![]() "Obviously, when you look at DOTA, League of Legends, their audience is massive. "We want to have Manchester United playing with their real sport. ![]() "We want to have a realistic competition," Bobzien says. "There's pressure on a yearly basis with such a massive competitor but we are in a very good position with PES right now" Getting footballers on board will also help grow the audience for PES' esports. The PES League is a more traditional esports tournament targeting a wider audience, but Konami also runs eFootball Pro, where professional clubs put forward their real players to compete with each other in the game. Whether users will call it still PES, that's fine for us, it's just that we want to have this addition to our product name to mention the fact that also esports is becoming relevant for us."īobzien is confident the company's esports efforts can help PES (see, even we're doing it) stand out from its competition, pointing to the two leagues built around the series. We always want to keep it in there, that's why we decided to call it eFootball PES. "That's why we also decided to keep the wording PES still in it," he explains. Bobzien is perfectly comfortable with this. Many of the stories in the games media emerging today about how well eFootball PES 2020 has fared in the UK charts drop the new prefix, and it's hard to imagine fans adopting it either ("Anyone up for a game of eFootball PES?"). While Gears 5, for example, acknowledges that few people ever bother to add the 'of War' bit when discussing those games, eFootbal PES is an elongation of a long-running series people have been shortening to a single syllable for years. He stresses that this "doesn't mean that we're focusing 100 percent on esports" and that "in the end, the product is still the same," clarifying that it's better to look at the decision as a repositioning rather than a rebrand. Speaking to us at Gamescom, European PES brand manager Lennart Bobzien acknowledges that among fans and the industry "no one really expected this sort of rebrand" but maintains it's a great way to highlight where the series is going in future. That lengthy middle bit can still be shortened to PES, but the eFootball has been emphasised time and again as the Japanese publisher strives to both underline how important professional gaming will be to its future and also reinvigorate the discussion around its football game. Yet it feels like Konami's game has been on even more lips this year, if only due to its surprise rebrand.Īt E3 2019, Konami revealed this year's entry would be title eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020. While some may prefer its more authentic simulation of the sport, there's no denying that a certain EA-published rival has been tough to beat when it comes to both sales and exposure. PES has been widely regarded by the underdog of the football gaming world for years.
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