"FIFA 19"/Electronic Arts
France and the United States' national teams as they appear in "FIFA 19."
- The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup is currently underway and the tournament is on pace to reach nearly 1 billion viewers this summer.
- "FIFA 19," the most popular soccer video game in the world, added 10 women's national teams as part of its 2019 World Cup update, but the game doesn't let players simulate the entire event.
- "FIFA 18" had a massive update for the Men's World Cup with more teams, commentary, and downloadable content related to the event.
- The lack of parity between the World Cup mode in the two games echoes the problems women's teams face when seeking equal pay and exposure.
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The FIFA Women's World Cup has reached a new peak of worldwide popularity in 2019 - FIFA expects as many as 1 billion viewers will tune in to watch tournament matches through July 7.
But as the 2019 Women's World Cup reaches millions of new fans, the world's most popular soccer video game isn't doing a great job of matching the excitement.
Read more: Women's World Cup 2019: Everything you need to know about Team USA
"FIFA 19" launched in September 2018 with 12 women's national teams, and Electronic Arts added 10 more with an update one week before the start of the Women's World Cup. The game now has 22 of the 24 qualifying women's national teams, excluding Italy and South Africa; the women on the Brazil and Chilean national teams have been replaced with generic players.
While the women's teams appear in the game, however, it's not the same experience as the real-life World Cup, and it's not even close to what EA rolled out for the Men's World Cup last year.