Video game covers are, much like book covers, a precarious business. Despite the old saying, many people still judge a book – or anything really – by its cover.
For the makers of sports video games, the stress is doubly so, because they’re often dealing with actual sports stars who do human things like lose games, get injured or do stupid things that make them lose public favour.
The Madden Curse, named after the series of NFL games, is the biggest example. But the most recent example comes from the world of soccer, via pretty boy and Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo.
the pretty boy who kicks the ball.
Ronaldo was announced back in May as the cover star for the next FIFA video game. However, in the time since, he’s changed clubs, from Spain’s Real Madrid to Italy’s Juventus. Which is a problem, because the original art featured his old club.
FIFA’s publishers EA – who are probably sick of all these goddamn sports stars ruining their fun video games – decided the best course of action would be to just photoshop his new jersey on.
OFFICIAL: Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar Jr. are the cover stars of FIFA 19.
Full story: https://t.co/u5nRTCEEHx pic.twitter.com/uhIGQLd2MU
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) August 14, 2018
I don’t know about you, but it almost looks comical how bad the photoshop job is on the jersey. None of the logos fit with any of the folds, the lighting is all off, I mean, there wasn’t even an attempt to hide the fact that EA are probably over it, did this at 4:30pm on a Friday, then went to the pub.
This isn’t even the first time Ronaldo has faced drama with artistic interpretations of his image, lest we forget that certain bust of him.
I still think you’re beautiful, Ugly Bust Ronaldo.
Seriously, Ronaldo can’t catch a break.