“Grotesque”: “eFootball 2022” provokes anger among athletes

The new video game “eFootball 2022” is, according to its publisher, “marking a new era of virtual football” but is titled by many players as “terrible” and disappointing maneuver (“game”). Bad start.

Developed by Japanese publisher Konami, the game is the latest in its ownership of Pro Game Evolution Soccer (“Winning Eleven” in Japan), which has been in the video game landscape since 1995.

Also “PES” is the traditional competitor of the American electronic arts “Fifa”, with its new component “Fifa 22” coming out this Friday.

Free access since Thursday (“free to play”) is available on new generation consoles and soon on smartphones, in a dual attempt to reach as many players as possible, however, eFootball quickly provoked angry reactions on social networks.

“Konami, you shouldn’t have posted this at this point. This is awful, so bad,” one Twitter user wrote, while others mocked the disgusting representations of stars Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo in the game.

The game has already received over 10,000 comments on Friday morning on the Steam gaming platform, of which only 9% are positive.

“It looks like Konami released the game without even making sure the basic quality criteria were met,” said AFP Sergan Toto of Kantan Games, an analytics firm based in Tokyo. It was released last year.

– A “quick” start –

“I tried it, it’s really a parody of a football game,” he copes. “He’s so grumpy, his game is so bad, I think everyone in Konami knows it’s not working.”

According to him, the release is a sign of “speed”, “the sales team topped the creative and technical teams”.

Konami, contacted by AFP, was not immediately available for comment.

However, the choice to switch to the free model was a good one according to Mr Toto because “FIFA has been very successful in recent years” and Konami “has to do something tough”.

“But if you want to fight FIFA, you can’t offer a product like that. It’s like offering a McDonald’s menu and trying to compete with a star – studded restaurant,” he said.

On the contrary, David Gibson of Astris Advisory, a consulting firm, thinks eFootball will still be a success, despite a bad start.

“There’s a lot to edit, but it’s fixable,” he said. But “like you have to make some tough decisions” like temporarily withdrawing the game for “six to twelve months.” An eternity in the world of professional football, and sport.

mac-amk-kaf / pz