Konami almost did something more consumer friendly than EA.......Almost

I don't play sports games. I'm not a follower of sportsball. However even I know that EA has been racking in money thanks to the Wilson lootboxes that they've been trying to push into every game they can just to get that extra money. EA's revenue at present has 28% of its entire company revenue from Fifa UltimateTeam, not Fifa the game sales, just Fifa Ultimate Team on its own.

Not closely following Football games I have to give credit to Sentinals of the Store member MbccompanyX for bringing this to my attention when he posted it in the Sentinels of the Store discord. So time to explain what Komani have been up to.

Here's the background:

First they've released eFootball PES 2020 their new football game which includes myclub mode. Myclub mode is Konami's attempt at having an ultimate team style system and was apparently introduced in 2019. You can pay for coins which are the premium currency used sign the weekly featured player as the non premium currency of GP can't be used for them. You can use GP or coins to hire Agents (buy lootboxes) and then you deploy the agent (open the lootbox) to get your players, and of course there's multiple tiers of lootbox , oh sorry AGENT you can get.

Image source = IMDB

What the joke wrote itself.
Anyway if you want to sign a specific player you have to combine scouts which you get after every match (yes another kind of thing to collect) and for players from certain clubs you apparently need to combine certain specific scouting options which uses multiple scouts. You can however buy scouts for non premium currency in an auction house.

In an attempt to balance the game players and Managers (who you have to have to play certain team formations) cost GP to maintain thus in theory you can just pay to win and get a full team of top players and steamroll everyone else as the GP to maintain will be high and require you to keep winning. With a reported pay out by PES 2020 myclub Guide (who's how to play guide I've been using to learn this stuff to be able to tell you all this background in brief) of 3-4K GP for a win and the best players costing 3-4K GP to renew their contracts every 10 matches it becomes costly. Though you can spend coins to renew this contract and that makes me think if you are Konami is trying to milk the pay to win Whales more as sure they can have an unstoppable squad but then they have to either win all the time to get the GP to afford the squad cost or pay yet more of the premium currency to maintain the squad.

You don't lose the player if you don't renew the contract but you can't play them again until you renew it through.

So what did Konami do?

The only way to get the player you want is either via combining scouts OR using the Lootbox system however Konami started selling club packs including all the players and manager of specific clubs, they're not that high price at £5 or $5 each (Konami £5 isn't the same as $5 nor is it the same as €5 just so you know). Sounds nice and consumer friendly right? No more of little Timmy spending £550 in 3 weeks and still not getting their favourite player to use intheir team right? Wrong, the players are locked to the team and can only be used in said team you can't take the best players out to use in your custom team, you can only play the team, the line up and the style you paid $5 for but they'll be updated weekly based on squad changes and you get a whole $2 worth of premium currency (coins) to use too. 

The other catch of sorts being you will still need to renew contracts for the players to use them and that means renewing all the players in the club and the manager or you can't use that clubs. As previously mentioned while you can use non premium currency (GP) you can also do this with premium currency (coins) meaning that lets hope you win enough to get the required GP to keep playing the team you paid $5 for or you'll have to play another team to get the GP again or pay yet more money to be able to play them. Oh and let's hope you don't simply run into people with better custom teams than your paid for team or you're going to be losing and struggling to renew those contracts.

In conclusion

Well Konami letting you get the players you can via scouting (even if it requires a database to figure it all out) seems ok, until you find you need to save up non premium currency to buy 3 scouts of level 5 and combine them to guarantee you'll get the player you want while also renewing the contracts on the team you have using that same currency. Though it is a method of doing it for certain, though Ultimate team does just have the player auction house where you can buy the players you want if you have the currency out right anyway.

There is also an attempt at balancing by Konami in the form of contracts. But that could also be seen as preying on whales and pay to win people as they can just pay premium currency to keep playing their super team, even if they can't normally make the required non Premium currency to renew contracts.

They're at least selling the clubs so people can have their favourite clubs in the My Club mode (as long as it's one of the few on offer) but it's still $5 more on a $60 game to get content that will not carry over for eFootball PES 2021, mostly likely. Even in PES 2020 they're in a mode about customisation but lock off that customisation to make people go through the convoluted systems to get the player they want and be able to use them in a custom team so you're possibly paying $5 more to instantly get a club you can't customise at all and have to play just as they are which may mean they're actually worse than peoples custom teams online. So you'd be paying $5 to be at a disadvantage and for $2 worth of premium currency.

#FuckKonami seriously because when I first looked at this on the surface it seemed like a pro consumer thing, until MbccompanyX pointed out on the store page it states you can't mix and match the players and managers or use them in custom teams. You have to play that team with that manager and those players only to be allowed to use them. In a mode about making a fantasy team they've put $5 DLC for 1 club where you better hope your fantasy is playing as only that team and no custom super team ideas.