aren't there any female players in the FIFA video games? Why hasn't EA Sports caught on to the fact that women not only play video games but play the sport the game is based on? Whether or not you have any opinion on this issue, many people on the Internet do and they've decided to take action.
Today, a petition went up on Change.org campaigning for EA Sports to include female characters in their FIFA games. While the response has been mostly positive, it has still not reached its goal of 12,543 signatures.
Specifically, the petition is asking for EA Sports to reach out and seize a missed opportunity. Over 40 percent of soccer players in the US are girls, and nearly half of all video game players are female.
"By offering just men's teams as playable options on FIFA we're not only denying these girls a chance to relate to the characters they play on a videogame, but we're also wasting a great opportunity to encourage those same girls to be who they are, develop their passion, motivation and promote a healthy image and relation between women and sports," the petition said.
Women in games is a heated debate recently in the game industry, and it's good to see people continuing the discussion in different areas. For example, here is our editor Ian Miles Cheong discussing the issue.
If you agree with the petition, be sure to sign to request EA to include women in their FIFA games. Have another opinion? Sound off in the comments below.
