The ever popular Football Manager series, is about to launch this year’s edition of the game, and among the new features this year is the possibility for newgens, players who are created by the game’s algorithm, to come out as gay.
“It doesn’t happen with any real life players because of course we don’t know who in real life is gay and who isn’t, and we didn’t want to wrongly be outing players.” – Miles Jacobson, studio director at Sports Interactive
However, there are some limits on the features for footballers from some leagues or nationalities due to the legal status of homosexuality in their respective countries. “If a player is from a country, or is playing in a league of a country, where it is illegal to come out, they will not come out in that country, so we’ve tried to be respectful,” said Jacobson.
Managers will be notified if a footballer at their club has come out as gay by a special news item that appears in their in-game inbox. The new feature will have other impacts on gameplay as well.
“It happens quite rarely,” said Jacobson. “But we believe if a player were to come out they wouldn’t get much trouble, and the clubs themselves would see a merchandise boost because you’d be having a different audience wanting to support that player. If you look at any time when someone has come out it does mean that there is support for them from people who might not have been as supportive in the past. The LGBT community is incredibly strong, and they do support each other because they know how difficult some of them have had it and how other people have made it easier.”
Football Manager 2018 is coming out on 10th of November, with the beta already available for pre-orderers.
