The numbers are down: less than 10% of FIFA 23 players have ever started a game with a women’s team. And yet, we are talking about a game which, for the first time with us, had chosen to put a woman on its jacket. But then what else is wrong? Why are women so little considered in FIFA, but also all sports simulations?
Summary
Is FIFA doing enough? Women in sports games, a losing bet? When male sport prevails over female
Is FIFA doing enough?
It all starts with FIFA 23 statistics and an observation from our colleagues at Numerama: a tiny minority of players started a game by choosing a female team, 7.6% on PS5 and 8% on PS4 to be precise. Where do these numbers come from? Well, quite simply, game trophies that have sought, since 2015, to reward players who have tried their hand at women’s teams. So certainly, there is an improvement compared to FIFA 22 and FIFA 21, but compared to the communication made around them, it seems very little. As a reminder, with FIFA 23, EA has finally decided to put a woman on the game’s European cover, with Sam Kerr alongside Kylian Mbappé. Add to that a communication particularly focused around the women’s league and you have all the reasons in the world to think that the latter should gain in popularity in game, right?
And obviously it’s not that simple! Who would have thought, it is not enough to put a nice coat of paint on the front to really change the game. This big communication indeed serves as a bit of a cover-up for a treatment that remains differentiated between men’s and women’s football. The teams may be more numerous, the style of play is not the same (less rhythmic according to some players) and can therefore put off regular players. The team selection system is also problematic. If you want to play a women’s team, your opponent will necessarily have to choose a women’s team as well, and that doesn’t help. But where the real problem is of course on the FUT mode side. It is on the latter that EA is betting almost everything today and it does not include any player. Inevitably, it does not encourage players to take an interest in female players and it has more effect than a meager trophy (for a game that only 5% of players turn platinum by the way).
I remember when FIFA 16 came out, the new thing was that you could play with female teams. On the French cover of FIFA 16, it was absolutely not highlighted. We saw two men…
Fanny Lignon, lecturer at the École supérieure du professorat et de l’éducation de Lyon and specialist in representations of masculinity and femininity in video games
But it must be said that the football simulation game is not the worst student either, far from it. Granted, EA’s title got off to a rather late start on this run. It wasn’t until 2015 that female teams made their appearance in the game. For comparison, the UFC franchise, for example, has offered to play female fighters since 2014. And then, this integration was very gradual, first with the addition of only national teams (not really the most used in-game) then the final of the Women’s World Cup in FIFA 19 (against the entire men’s competition). The path has therefore been long and late, but today FIFA is clearly one of the precursors. In a world where all sports games are gradually setting foot in the stirrup (NHL, Football Manager, NBA 2K…), FIFA is one of those who are one step ahead.
As we have shown above, there are still important points to be dealt with, but the effort remains to be welcomed, really. The communication and involvement of EA Sports in general at this level is good. And yet, despite ever greater efforts, things do not change, and even get worse. FIFA players play less than before with women’s teams. On FIFA 16, 20% of PlayStation players and 17% of Xbox players had completed the famous trophy we were talking about above. So, if it’s not just a story of additions and communication, what’s wrong?
Women in sports games, a losing bet?
With FIFA 16, there was a certain enthusiasm for this novelty that were the women’s teams, hence this fairly marked peak. If afterwards it didn’t take off among the players, it’s quite logical when you think about it and it’s a bit of how FIFA itself works. Sports simulations in general have a hard time putting male and female teams on an equal footing, in particular because of the sacrosanct consistency. Mixing single-sex teams doesn’t work and in a way you can hear it… except when you allow the mixing of different divisions and levels. This applies to FIFA but also to UFC and others. And if you have to choose, the players will rather opt for the men’s teams, which speak to them more for various reasons. Starting with a very simple one: the majority of sports game players are men and naturally identify more easily with men (only 2% of female players play sports games according to a 2017 Quantic Foundry survey).
In addition to the male/female differentiation, women’s clubs also suffer from a more general trend: the supremacy of certain clubs. Outside the World Cup period, players rather set their sights on clubs than national teams, which is more popular clubs like Barça, Manchester United or PSG. The latter is also the most played club since FIFA 21. It would be interesting to see how many players choose smaller clubs, even if it’s a safe bet that they are a small minority. There are mainly two reasons for this, and the first directly affects the gameplay of FIFA which has greatly evolved over the years. Club and player ratings have become more and more important episode after episode. So today, it is very difficult to compete if you do not opt for the biggest teams. Inevitably, it homogenizes the gaming experience because you will never catch up with a Kylian in full swing with a Ligue 2 player. Mbappé is also the top scorer in the game and clearly one of the favorite players, not only because he is strong but also because he is extremely popular.
And this is where the second reason comes in: the starification of certain players/clubs. Quite simply, FIFA players play FIFA precisely to see the best teams compete, recreate classic classics or even score a goal with Mbappé. For most people, the interest of FIFA lies almost solely in playing with the big clubs or building a dream team with Haaland, Benzema, Neymar, Ronaldo and the others. Rare are the friends who arrive at the house for a game and who say “I’m KV Ostend or nothing” (unless you’re from there or like a taste for risk). And despite their good ratings, it’s less dreaming of opening a pack with Min Son, Mane or Casemiro because they are less popular. And of course, that also applies to women’s teams and players who do not enjoy the same media coverage as the big stars of men’s football…
When male sport prevails over female
To the question “why not give more space to women in your games?”, publishers have often replied that it was not economically viable. Basically, it would be a lot of investment for little return. And if it’s sometimes a little easy to come up with this excuse all the time, we must admit that there is a part of truth. Our society is not really ready to put women’s and men’s sport on an equal footing, and that also applies to football. It is not for nothing if, on the set of Quotidien, the parallel was immediately drawn between the low percentage that we mentioned at the beginning of the article and sport in general. And that is the Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who says so. She is also in the process of establishing ways to better support and promote sportswomen.
Because of the limited coverage of women’s sport in traditional media, other industries are less inclined to promote it
Researcher Mia Consalvo in Sport VideoGames
“The history of sports is the story of a fight, it’s the story of a permanent fight” advances Cécile Ottogalli-Mazzacavallo, scientific expert on Women and Sports issues, in the documentary Tous Musclées. The latter precisely returns to this story full of obstacles aimed at keeping women away from most sports. Prohibited events for women, femininity checks, constant backtracking… Inevitably, this tortuous path has led to a very marked differentiation between male and female sport. If football is today the best treated women’s sport (44% of “women’s sport” broadcast), it still bears the brunt of it. There is an obvious difference in treatment between women’s and men’s teams, whether in terms of revenue, sponsorship or broadcasting.
But fortunately, there is better and it should logically continue on this momentum. Indeed, according to mediametry, women’s sport “is increasingly broadcast and watched on television” (an audience almost doubled for the Women’s Football Euro between 2017 and 2022) and, according to the magazine Causette this time, 72% of French people would like there to be more women’s sports on TV. Mentalities are slowly changing and this should logically help FIFA a little in its approach… as long as FIFA also continues to seek to change them on its own scale. In this story, it’s give and take.
As a kid, I didn’t even know women’s football existed. Football games were only for men, and I didn’t ask myself the question.
Pink for korii.
So what’s the balance sheet? Well, until women’s football gains popularity with the general public, it will always be a choice for a minority of FIFA players. Normalizing women’s sport is essential to see it take a greater part in games, both from the point of view of developers and players. And this normalization, it not only passes through a whole legislative and educational work, but also cultural. FIFA is not just a game that follows the trend, it creates it. It is the cultural product that sells the most each year in France and it therefore plays an important role in this normalization, while being dependent on it. So yes, EA Sports and the others won’t be able to work miracles, but they have a role to play. There are many cogs in this story and it is not enough for the biggest to move for change to finally begin. It is only by activating a little all together that all these cogs will be able to create a real dynamic in favor of women’s sport, both in life and in game. as in the other. They can therefore help to move the lines,” says researcher Fanny Lignon. And to achieve this, FIFA and the others still have work to do…
