Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

EA Sports promises stronger measures against racism, particularly for NHL games

By

Electronic Arts’ EA Sports will be taking a stronger stand against racism in its games, with NHL titles, in particular, promising harsher penalties against players who will propagate offensive content.

Recommended Videos

Electronic Arts is just one of the several companies in the video game industry that have pledged support to the fight against racial injustice, as social unrest has swept across the United States after the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Take-Two Interactive shut down Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online for two hours, and Microsoft’s Mojang has pledged to donate all profits from Minecraft sales on June 19, among others.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Earlier this week, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said in a letter to employees that the company will donate $1 million to several organizations such as the Equal Justice Initiative and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Wilson added that Electronic Arts employees will be given an extra paid day off each year, which they can use to volunteer for charities in their communities.

Related

Following Wilson’s letter, EA Sports announced on Twitter that it will “not tolerate racism of any kind,” and that it recognizes the need to do more in banning players with offensive behavior. The publisher outlined three steps that it will take, namely expanding its language filters, expanding reporting functions, and increasing the frequency of reviewing offenses.

pic.twitter.com/RMdtJpJqNe

— EA SPORTS (@EASPORTS) June 5, 2020

A dedicated message was then released for EA Sports’ NHL games, where racism has been rampant on the customizable team names and player names.

pic.twitter.com/hMTasmi9JB

— EA SPORTS NHL (@EASPORTSNHL) June 6, 2020

EA Sports’ NHL team will deliver harsher penalties and strengthen its profanity filters, among a few other measures that it will take to address the problem of racism in its games. The scope of the harsher penalties remains unclear, and Digital Trends has reached out to Electronic Arts for clarification on the specific punishments that will be applied to offending players. We will update this story when we hear back.

EA Sports and its NHL team admits that there is more to be done beyond these measures to eliminate racism, but this is an encouraging step in the right direction for the publisher.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Aaron Mamiit
Aaron Mamiit
Contributor
Aaron received an NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was four years old, and he has been fascinated…
You won’t need the EA app to play Dragon Age: The Veilguard
A character draws a bow in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

BioWare has a great update for players who want to play Dragon Age: The Veilguard on the go. The company announced Thursday on Steam that the game is already Steam Deck verified. "The Veilguard is going all-in on Steam features!" the announcement reads. There's other great news here, too: BioWare also confirmed that the game will run natively on Steam, and won't require the official EA app to play.

Theoretically all Steam games can be played on Steam Deck, but some work better than others, whether it's due to how some are better with a mouse and keyboard (looking at you, Baldur's Gate 3), or just through a lack of support. Steam has made it easy, though, to not only create your own mappable controller schemes but find others people have created, which can help with making them playable. Regardless, it's always great to see games being made with Steam Deck compatibility in mind.

Read more
EA Sports College Football 25 was a hit before it even released
A quarterback throws the ball in EA Sports College Football 25.

EA Sports College Football 25 is already a gigantic hit, even though it just came out today (July 19). EA Sports revealed that around 2.2 million people played the game during its three-day early access period.

The only want to get into early access was to preorder the deluxe edition, which cost $100. So this announcement implies that millions of people paid at least an extra $30 to get an extra 72 hours of playtime before anybody else on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. In addition, more than 600,000 players got in via an EA Play trial. It's unclear if the 2.2 million number refers to both deluxe edition owners and EA Play subscribers, however.

Read more
EA Sports College Football 25 is the best sports game in years
A player holds a football in EA Sports College Football 25.

Although Electronic Arts is one of the kings of the sports video game genre, it does not have the best track record as of late. FC (formerly FIFA) and Madden games are bestsellers every year, but they also have dreadful user reviews on sites like Metacritic. That's due to light, incremental changes year-over-year, a lack of crucial mechanics for sports simulators, and lots of bugs. That rocky reputation made EA's impending return to college football equal parts exciting and scary ahead of its release. Would EA Sports College Football 25 be the grand return of the series after a decade of dormancy or a disastrous return?

Thankfully, I can confirm that EA Sports College Football 25 is the best EA Sports game that I've played in years. It takes the solid core of Madden's football gameplay, but actually builds on that in a couple of key ways. Its presentation feels much more lively and polished than other EA Sports games, and its modes bring a lot of welcome depth and customization options that have been sorely lacking in other EA Sports offerings. While there are still a couple of quirks to be ironed out, this is the first EA Sports game I've felt comfortable recommending at full price in a long time.
Taking the field again
Unlike this year's Top Spin 2K25 (which somehow still felt like a minor improvement over its predecessor despite the decade-long gap between them), College Football 25 feels like a big step up for the college football franchise. It's now running on the Frostbite Engine like Madden and FC do, and because this is a current-gen exclusive, it's one of the best-looking sports games out there. EA upped the production value of the presentation around the game too, with highly detailed stadiums, cheerleaders, mascots, referees, and more.

Read more