Today, was the last straw
After playing a match with a player to be unnamed, I noticed their Clubs avatar had a rather offensive name. I won't go into detail but, let's just say that the Me Too movement would not look kindly on a person intentionally creating a video game character and putting that word on the back of a football kit. To be fair, the player was meant to resemble a famous pro athlete and the name could have been considered "commentary" but, even so, it should violate policy for an international, public company.
Either way, I filed a report with EA Sports. Now, I have had a long, love-hate relationship with the organization. Their flail into "customization" seems to be a desperate attempt to compete with the likes of Fortnite and Roblox. Football players have begun to look more like cartoon characters, even though the game boasts real world licensing agreements with clubs and stadiums around the world. The game mode in question was even called "Pro Clubs" until they dropped the "Pro" for EAFC 24. While they can't be held entirely liable for what the general public does with these customizations, and monitoring and enforcing policy must be a tedious endeavor, they have a certain responsibility to maintain a semblance of decency when their platform is running in public spaces, such as the internet.
For many years, I've been subjected to questionable moral choices by players who choose to be profane and provocative with their name choices. Many of them sexist, if not homophobic and otherwise intolerant. I've seen more than a few racially offensive characatures, along with racist names to go with it. I reported this player, thinking I was encouraging more "Fair Play," as even with the potential for the player's social commentary, the phrase could be very triggering.
This post is a difficult one in some ways. I have absolutely loved EA Sports FIFA video games for decades
I played throughout the 90's, most of my childhood. I went to work in the 2000's so I stopped for some time but, in 2010, I started playing again on the Nintendo Wii. It wasn't until 2015 that I began to seriously consider gaming, again. I started playing FIFA on Android, and began visiting Xbox and Playstation displays in stores to play it. In 2017, I finally rejoined the gaming community.
The Xbox One was my first "next gen" gaming console. I had never even played online before. I was happy to be playing again but, I immediately noticed that something was off. I told myself that it was just an internet connectivity issue. It felt "clunky." Unless you played games like Super Mario, or Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, you really have no idea how drastic the latency has changed. Where older games, that didn't rely on network connections, would give an immediate response to a button being pressed. There was almost no lag.
Now, in this new version of FIFA, it was like every time I pressed the button, the software took a second to evaluate before performing the action. I didn't think much of it at the time but now, because I'm noticing it in many other games, I believe that these milliseconds of delay are used to calculate responses and allow administrators the ability to manipulate outcomes in real time but, that's another investigation. I was able to adjust and began to master the gameplay and new controls, anyway.
There was a problem, though. I was no longer in the key demographic for EA Sports
They were trying to appeal to the flashy, hyper speed, super goals, glory chasing tweens. When I began playing Pro Clubs, everyone was a Striker, with maxed out speed and finishing numbers and EA gave them ratings of 90+ and patted them on the back with intricate animations and flashing lights and sound. As far as I could tell, nobody was even slightly interested in playing defense. Even the few fellow midfielders I encountered were attackers and no matter which position anyone was playing, everybody made a beeline to the penalty spot with hopes to kick the ball hard.
There was a severe lack of passing, patience, movement off the ball, most of the qualities one would value in a Professional Club player
There seemed to be no consequences, either. As I mentioned, most of these players were rated 90+ with the "buffer zone" of ball control, "aim assist" to allow wildly inaccurate shots to become highly probable goal chances. All of this, and they played against a 4 person defensive line with an average rating of 79. Dare I say, it was a free for all of out of control, sloppy, unimaginative football and it was largely encouraged and rewarded by Electronic Arts.
Before I even knew about this, my natural instinct was to make a Defensive Midfielder. I have always valued balance in football. I know that defense is as important, if not more important in circumstances like these, as offense is. I began defending and defending well. Most Pro Clubs players had never faced a defender rated higher than 79 and here was, still a modest 85 because EA doesn't value qualities like passing and defense the same way, and causing an absolute panic in some of the world's best players.
The days of simply knocking the ball forward, mashing the button, hoping for the lucky bounce, and calling it skilled football were over
I forced the entire community to reexamine their soccer IQ. I was proud of myself. I was nervous. I was often the only defender on my team against 3 or 4 high quality attackers at once. I just know how to defend in the real world, I know how to win ballgames in real life, and I applied that to EA's FIFA to great success.
I was so successful as a defender, in fact, that I had to turn off my messaging feature because I was getting constant angst from frustrated opponents, players who thought they were great but now, had to figure out how to actually play good football to beat me. Even players on my own team would often ridicule me for being a defender. As I mentioned, they all only knew one speed, lump it forward and mash the button. This strategy didn't allow for a defending player to hold the ball, make short passes, and patiently build an attack.
I had changed the game
In just a few short years, though. Electronic Arts began to buckle under the pressure. With eSports beginning to gain attention as legitimate competition, some of the best players were gaining sponsorships and support from financially motivated organizations. I don't know the details so I won't outright accuse anyone but, it wasn't long before my performance began to suffer. After mastering most of the techniques, my shots began to go wide, my passes began going to opponents, and of course, attackers were escaping my tackles. That millisecond delay I told you about earlier became 2 milliseconds. I went from being one of the Top 10 Ranked Defenders in the Leaderboard to not even bothering to look.
Of course, "players" began to show up on my teams and start demeaning me immediately, laying it on almost suspiciously thick. It was like they knew it was going to happen and couldn't wait for an opportunity to bully the only defender standing in their way. I endured this for years, paying good money to own a copy of the game as soon as it was released, the game that was spending resources to intimidate me into quitting defense. I would not quit. Now, I notice strange things happening on all of my devices, beyond my gaming console. I really struck a chord.
While I could never condone any of this, I have always been the perseverant type. I always welcomed the opportunity to face off against 5 other players by myself. I would often be victorious but, all of this is besides the point. Yes, I am offended that such a toxic community exists, and that it is likely encouraged by a toxic work environment at EA Sports. Is anyone really surprised, though? It is high level sports, a male dominated world that emphasizes money and violence.
I'm glad that Women's Soccer is getting acknowledged but, it seems too little too late
Even some of the negligence in the game design proves that their inclusion of female players is trivial at best. One of the goal celebrations features a teammate slapping the goal scorer on the chest repeatedly, and I'm sure you can imagine how that looks when the player is female. I don't think it was intentional, just lazy game design. If not lazy, then negligence in the pursuit of "faster, faster, bigger, more."
That brings me to what happened, today. After seeing that player with such an offensive word plastered on the screen, I filed a report with EA Sports and no more than one minute later, I received an email that stated
"Our well-trained, dedicated team reviewed your report, supported by automation tools and established policies and processes and didn't take any action this time."
You know what? Sure. They must get thousands of "Reports" from players who were just frustrated to be beat. I would like to see how many times I have been reported, to be honest. I'll bet there's a lot. It's probably why I feel like I'm being ostracised by them to begin with. I dared to defend, after all.
However, when I tried to reply to the email to elaborate, it was met with another automated response about "not monitoring these emails." Listen, I get it. The system is automated and designed to evaluate the user's gamer tag, which wasn't the issue, here. The issue is with the Clubs character that that gamer designed. It would take some further investigation but, there's not even an option to add a comment to specify that, or even to follow up on the report. It still feels inadequate.
That's when I decided enough was enough. It's complicated. I'm addicted to football. I still love soccer and want to play. After all that I've endured in this ridiculous place, when it's good, it's good. As a legally blind man, this simulation allows me to stay in touch with the game I love in ways that prove difficult outside. I would much rather being playing in the real world but, when I can't, this is the next best thing. I've met, a very few but, some intelligent players and had some great experiences but, for every one good there are 99 terrible experiences that are just not worth the effort.
I remember seeing cash prizes for tournaments and thinking to myself, I could actually make a living off of this
I had a dream of using video from these matches to create training videos for younger players, to encourage new generations to play soccer and teach people who already love the game some of the finer details that make it so wonderful. Instead, it's a creepy fraternity of greedy, selfish, misogynistic man-boys who don't value football at all, more than the glitz and glamour they think they can attain from it. I wish I could say that I'll never play it again but, the truth is, that little taste of good football almost makes all of the suffering worth while.
Even though my experience has been heavily manipulated in an attempt to intimidate me out, I still find the value in my decision making, my positional awareness, and my vision. I still know the game, even if EA Sports doesn't want me to believe I do. Either way, I hope there's a video game studio out there who will value the Midfielder one day. Until then, I'll look for something else to do.
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Sincerely yours,
Joshua Lucero
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