1960: Preview a Game Like Polygon

FIFA 16 is a game about football, and you probably want that

There’s a joyful cheer from the crowd; a roar of approval and a vibrant expression of intense approval. But I can’t join in; I know it’s not real.

It’s literally not real. It’s a virtual crowd in a virtual stadium, applauding, cheering and yelling in delight at a goal that didn’t happen. But that doesn’t stop some of the other real people who are nearby joining in with their own whoops, hollers, shouts and cries.

I’m at Wembley Stadium in London, spiritual home of football — at least in the United Kingdom. Some of my companions clearly feel that coming here is like having the opportunity to visit the Holy Land, particularly as we’re in one of the mysterious event rooms that the public don’t usually get to see. Even those who aren’t looking at the screen seem excited; they’re pointing at pictures on the walls, and at the view through the window out onto the pitch.

I envy them a little as I stand back, sipping my fizzy water and munching on a canape, wishing desperately that there was someone else here who wanted to have an open and frank discussion about the situation in Syria. But there isn’t. I’m alone; so very alone, even though this room is full of people. I’d find it distressing if I weren’t so used to it, but this is my life thanks to the choices I’ve made: doomed to forever operate on the fringe of events like this, unable to participate or even put up a convincing facade of excitement at the abject tedium I so despise unfolding on the screen in front of me.

The virtual crowd cheers again, and there’s a roar of approval from my assembled colleagues; apparently whoever it is that has the controller right now has scored an impressive goal against the carefully selected PR person: I’m guessing they play well enough to show the game at its best, while simultaneously being able to let my peers win and give them a sense of satisfaction and send them away with a positive impression of this dreadful, interminable, never-changing series of awful games.

But do any games truly change? After all, we’re still shooting people of colour in obviously Middle Eastern allegories. We’re still relentlessly collecting objects in what is clearly a potent metaphor for capitalism that shoots straight over the head of most people. We’re still upholding traditional gender roles and tacitly encouraging the approval of the patriarchal status quo — a status quo that objectifies and exploits women — over more progressive attitudes. And we’re still playing the same old sports; outlets for attitudes of toxic masculinity that are only distinguishable from the never-ending stream of games allowing testosterone-fuelled men to indulge their wildest, most perverse of rape culture fantasies by the fact that they are slightly less violent than Call of Duty and Destiny.

There are women in FIFA 16, which I suppose is worthy of some praise, and football games by their very nature include a healthy number of people of colour. But the outcry from the vast majority of the Internet over the inclusion of women’s teams in this installment indicates that the world of sports games is still very much a man’s world — but only if you’re the right kind of man, of course. I’m not the right kind of man, it seems; I’m happy to see women included in the game as a step forward for progressiveness rather than, as some particularly obnoxious Facebook comments had it, the chance to “combine boobs and football”.

I finish my fizzy water and head for the table to pour another. I feel a touch on my shoulder and turn around to see who is trying to attract my attention. It’s the PR person who was playing the game a moment ago — I think her name was Ashleigh — and she’s giving me a gentle smile.

“You don’t look like you’re having a good time,” she says.

“No,” I say. “I’m not.”

I want to elaborate, to tell her that attending this event is a living hell for me, that there is literally anything I would rather be doing than taking a look at a game I have no interest in that represents a sport that I despise with absolute passion owing to its use for continuing the dominance of the prevalent toxic patriarchal attitudes in society. But I don’t. After my admission, I simply take another sip of water.

“You should give the game a try,” she says, still smiling — though I have a feeling that it’s changed from a genuinely warm smile to a false one. She proffers a DualShock 4 controller; I contemplate it for a moment, its wonderful ergonomic curves bringing to mind the body shape of a beautiful woman who cares not for whether she’s “beach body ready”, but then I shake such borderline misogynistic thoughts from my mind lest Ashleigh can see the beast of suppressed lust in my eyes and dismisses me as yet another perpetuator of rape culture rather than the progressive feminist that I actually am. “You might enjoy it.”

“I don’t think I will,” I say, giving her a smile of my own. Then I put down my unfinished glass of fizzy water, head for the door and don’t look back.

It’s raining outside. The black clouds overhead mirror the darkness in my soul. There’s a flash of light and a clap of thunder, and I realise, as if given a message from a non-specific divine entity, that I am wasting my life.

(Disclosure: This article is a parody of this monstrosity that hit the Interwebs yesterday to much well-deserved derision.)