Konami’s soccer game is selling stars you can’t use for months

Screenshot: Konami

Over the summer, Konami announced the cancellation of the Pro Evolution Soccer (known as Winning Eleven in Japan) brand by switching the popular franchise to eFootball for free.

The company recently revealed its plans to monetize the new, new digital series, and to acquire it, includes loot chests that can’t even be unlocked until mid-November. This was more than a month after the game was released on September 30th.

The eFootball 2022 Premium Player Pack is currently available on the PlayStation Store and Xbox for $39.99. It comes with the base game, a set of in-game currency, and six lucky offers (eight if pre-ordered).

According to the package description, Chance Deals allow players to randomly sign an athlete from a group of “top ambassadors and partner club players” such as Lionel Messi and Neymar.

At launch, eFootball will only show local matches and intergenerational matches, i.e. PlayStation 4 vs PlayStation 5 and Xbox One vs Xbox Series X/S only, which includes a few football clubs (Barcelona, ​​Manchester United, Juventus, etc.).

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It wasn’t until the fall that the game received full online play across all consoles and the ability to build your own team, and that’s where those Chance Deal signatures come in. Like gacha except you ride for real athletes instead of older dragons that can turn into kinda little girls.

On the plus side, Chance Deals won’t give you a player you’ve already unlocked, so with a total of 16 soccer stars available at launch, it should only take you $80 to get all the starting lineup. What a story.

Konami pledges that this monetization effort will be “rebalanced to ensure that all players can achieve the same potential regardless of how they acquire in-game items,” but we’ll have to wait and see how that theory plays out in the game. . .

Either way, eFootball feels geared towards nickel-and-rollers rather than providing them with the most complete soccer experience that its predecessor offered. Just another sign that everything we love is destined to eventually be chopped up and resold in piecemeal.

(h/t Eurogamer)