Including female players could open up a whole new target market, perhaps most significantly in the US, where women's football is increasingly popular and the national team is consistently successful.
But FIFA executive producer David Rutter told CVG: "We get literally thousands upon thousands of suggestions from our fans for new features and we have to evaluate those suggestions, such as the inclusion of female players in the game, against our resources, priorities and overall fan feedback. At present, we don't have plans to include female players in the game."
We got in touch with EA after being pointed toward a Change.org petition which argues that excluding female characters from FIFA "makes no sense". The online petition has been signed by over 2,800 supporters.
"The US Department of State says that over 40% of soccer players in the US are girls," it reads.
"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.
"Young girls can't be portrayed by male videogame characters. We want them to be able see themselves in the games they love, as the soccer players that inspire them. Don't restrict our choices to Messi, Rooney, Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo. Allow girls and boys to play with Wambach, Sawa, Morgan, Cristiane, Miyama, Rapinoe, Marta, Hope Solo, Mia Hamm, Birgit Prinz."
European PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said last year that female consumers are the "untapped holy grail" for game publishers.
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Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/362588/ea-says-no-current-plans-to-introduce-womens-football-in-fifa/
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