EA: The publisher wants to ensure more diversity in games

Diversity in video games is becoming increasingly important. Many larger publishers therefore try to bring more representation into their video games, but they don’t always really succeed. For example, Activision Blizzard was recently in the crossfire for their “diversity tool” because gamers weren’t too keen on the idea.

EA at the forefront of more diversity in games

One company that does a pretty solid job in this area is Electronic Arts. For example, in 2018 EA released Battlefield 5, which, among other things, brought female soldiers into World War II. Some players weren’t thrilled with this, but EA argued that players should simply not buy the title if they don’t like it.

The publisher seems to be behind his actions, and how exactly EA is trying to ensure more diversity, revealed Tülay McNally, director of inclusive design, in an interview with WIRED. According to McNally, EA uses “a loose framework of guiding principles and design philosophies that they adapt to how they work with each game team.”

McNally discusses Maxis Studios, the team behind The Sims 4. The ability to customize Sims’ pronouns was recently added here, and more sexual orientation options are planned for the future. A team like Maxis Studios doesn’t need much help, but other game teams do “Maybe they’re just starting out. They might need a little more support, education, and hand-holding,” explains McNally.

McNally presented her framework to Laura Miele, Chief Operating Officer at EA. After the idea seemed to be pretty well received, EA created a new position for McNally as Director of Inclusive Design. Her team currently consists of four people, two of whom focus on game accessibility, the other two focus more on cultural sensitivity and representations.

McNally also helped announce Battlefield 2042’s first nonbinary character, Sundance. “I really appreciated that the producers and community manager reached out and said, ‘We want to make sure we have a proper communication plan when we reveal the character.'”

After internal discussions, the team decided to emphasize cool rather than gender identity in the announcement of the Sundance character. “What really matters is that we have strong character design and a meaningful storytelling to make it authentic, cool, and accepted.”

McNally is also trying to build a relationship with the next generation of gamers. “They play differently. They want different things from companies. They want companies to be good to their developers and they want companies to take a stand on social issues, for example.”