How a 14-Year-Old Girl Changed NHL 12

If it wasn't for a certain 14-year-old girl, women would not be able to create a female persona in NHL 12. Lexi Peterson from Buffalo, NY enjoyed playing the EA Sports NHL games over the years with her brother but could never create an in-game character like her sibling could because there was no representation for women in the game. Most of the time she simply settled for making a male character with long hair. But prior to the launch of NHL 12 Lexi decided to try and do something about it. Taking her father's advice to write the company, she wrote a letter to EA Sports COO Peter Moore explaining why it was important that the create-a-character mode allowed players to create women.

At first it looked like it wasn’t going to happen. Moore explained the complications - including legalities and costs - of adding a new feature into the game.

But luckily Moore decided to pass Lexi's letter on to NHL 12 executive producer David Littman. Touched by her request, Littman found a way to get the money and take care of the legalities to add the new feature into the game. Later Littman contacted Lexi and asked for photos so he could include her as the default female custom character.

"My first thought was that we want to make people happy with our game, and here's one girl who wasn't happy playing our game," Littman told Yahoo's sports blog.

EA Sports' NHL 12 was released Tuesday released earlier this week. If you use the new feature, now you know who to thank for it.

Source: Yahoo Sports Blog by way of 8bitfix