Ballbaskets with 2K: 2021 edition

Please make it stop.

Of all the games that Sony decided to show off as being their Playstation 5 line-up, there was but one which actively encouraged to spit in it's direction. A game so bafflingly popular that it positively disgusts me to see it perpetrated year after year, and to whom their community is one of the most embarrassing stains on all gaming culture. (Second only to those Star Citizen mega fans who spend their life savings funding a pipe dream.) Of course I'm talking about the yearly copy-and-repeat job out of the sports world; NBA 2K21, and what sort of world are we in where true game development maestros like Arkane, Oddworld Inhabitants and IOI have to share a digital stage with the gibbering hacks out of 2K who are so lacking in any rudimentary talent or know-how that they forgot to change their executable's Ico file last year. (You just can't make it up.)

"But how can you possibly talk about 2K for an entire blog" I hear you wonder, "They make the same game every year, pull the same crap, and never, ever, learn." And right you are, reader, but that's the very reason why I can't just let it go. This isn't a case of the second or third entry in the row that has made the same stupid mistakes, that's abhorrent and pathetic enough, no this is beyond the 10th entry of the same unrelenting nonsense. It's far beyond a joke; it is a menace upon the once-great sports games world. What was the last great sports game title which still had passion and creativity behind it, and wasn't just another serialised duplicate cash-in? Was it Rocket League? Because that game came out half a decade ago so if it was then this industry has got problems... But another popular argument which could be addressed right here is the claim that "You wouldn't buy this game anyway" (damn right, I wouldn't) "So why waste your breath?" Well I'll tell you, it's because these games invariably contain the portend for whatever dark hell is impending on the rest of industry.

That's right, I'm not some sort of bible-thumping magnanimous do-gooder who campaigns for the good of communities that he actively dislikes, no this is a purely personal squabble as I'm tired of dealing with the ripples that the sports industry splash down with. First came the microtransaction which may owe their popularity just as much to MW3 as anyone else, but still was pushed heavily by sports games and now they're freakin' everywhere. Then came the lootboxes which introduced an element of gambling to our purchases in such an avaricious and transparent manner that even governments are starting to mobilise legislature to get them regulated and/or banned. (Good riddance.) But what kind of control-freak bender could the folk over at 2K be on now? How else will they try to jump the shark and lead the rest of the industry along for the ride? Well it's quite simple actually, so simple I'm amazed they haven't tried it years ago; they've upped the price of games from $60 to $70 coming into the new generation. (Way to start the decade off right you sack of pustulous worms.)

Now, the pricing of triple A games has been something of a debate over the last couple of decades as we've sat rather firmly in the $60 price point for so long now. (With the regional conversions bridging from there.) This price point has stayed mostly stagnant throughout all the shifting tides of inflation and rising production costs to the point where some folk feel it's only right that games start upping the pricing again, to account for all the new variables. But there's some matters folk fail to take into account. Sure prices have remained at $60, but that has been enabled by the absolute explosion of the industry over the past couple of decades as the once-niche hobby has become one of the biggest pastimes across the world. (Thus significantly widening the potential client base) Because of the nature of the product, upscaling the sales of games is minimal and thus the amount of money that AAA games companies rake in has skyrocketed alongside the meteoric growth of the hobby. (Heck, gaming was labelled as the single post profitable entertainment medium last year, and that was without Covid shutting everything down. Imagine how ridiculous that figure is this year!)

Whatsmore, the idea that video games haven't become more expensive over these last 20 years is a complete misnomer as proven by the points and industry trends that I've already bought up. DLC allows for extra content to be sold alongside the game and Microtransactions allow for tiny bits of data to be mass sold on top of games. MMOs allow for subscription services that can secure reliable and regular funding to games and Live Service titles can secure a mix of all three of those extra payment methods.Through all of these little tricks, alongside the rising sales-base, games companies have been fully within their capacity to match the rising cost of development, provided they appropriatly manage funds. (Funny how all the companies who complain about lacking the funding for development coincide with the one's who pay off unearned millions to their executives...)

Yet even with all that to ruminate on, 2K have decided that those who want to buy the next gen version of their latest dumpster fire will have to cough up an extra $10 in order to do so. That's $10 for the exact same game save for some upscaled textures which, knowing 2K, were probably just scaled with the 'expand tool' in Photoshop. (Seems like a great deal to me, no?) And the worst part is that when this inevitably works out great for the company, because all the sheep who buy these games likely lack the awareness to notice the obvious price hike, you already know it's going to start getting forced on the rest of us. EA are already rubbing their hands waiting for an excuse to jack-up all of their first-party titles, I can promise you that. And once they do it, other's will be encouraged to follow suit in order to stay competitive, and then the community will push back, making these companies retreat to a compromise of $65 to appease us all, tricking everyone into putting down their pitchforks under the impression that they won. We've done this song and dance before and I've gotten bored of all the moves.

But that isn't all the stupid tricks that 2K is trying to pull because of course it isn't. This is 2K we're talking about, those guys can't publish a single trailer without simultaneously unveiling something brow and controversy-raising. It's their signature move, their raison d'être, their one armed man. So last year was the gambling, before that was the microtransactions, and this year it's the confusing payment plan again which they've bought up to disguise their scummy replacement for Xbox Smart Delivery. (Which, as a reminder, is a program that allows players to upgrade their current gen versions of upcoming games to next gen versions at no extra cost.) Under 2K's system, folk who buy the current gen version of NBA 2K21 will have to independently buy another copy in order to play on the next generation. This is unless those folk shell out for the $100 Mamba Forever version of the game which offers players a free copy of the standard edition of the next gen game. (They couldn't even give them the special edition for $100.) Oh, and extra points for exploiting the horrific tragedy of Kobe Bryant's death to sell this plan, 2K; that's really on-brand for you.

So yeah, I'm not going to go through my usual cycle of talking about the game, summing up the trailer and discussing if its worthy of representing the new generation, because this is the sort of trash that's not worth that level of consideration. These titles aren't games anymore, they're cynical schemes to wrangle as much blood-sweat-and-cash from their fan base as humanly possible, with a gross tendency of setting just the worst examples on the rest of the industry. These are the titles shunting creativity out of the gaming medium and it sickens me to think about how they get away with this year after year without even the most remote modicum of push-back. So to any sports games fans who read this I implore you, stand up for yourself, stand up for the hobby you claim to love and stand up for all of us, because your games are quite literally the front lines for every repugnant greedy tech executive out there. The next ten years of gaming culture could, quite literally, be in your hands. Don't buy 2K21.