Women in FIFA 16 will make it 'most authentic soccer game out there'
12 women's teams, including Canada, will be featured in EA Sports' bestselling video game
Finally women will be in the game — EA Sports' bestselling FIFA soccer video game will feature female athletes for the first time in its 2016 edition.
The FIFA series debuted in 1993 and has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, but has never featured female athletes. So why has it taken the Burnaby firm so long?
Nick Channon, senior producer of the EA Sports FIFA series, says his team in Burnaby, B.C. has been working on incorporating women for years — but it wasn't easy.
"We realized there was a number of pieces of technology that we didn't have in place, especially around our body-scaling," he told Rick Cluff on CBC Radio One's The Early Edition.
"We needed to go out and motion capture women to make sure that we get them to do the run cycles properly."
Video gamers will be able to access 12 women's teams, including Canada, the United States and many more that are competing at the current FIFA Women's World Cup taking place in Vancouver and across the country.
- FULL COVERAGE FIFA Women's World Cup
Channon says EA Sports does not have exact demographics of its customers, but it is aware that women and girls are becoming more active in the video game community.
"We get more and more female players giving us feedback... on what they want from the game," he said.
"We want to be the most authentic soccer game out there and to do that we feel we need to have women part of it."
FIFA 16 will be on store shelves Sept. 26, 2015. Team Canada continues its quest for the World Cup title this Thursday when it takes on New Zealand at 6 p.m. PT in Edmonton.
To hear the full interview with Nick Channon, listen to the audio labelled: EA's FIFA video game to feature women for the first time.