EA Sports’ NBA Live series introduced the WNBA last year, a milestone for the series and for women’s sports but one that was barely supported in the game’s presentation. Fans got all of the league and its players, sure, but they only got them for one-off play-now games — no season-long franchise, or even a playoff tournament — and the generic commentary didn’t mention anyone, team or player, by name.
So July’s announcement that women would be part of NBA Live 19’s career suite was, sure, another milestone. In light of the skimpy, almost thrown-in treatment of the WNBA that followed such a praiseworthy announcement last year, EA Sports deserved a little more scrutiny of what it was really bringing to its basketball franchise this time.
After taking a woman to level 20 in The One, as the career mode is called, I think the developers at EA Tiburon have given women’s basketball, its players and fans a rather sincere and reasonably deep mode. No, there isn’t a WNBA component for a created female star to explore the way men can also play league games in the NBA. Even acknowledging the work it would take to build what is a separate career mode, that seems to be a glaring shortcoming since the NBA is such a large component of the male player’s experience in NBA Live 19.
But the inclusion of women still deepens The One and makes the pick-up games and streetball tour — which is better than half of The One’s offerings — more interesting, whether the user is playing as a woman or not.
Mixed-gender team competition: A sports video game first
NBA Live 19 isn’t the first licensed sports video game to include women. EA Sports’ FIFA series has had women’s national teams for the past four editions, and the NHL series has let users create female players since 2011, including in the Be A Pro mode. EA Sports UFC 2 and 3 have also featured women fighters, and given them parity in the career mode that is such a strong appeal to that game.
NBA Live 19 is a first, however, in that it offers true mixed-gender team competition. It’s one thing to give a user the choice of creating a woman and placing her on a team with men. That’s nice, but it’s effectively an avatar option, nothing more. It’s another thing to have women as AI-controlled teammates and opponents, as they are in NBA Live 19. Players will encounter women on the Pro-Am World Tour (and in the user-populated Live Run and Court Battles) whether they’re playing as one or not.
That did a couple of things for me: First, it was more interesting to see who I’d be getting in the opposing squads on the Tour, often themed to a particular city or style. Sometimes they would be all-male teams. Other times, players like Candace Parker or Allie Quigley cameoed. Women also gave a little heft to the fictitious world tour I put my created male player on. In the pre-game cinematics where the gang shows up and shoots around, it sort of made sense to me that this was a kind of barnstorming promotion where top women’s stars would be found alongside men, probably in something I’d watch on ESPN on a summer afternoon. The real-world growth in interest in exhibitions like the Drew League and the Goodman League (both of which are part of The One) shows there’s plenty of spectator appetite for less formal hoops competition.
As for gameplay, in NBA Live 19 women and men share the same system of attributes, animations and outcomes. (Women do have specific animations, such as Brittney Griner’s jump shot or Maya Moore’s layup — which can be assigned to male players, too.) What this means is that someone rated an 80 in speed will run at the same pace, male or female, and so a woman with an 80 in the dunk attribute is going to be as prolific as a man with the same number, too.
This is mostly inconspicuous and I didn’t see women glaringly overrated to force parity with men. But it is noticeable in player creation, because women in a post position will still need to be between 6-foot-4 and 7 feet (or more). The WNBA’s tallest active player is Griner at 6-8. So users looking for authenticity in height for their female baller should consider her style of play more than her position, and maybe move someone like Elena Delle Donne, listed as a small forward at 6-5, out to shooting guard. The fact she’s classified a “wing scorer” is more important than the position she plays, anyway. If you’re creating a woman and expecting to rebound and be a defensive wall down low, she should be taller than any you’ve ever seen.
Height disparities can manifest in some other ways that are, frankly, kind of funny. AI teammates will switch off after a bit if a user leaves their defensive assignment for someone else, which lets the user forcibly create some mismatches (with attendant risks elsewhere). It was amusing to take over 7-footer Joel Embiid in a 5-on-5 game and move him out over Maya Moore (6 feet tall). She squirted around him because she was faster, Embiid was out of position and not the best on defense. But when she drove the baseline later, Embiid was there to park her floater five rows up the bleachers, as well he should.
Superstar street ballers, but no real team experience
World Tour, Court Battles and Live Run (“The Streets” component of The One) presents a very rollicking, wide-open pace of play, as one would expect of a streetball exhibition. But after about five tournaments on the tour I began to notice the difference in that series as opposed to what my male player was doing in the NBA. The Pro-Am world tour is very star-driven, and the star it defers to is the one the user controls. A modestly skilled player can still take over a game and run the entirety of the offense through their created player, male or female. There are no set plays, no substitutions (of course) and the games to 21 are obviously a lot shorter than a league game of even five-minute quarters.
So the lack of a WNBA component to The One’s career means the user with a female star misses out on a more traditional, team-oriented style play that male players get as NBA professionals. There are distinctions to the men’s and women’s games, and it’s not just the height and mass of the participants. Women’s basketball is more about spacing, cutting and ball movement, where isolation plays are more viable in the men’s game. I do have enough players in the cast I’ve unlocked to create an entirely female squad. But they’re still running a pick-up style of play, and moreover, all of them are WNBA all-stars. A true career mode would give me more role players to work with and against.
Last year at a preview event, EA Sports announced the WNBA’s debut in NBA Live 18, and senior producer Mike Mahar from EA Tiburon told me they were already looking at ways to integrate them into the rest of the game. I thought we might even see created women players in NBA Live 18 post-launch, but at least we got them this year. And The One has a presentation that subtly recognizes the player’s gender. It earnestly sells the vicarious fantasy of a playground legend career, as much as the careers of MLB The Show and FIFA indulge me.
Even if The Streets (which is all the non-NBA play) in The One is NBA Live 19’s most creative and interesting component, and women are at full parity there, EA Tiburon has still opened the ball to women’s hoops. Its fans will expect full parity in the rest of the game, and soon. The design choices made in NBA Live 19 are understandable for now, and for sure the work required of bringing the WNBA into The One is not as simple as repurposing assets or swapping uniforms. There’s scheduling, there’s a postseason and there’s all kinds of unsexy stuff to support a multi-year career, like injury, retirement and trade logic, plus a draft and new ringer players to join the league every year.
But a third year where women players have fewer options than male counterparts will take the shine off their presence as a milestone or a neat feature, and there’ll be reasonable grumbling that women are second-class participants in the game. Let’s give EA Sports a little forbearance in meeting new expectations, just a week now after the launch of the game creating them. For the next year at least, EA Tiburon’s developers have given women a meaningful debut. They’re fun as hell to play. Most importantly, women contribute to the whole experience of NBA Live 19’s career, not just the parts where I’m playing as one.