Football Manager is one of my guilty pleasures. From leading Luton Town and Borussia Monchengladbach to European glory to establishing Atlanta United as a giant in North America, I’ve racked up plenty of achievements to be proud of – and I’m not alone.

For the past three decades, Football Manager has held a unique place in gaming and football. It’s a virtual product that allows players to live out their managerial fantasies, while the franchise makes a significant impact on the sport itself. Few games are as impactful as Football Manager, blending the real world and the virtual in a way that teaches everyone important lessons, including delicate subjects that others might not dare to tackle.

There’s no greater example of this than Football Manager 2018’s eye-opening feature that allowed regenerated players to come out as gay. While other studios might have made a big fanfare about the addition, Sports Interactive took a different approach: complete silence until gamers encountered the feature themselves.

“It was very intentional that we didn’t announce it. We wanted people to discover it in the game,” Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson told Dot Esports, “Because we did it for the right reasons and not the wrong reasons. We didn’t do it for publicity, we did it because it’s something that should come naturally.”