EA exec on women in gaming: ‘It’s really powerful to see yourself represented’
Andrea Hopelain, Senior Vice President, Brand, EA SPORTS & RACING at Electronic Arts, sits down with Yahoo Finance Live to talk about the growing number of women in gaming, how women are represented in the space and games themselves, and ways to make gaming more inclusive going forward.
Video Transcript
- From tabletops to virtual reality, video games changing with the times for sure. Let's break down some of those top trends in the world of sports and gaming with our next guest. We've got Andrea Hopelain who is the sports and racing brand senior vice president over at Electronic Arts. And also summoned into the chat here, we've got to bring in Yahoo Finance's own Dan Howley.
All right, so let's get right into it here. And Andrea, great to have you here with us on the day. First and foremost, when we think about where we sit in the current trends in the world of sports and gaming, there's been a ton of focus on what the metaverse could mean for sports and gaming. But as of right now, where are you seeing some of the core gamers, some of the end users continue to gravitate towards the experiences that companies like EA are coming up with?
ANDREA HOPELAIN: Thanks for having me. Um, it's a really exciting moment to be inside of the intersection of sports, gaming, and interactive entertainment. Over half of the world is gaming now.
And excitingly, more than 50% of that is female. Our gamers are looking for increasing, um, ways to connect with sport through the diversity of experiences that we offer, through competition, through play, through watching, social connection. We're sitting at a really white hot intersection of all of these trends.
DAN HOWLEY: Andrea, this is Dan. I want to talk to you about, you know, obviously, this being Women's History Month, about women and gaming. Obviously, women make up, you know I mean, roughly half of the gaming cohort, whether that's any kind of genre you can think of. I want to talk specifically, though, about EA Sports and how women are, you know, playing in that space and how EA is working to bring more women into the area as well.
ANDREA HOPELAIN: Yeah. As I mentioned, you know, we have more than 50% of our audience at Electronic Arts today is female. And we need these diverse voices and we want to meet the diverse voices of our player population. You know, it's really powerful to see yourself represented in the world and through the experiences.
And, you know, when I think about how powerful it was for me growing up as a soccer player to look up to the women's national team and see what I can become, I think about the role we play at EA Sports today and how we are mentoring and entering fans into sport through games. And so you can't underestimate the role and the power that we have in representing the diversity and participation in sport today and we're really meeting that ambition with our actions.
You know, last year we brought coach Jen Welter into our Madden NFL game into the Superstar KO mode. We've signed the LPGDT-- LPGA, wow, Into our golf game. And most recently, we brought 10 women's hockey teams into our NHL games. So I'm pretty proud of where we're going and where we're headed.
- You know, when we think about the progress, it's also at a time where we know that there's still work to be done from some of the other competitors that are in the same space. Activision Blizzard most notably and some of the allegations of toxic workplace culture, especially for women there, how do you, as a consortium for the industry, paint a better picture of the opportunities for women in gaming?
ANDREA HOPELAIN: It's been so unfortunate and disheartening to read, and listen, and see what's been happening across the industry. And at Electronic Arts, we take this so seriously. DEI is ingrained in our culture, and who we are, and how we think about not only the talent that we have but the experiences we build [? not ?] for our talent and for our player community. And so we're really committed to this and taking action to continue to ensure an inclusive community for all that touch-- touch our games, and our experiences, and our workplace.
DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, Andrea, I want to talk about, uh, FIFA real quick, one of the, obviously, most important games in EA's lineup, one of the most played games in the world. And, you know, the inclusion of the women's national teams in that, and how that's, kind of, been taken up, and you know what the play style is like for gamers, if you're seeing more pick up there. And then obviously whenever they win, which is pretty often, you see a boost in players taking them up, you know, as they kind of go through the different championships that they've been through.
ANDREA HOPELAIN: Yeah, we do have the women's game inside of FIFA. And we're continuing to work really closely with, um, female players and the female soccer federations around the world to continue to bring our FIFA game closer and closer to match the real world of sports. So you'll see more from us in our ambition for the future coming.
- Andrea Hopelain, sports and racing brand senior vice president at Electronic Arts. And of course, you also heard from Yahoo Finance's own Dan Howley. Andrea, thank you so much for taking the time here with us today. We really appreciate it.
