Football Manager series shines a light on video game representation
Wrexham AFC
Video games have come a long way when it comes to accessibility and providing ways for players with disabilities to enjoy new releases.
But when it comes to seeing themselves represented on screen it’s a different story.
One big series that’s hoping to help change that is Football Manager – the popular simulation that puts players in charge of their own team.
The latest edition of the annual franchise allows people to use the game’s custom character designer to create a manager who uses a wheelchair.
Developer Sports Interactive tells BBC Newsbeat it’s part of wider efforts to make the game “as inclusive as possible”.
Sports Interactive
In a <a href="https://www.scope.org.uk/campaigns/research-policy/accessibility-in-gaming” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>2023 survey of gamers with disabilities by charity Scope, respondents said their top priorities included more accurate and more frequent representation in games.
Will Rees, a gamer and powerchair football player for Wrexham, says it’s “amazing” to see the new feature in Football Manager.
“I probably might play it more even though I’m not good at it,” says, Will, 16.
“More wheelchair users will feel more included.”
Notable video game characters with disabilities include Hailey Cooper, Miles Morales’ love interest in the Spider-Man games, who is deaf and communicates using American Sign Language.
In Grand Theft Auto 5, heist mastermind Lester uses a walking stick and a wheelchair.
Will, who has kyphosis (curvature of the spine) and other conditions affecting his joints, says he can see where it would be difficult for certain video games to include disabled representation.
But he hopes it becomes more standard in future.
“We just want to be like everyone else. We don’t want to be someone else or be treated differently,” he says.
Rockstar
Sports Interactive’s head of production Stu Boyd says introducing wheelchairs is “step two” in the company’s representation plan after it added hearing aids and eye patches in 2025.
“We can’t do everything in one year,” he says.
“So we just have to keep doing it every year to try and get to that gold standard in the future.”
Where representation is concerned, Boyd says, “it’s really important that it suits the game”.
Character artist Steve Norgate says the work to add wheelchair users “took a little while” because it’s important to “do everything 100% right”.
The Football Manager team also changed elements of the in-game world to reflect the needs of wheelchair users, such as adding ramps to trophy plinths.
Accessibility website Can I Play That? said it was a “a lovely example of going beyond just representation, and thinking about inclusion as well”.
It also noted accessibility improvements to the game, such as reducing the number of clicks required to navigate its menus, and the ability to customise the way information is displayed.
Producer Danny Quin says they also had to change things such as camera angles and how the manager acts on the side of the pitch when matches play out.
“Now we’ve done that,” he says, “we are in a place to be able to do a lot more”.
Boyd says it comes down to striking a balance between the team’s finite re reaction online will “feed the team and feed our decisions going forwards”
While there was big praise for Football Manager’s latest inclusion, the announcement of the new feature did attract some negative comments online.
“Once that representation becomes normal and more people do it, then we might not see as much reaction to it,” says Boyd.
“Hopefully that’ll be a more positive landscape for the gaming industry.”
Worthing FC owner George Dowell MBE, who has a spinal cord injury, says “silly comments” are often to be expected.
“Hopefully changes like this will bring more people in wheelchairs into football,” he says.
“Nothing will ever change if you don’t change anything”.
“If you can see yourself you might think: ‘Okay I’m really loving managing this. I want to go and try this in real life’.
“I know in the last few years, [developers] have been working hard to make the games more accessible for people to actually play them, which has been great.
“The next step is to see ourselves fully in those games.”
Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.
