Konami hit the football video game world with a long-overdue injection of something innovative and exciting recently. Rather than the slight tweaks FIFA and Pro Evo have been making for years, this year there's going to a complete overhaul of the Pro Evo franchise. It won't even be called Pro Evo anymore, and instead will be known as eFootball going forward.
The name change is the bad news, and will certainly take some getting used to. I, like many others I'm sure, will just keep calling it Pro Evo for now. As for the good news, eFootball will be free-to-play and will replace Pro Evo's annual installments with regular updates. Well, it won't be completely free-to-play. Exhibition mode will be, and additional DLC will be added after the fact, each pack and new mode costing a price that is yet to be determined – what they cost and how much access they grant will make or break the model's success.
On the surface, this all sounds pretty great, and it could well be a system that finally turns the heads of hardened FIFA fans who have done little more than glance over at Pro Evo for two decades. At the very least, fans of football games will download eFootball and give it a whirl because, well, what is there to lose when it's free? If Konami makes it enticing and entertaining enough at launch that a first taste can convince players to stick around for more, it may finally have created a genuine threat to FIFA's crown.
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There's an unwritten rule in situations like this. That number one should never acknowledge number two. Burger King will take shots at McDonald's, but Ronald and the gang will rarely return fire. In terms of FIFA and Pro Evo, the latter has probably fallen off the former's radar in recent years. It's not Barcelona and Real Madrid, it's Barcelona and Espanyol. EA might not acknowledge eFootball anytime soon, but you can bet it will be watching intently when the rebranded series launches this autumn.
If eFootball can tick enough boxes for football game fans, then it may well force FIFA's hand for the first time in, well, ever. Pro Evo was something of a contender a long time ago, but even then it was a distant second to FIFA. A genuine alternative that costs as much as you want it to cost, or comes free of charge if you don't want any additional modes at all, could be something that makes people think differently about handing over $60 every year.
EA can't have that, and if enough people decide to switch their allegiance, it may be forced to follow suit and make FIFA free-to-play too. Something that drastic sounds wild on the surface. However, when you dig into the numbers, FIFA is in a far better place to go free-to-play right now than eFootball is. Not because it has the backing of EA or even because it already has a massive and loyal player base. Its financial stability comes from Ultimate Team.
During the financial year ending March 2021, EA made $1.6 billion from game sales. It didn't clarify how much of that came from sales of FIFA 20 and FIFA 21 during that 12 month period, but it was probably a significant chunk. No matter what size that chunk was, it would have been dwarfed by the money brought in by Ultimate Team. The mode made $1.62 billion during the same period. That's right, Ultimate Team alone makes more money for EA than the sales of actual games. Not just FIFA, but all of them. The $1.62 billion figure accounts for Ultimate Team across all of the games in which it is available, including Madden and NHL. However, EA highlighted in the report that the vast majority of Ultimate Team spending is done on FIFA. Without having to buy a new copy of FIFA every year, players might even be encouraged to spend more on Ultimate Team, absorbing the money that will be lost from game sales.
There is one major stumbling block currently in FIFA's way in regard to all of the above – the ongoing legal battles attempting to stifle Ultimate Team. Not just Ultimate Team, but loot boxes in general, although FIFA tends to bear the brunt of the anger surrounding that subject. Loot boxes have already been banned in Belgium and the Netherlands, with pressure piling on in the UK. If the laws surrounding them were to change there, it would be a huge blow to Ultimate Team and the money it generates. It recently trialled showing players which cards were inside, but we don't know if that will remain in FIFA 22.
Right now, it's too early to tell whether EA will even needs to consider making FIFA free-to-play in the near future. It is interesting to think that decision is effectively in the hands of Pro Evo's creators at this point. Market eFootball well enough and make it a viable, free alternative to FIFA, and EA could be forced to make a change. If the launch goes poorly and it's evident quickly that eFootball isn't the game-changer it appears to be right now, then it can continue to be business as usual for FIFA, now and forever.
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