Here we are again. It feels like not a day goes by without something incredibly stupid happening in the world of gaming regarding monetisation. At this point I don't know how to react anymore. How do you react when the industry you love is being wantonly sabotaged by the idiots in top brass? Previously I've shared how damning I feel it will be for the government to come in and start regulating video game content but now, honestly, I just don't have the energy to care anymore. Bring in the government regulations, go ahead. The industry is too moronic to hold itself to any standards so by all means, bring in the government.
I'm not even some anti-government fanatic, either, I just love the idea of freedom of expression and shudder to think what might become of it once we submit to fear mongering. But I guess it's no longer just 'fear mongering' in this regard, is it? Video games have crossed the Rubicon into the land of unregulated gambling and they are so unrepentant that they don't even have the common decency to lie about it anymore. Every industry buffer has failed us. The publishers who are meant to ensure that they maintain profitability without shooting themselves in the foot, the developers who promise time and time again that they've learnt to not make casinos disguised as games and the ratings board who are supposed to regulate games so that the government doesn't start paying undue attention. (That really worked out, didn't it?)
For those who have no idea why I'm so despondent today, it is because I'm still coming to terms with the NBA 2K20 MyTeam trailer. MyTeam, is essentially NBA's version of FIFA Ultimate Team; the 'fantasy football' experience digitized and monetized to hell. I you think that FIFA has been worse in recent years (or the past decade) due to their sole reliance on FUT, then let me assure you that you've seen nothing yet. FIFA is still a decent enough game (The same game that released in 2010, but still.) as long as you never touch the FUT portions of the game. 2K's Basketball series cannot even earn that little praise. 2K are so desperate to scrape together a few extra dollars that they have imbued monetisation into every element of the game.
2K's NBA titles have already been rife with it's own controversies throughout the years. Who can forget 2K18's haircut incident? In that game, the developers took the core concept of virtual currency and pushed it to it's gross extremes. For their MyCareer mode, (2K have something against the spacebar, don't blame me.) they decided to lock every interaction, beyond the ability to play the next match, behind a paywall of VC. (Fitting name.) VC was required to buy clothing, upgrade characters, buy dunking animations and, look at a haircut? That's right, if you wanted to change up your character's haircut you had to spend 2-3 games worth of VC. But that isn't even the worst part, you see, 2K didn't even bother to leave in a preview mechanic, meaning that the only way to see how that haircut looks on your character was to buy said-haircut. Oh, and haircuts require multiple purchases if you want to switch back. Of course, all that grind could be skipped if you sold your soul to 2K and bought up their VC packs!
Then there was 2K19 under which every aspect of character improvement was locked behind virtual currency paywalls that required you to either spend real money or grind to an inhuman degree in order to get anywhere. That wasn't even the worst part, although that was damning enough. You see, the 2K team apologized (With crocodile tears) about their abhorrent haircut fiasco from the previous year, and in order to make it up to fans they made the selfless and admirable decision to... do something ten times worse. "How could things possible be worse?" you ask. Well, How about literally holding your matches hostage in the loading screen so that they can bombard you with real life advertisements. I'm not joking. This $60 game treated you as though you were a 'freeloader' on a mobile game, bombarding you with third party ads when all you want to do is play the game.
Looking at all this, you might wonder why it is that fans put up with this game, and honestly I don't know, but I do think that their gritted compliance will be to blame when this nonsense inevitably becomes prevalent across the industry. People argue that "There's no other Basketball games on the market!" well to that I point you to the advice imparted by Joe Vargas of AngryJoeShow; just get last year's game, it's literally the same game. I won't get all melodramatic and recite the old adage about how evil wins when good people do nothing, but instead I will recite the similar, and more digestible, sentiment that was apparently uttered by Alexander Hamilton: "If you stand for nothing, than you'll fall for anything." Let these people know that enough is enough or enough never will be enough, and we will all have to pay the price.
Point in case, 2K20's MyTeam trailer. This was an advertisement that was built around showing off the newest features of 2K's microtransactions and it did so with gusto. Not a moment goes by when they aren't flaunting off lootboxes, trading cards, and premium currencies. Things get really abhorrent, however, when you take a look at their methods of 'rewarding' the player. Win a match? Good job, you get a pull of our one-arm bandit. Or a spin of our prize wheel or a ball in our Pachinko machine. Yep, just as all the gaming industry is busy treading on eggshells to avoid governments scrutiny, 2K jumps in and breakdances on the floor. They're proud of their greed!
I don't want to dedicate anymore to this topic than it deserves, and what 2K deserves is to be shot into orbit through a cannon. Gamers everywhere have been complaining to the ratings board about how 2K20 is rated PEGI 3 whilst Pokemon Red and Blue are rated 12 for it's fake late-game casino. Responses from the board have either been silence or dismissive. That means there is no where left for this to go than to the government, and as I shared at the beginning of this blog, at this time I welcome them. AAA gaming is dead and the industry itself are the ones that pulled the trigger.
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