NHL 13 sets precedent, includes two women athletes

By: Musa Afridi

  |   August 30th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

EA Sports is venturing into uncharted territory and potentially changing the face of sports games by announcing that both Angela Ruggiero and Hayley Wickenheiser will be playable in their upcoming ice hockey simulation title, NHL 13.

For the first time in recent sports gaming history, a video game will have playable female athletes in sports other than the Olympic games. EA Sports has announced that NH 13 will have two ice hockey legends featured in the game that aren’t men.

Angela Ruggiero and Hayley Wickenheiser, both represented the United States of America and Canada, respectively, in the Olympics, and will now be playable in NHL 13.

A number of other Hall of Famers have also been announced such as Doug Gilmour, Dominik Hasek and Jari Kurri, but the headlines have been stolen by Hayley and Angela.

The announcement came a few weeks after EA Sports Toronto responded to fans requests to include female players and teams in the FIFA series of games. The development team conceded that it was something they had been considering for a long time but will not be introducing in FIFA 13, the upcoming football simulation title, however, they would be giving it serious thought in future iterations in the series.

It may only be two players in the entire roster of NHL 13 but make no mistake, it is a huge step in the video game industry, where female characters are either damsels in distress or scantily clad women with big guns.

In fact, sexism seems to be an emerging issue in the industry and although the Sexy Nun trailer for Hitman caused a larger stir than can be justified, the reboot of the Tomb Raider series was met with a considerable level of controversy.

Both incidents received plenty of media coverage and resulted in a number of context-adding and clarification statements by the publishers and developers to little or not avail.

However, this does seem to be a step in the right direction as it is the first time any NHL game or sports simulation title has included female athletes. If the move pays off and the response is positive one can expect EA’s other series to follow the example and one could see female athletes included in the publisher’s NBA and FIFA games.

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves one could even speculate that gamers may one day have to choose between the NBA and WNBA titles in the future. Whether or not that happens though depends on a laundry list of factors but it should be noted that although the step seems a minor one, it could have long lasting effects on the industry.

But what about the reader; is this a one-time move by EA or are they testing the water for expansion? Let us know in the comments section below.