Tag Archives: NBA 2K

Blog: Price Adjustment – 07/08/20

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Recently the folks over at Take-Two Interactive came out and announced that the upcoming NBA 2k21 will cost $70 on next generation machines like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, while current generation editions will remain at $60. The two reactions I’ve encountered most have been people grousing at this price adjustment, and those who think a price hike has been long overdo. For the most part I find myself agreeing with the latter sentiment in general, but sincerely believe that NBA 2k21 should not be the game to usher in this new price tag without making massive changes to the formula that the 2K series has recently followed.

There are a ton of reasons why I don’t think NBA 2k21 can justify this new price tag, but chief among them has to be their pretty disgusting monetization practices they’ve exhibited in the past few years. I wrote all about their gross business practices alongside the overall state of the game itself a while ago, and I just cannot conceive of a world where NBA 2k21 ditches any of those micro-transactions because they got ten extra dollars upfront.

Maybe you’re like me however, and don’t engage with any of the modes that hit you up for money, surely the higher price tag is something you can live with? I suppose you could justify that approach, but as someone who exclusively plays the franchise modes in these games I can 100% tell you that you aren’t getting anything new. The franchise modes in the past few iterations have been pretty identical, offering little to nothing in terms of new features or even UI design.

The hopeful, starry-eyed version of myself that exists somewhere inside of me thinks, “well at least developers will be getting more money for their work,” which they %110 deserve, but I don’t believe they’ll see a single cent of this revenue. With the ballooning cost of game development it makes sense that games would increase in price, but not one particle of my being believes that this money will make its way to the people who are crunching for hours to make James Harden’s beard look fluffier.

Games have remained at the $60 price point for the past two generations now and definitely need to increase in price. But when you read stories about how Take-Two Interactive made a third of their revenue in three months thanks to micro-transactions, but then turns around and says that the increased price is to account for the rising costs of features like “3D audio” and 8K textures, it’s a little hard to swallow that pill.

The economics of the video game industry are complicated and I don’t claim to understand them fully, but unless this extra money is being fed directly into the development budgets or even better, into the pockets of employees, then I can’t help but feel like this is Take-Two deciding that from now on, their games will bring in at least ten more dollars per sale and not actually raising prices as a response to high development costs.

Gaming is an expensive hobby, and it’s only getting less accessible when you account for the projected high cost of the upcoming consoles and online service fees. Especially now, when a lot of people are out of work and might not have extra cash to throw around, announcing your price adjustment is an absolutely tone-deaf and utterly wild thing to do. Another wild thing to do is to not honor Vince Carter, the only NBA player to play across 4 decades, and put him on one of the 4 different versions of the game.

Hoop Dreams

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Like a good chair, video games can provide a sense of comfort and security despite their subject matter.  Maybe you play League of Legends every night, or World of Warcraft religiously, or something else entirely, but odds are that there’s a game you keep coming back to when there’s nothing else to play.  For me, I sink dozens and dozens of hours into the NBA 2K series of games because I’m a massive fan of the sport along with the games themselves.  That’s not a qualitative statement however, because I think there’s tons of room for improvement in the series, from bug fixes to features, and even new modes entirely.

Before I jump into what I’d like to see out of a new entry in the series, let’s talk about what’s in it already.  If you recall, last year there was a massive hubbub around the gross monetization practices around NBA 2K20, thanks to a trailer showcasing literal slot and Pachinko machines inside of a basketball game.  NBA 2K as a series has a long and gross history of shitty monetization in the form of a virtual currency called “VC,” which is literally short for virtual currency.  From upgrading stats, to unlocking apparel, moves, and basically everything else in the game, VC is integral to certain competitive modes in the series.

Despite wanting to engage with some of these modes, particularly the career mode which has you making a character and bringing them through their career as a player, the reliance on VC keeps me away.  Instead I focus on the franchise mode, where I can take control of any team or teams I want, and play through something like 80 seasons before it ends.  I’ve never made it to the end of the mode, so I genuinely don’t know what happens.

So with that context in mind, let’s talk about the future of the NBA 2K series.  As a child of the 80’s and primarily a fan of 90’s and early 2000’s basketball, I tend to gravitate towards that style of play in the game.  Focusing on traditional player roles that don’t really jive with the realities of today’s game.  Modern basketball has kind of made the traditional big men positions obsolete, opting for shorter, faster and more dynamic players who can space the floor better than their massive predecessors.  It’s not a bad thing, it’s just how the game is these days.  But when I craft my teams I usually end up filling the gaps on my roster with players that reflect an older style of basketball.  Since it’s a video game, it works out just fine for me, but it does feel like I’m playing wrong from time to time.

Let’s put aside workload, licensing issues, and literally every aspect of reality that would impede my pitch for a new mode in the NBA 2K series, and let’s just pretend it could happen.  I would like to be able to combine my love of the franchise mode, with the eras of basketball I remember.

I want the vintage teams, jerseys, and stadiums to reflect this era of basketball.  From different announcers, fans, and even retro styled graphics packages in the game, I want to relive this heyday of basketball in a video game, the way I dreamed of when I was kid.  As of right now, I can play with the 98′ Bulls if I wanted to, but it’s literally just taking that roster and putting them on a modern court.  That’s fine, I appreciate that functionality, but I want to relive vintage seasons and rewrite history.  I want play styles, game tempo and rule changes to be represented, and not just feel like a retro skin for a modern game.

It’s a lofty request that is far too specific for it to ever become a reality, especially when you consider what I’m asking for is to travel back in time with modern computers and design sensibilities, and make NBA 2K1996… or NBA 1K96?  I have no idea what it would be called, but you get the point.

Maybe I’m being overly nostalgic, maybe I have too much time to think about new modes for games and a need to write things for my gaming website, lest I go insane.  Or maybe I just watched the first few episodes of the excellent ESPN and Netflix documentary series, The Last Dance, that chronicles the final season Jordan played with the Bulls, and want to interact with it.  Who could say?