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Lygaard: eFootball "is extremely bold" and "the right thing for Konami"

We talk all things real and digital football with SønderjyskE CEO and former Konami business director, who shares a few pointers to succeed with F2P.

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Last month kicked off for fans of the beautiful game with the news that PES business development director had become the CEO of a football club, and that was just a couple of weeks before the new format for Konami's eFootball was officially introduced. A familiar face of Gamereactor's, now we've been able to leisurely talk all things real and digital football at length with Jonas Lygaard in the interview below.

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In the video, SønderjyskE Foodbold's CEO talks about the Danish Superliga club and his personal transition from videogames and esports to real sports, even though "football is entertainment, and we're competing with theme park, cinema, and other forms". As such, Lygaard, known for closing PES partnership deals with clubs "such as Juve, Bayern, or Manchester United" explains how, same as with gaming, they want to engage with fans and improve the value of the product.

The evolution of PES in the past five years

At around the halfway mark, Lygaard takes a look back at his time at Konami, where "I really loved my time there and I miss the people, both in the UK, around Europe that I worked closely with, the different offices in Europe, but also the colleagues in Japan that I spent a lot of time with over the years". For the former business development director, becoming part of a football team "was a dream that I had since I was a child", an opportunity "just too good to not take".

However, he shows himself proud about the evolution of PES and eFootball in the past five years, underlining the changes in terms of the aforementioned club activations, or the increase in teams' quality and internal resources on the European branch of Konami. But there's something else he'll miss, and that's you, the fans, as "with all the PES, or Pro Evolution Soccer, or now eFootball fans, they're extremely committed, extremely engaged (...) very demanding on social! (Laughs) But they have probably been building me stronger and more ready for this".

How to get the first major free-to-play sports game right

For players interested in the upcoming eFootball as a free-to-play platform, on which of course Lygaard also worked for a long time, there are some interesting comments on the prospects and the best practises for the product to succeed, as he believes "they're making a massive change", and "I really believe in what they're doing":

"Seeing from the outside, and again this is me now being not as a part of the company or any decision, I think this is the right move, this is a step that will change how people will see eFootball in the future. This is a new business model that of course will be challenging if you don't fulfil what the requirements are for the free-to-play business. We have seen over the last couple of years multiple games being extremely successful as a F2P game, but also those games are very good at creating new content, the live management of the business is extremely good with new content coming out, new maps, new weapons like Fortnite and others. Just making it free-to-play will not solve everything. You have to make sure you deliver a F2P business model around it, but also making sure that users want to come back to it, they have an interest in it. They can see, that 'ok, I can do this, I can unlock certain things, I can get more access to other areas and I can compete online against other platforms, no restrictions on whatever platform I'm playing on'".

"You have to make sure that the online connectivity is working, if that's not working, then you will not have a great experience and users will drop out"

Other than becoming a free-to-play GaaS with constant updates, Lygaard also points out that the service must keep evolving its esports side, making for great competition. Here's what sound like a few well-aimed tips:

"You have to make sure that the online connectivity is working, if that's not working, then you will not have a great experience and users will drop out". And the same goes for the social aspect, "because you want to be able to drop in with three friends, play a game, compete against other people online. Maybe in the future you want to have your own team where you compete and you have a group of friends that are competing every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday". Not to mention new content drops "on a very consistent basis, it cannot be every six months".

But all in all, Lygaard believes "it's an extremely bold move, I think it's a very interesting direction, I think this is the right thing for Konami. It's putting them in a completely different competitive position. Of course there will be a lot of requirements to the team" in terms of development, live business, marketing or engagement, but "this has been worked on for a very long time (...) I believe in the people there".

What do you think about eFootball as a platform and its chances to triumph in the future? Leave a comment below.



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