Didn't I just cover this?

 Deja Vu; i've just been in this place before

Here we are again. It's always such a pleasure. Remember when 2K tried to screw us over last? I do. In fact the whole affair is so fresh in my mind that I feel as though I could never forget the multiple heinous ways that 2K sought to definitively prove how poorly they could treat their consumer base. It's almost got to be a competition for them at this point, "How much can we abuse our position of power to milk folk before they stop coming back"? Of course that cannot be the case, because 2K make sports games and the answer to that query would be too obvious; sports fans will buy literally anything that you put in front of them. It's almost like watching a superhero turn bad before your very eyes and wondering idly if they were ever a good person to begin with. I mean, remember seeing the 2K logo pop up whenever I put in Bioshock, so there's some positive connection right there, but to be honest those games were probably more due to the work of Irrational Games than these doofuses. Is there anything positive left to say about 2K at this point?

A year back I was thinking the same thing when their NBA 20 game was struck with the latest in a long line of avaricious controversies; the forced ad drama. Basically, this was a situation in which 2K thought it entirely fair and in keeping with their rights as a publisher to forcibly load adverts in front of games that folk wanted to play. Basically, they were treating their full price sports game, which was already monetised to hell and back, like a free-to-play title chock-full of free ad space. People reacted as you would expect and the move was slowly faded out without any responsibility or public statement being made. To this day I don't know if they completely removed them or just limited the pool to those that didn't complain, but headlines stopped appearing so the problem vanished at least temporarily. For time there was even talk that 2K might have finally done the impossible and surpassed EA in terms of unlikability. (Until EA reclaimed that title just a week or so ago with Ads in their UFC game.)

But you can't keep a multimillion dollar conglomerate down, it would seem, because 2K have returned once again this year to throw back in their third party ads in this year's NBA 21; your welcome, Sports community! And though I hate to throw around comparisons in a practice as honestly vile as this, I'd go so far as to call this worse than EA's UFC implementation. Whereas in that game the ads were ancillary flashes representing 'The Boys' which would pop up just before replays or above the time bar (and the ring itself had some 'The Boys' branding) for NBA 2K21 the game will quite literally halt your loading time between menus in order to show off a full 20 second ad. And no, this isn't just filler to help you pass loading times, (not that it would be any better if it were) the loading itself will slow to a crawl in order to force you to watch the ad. (Very cool, guys. Except not.)

There have been actual outlets that have tried all kinds of tricks to make absolutely sure that these Ads are unskippable, but to be honest that doesn't even matter because the Ads are there at all. This is a full price game that is trying to monetise people's time even further than the core mechanics of the game are already designed to do. In fact, it's not even full price; it's over full! Because the next-gen versions of these sports games have all simultaneous upped their price by an extra 10 dollars for literally no reasons whatsoever. Perhaps they expect us to buy that crap about how development costs are outpacing their ability to produce, but with the lack of effort going into these yearly releases coupled with the incredible profits that these games make, it's hard not to wonder how these people haven't gotten careers in politics with their habitual lying.

And let me be even clearer than I feel I have been throughout this blog; there is absolutely no place in full priced gaming for third party ads. This is something I feel very strong about, on a personal level. Ads are a necessary part of our modern ecosystem that earns it place by worming into places where we consider our entertainment to be free, or at least inexpensive. But even then there are limits. Part of the reason that cord-cutting became so popular is because of the absolute deluge of Ads that folk were subject too on TV, even when paying through the nose for the service as it is. Some folk even download elaborate Ad blocking software on browsers in order to avoid them throughout the Internet. What I'm trying to say is that the balance between adverts and consumers is fragile at best, and with the premium prices that we pay in order to access the latest games, especially with sports games, 2K better know folk will have exactly no chill for their time being wasted in such a manner.

Sure, there is an argument to be made here, as folk always do, that this is a mild inconvenience and thus a non-issue. An extra 20 seconds to the loading time isn't going to make anyone's head fall off and it's only effecting sports games right now anyway. "I don't even play sports games". But as I must reinforce, over and over, this is only ever just the beginning. The reason that we see these stupidly greedy policies get instituted in sports games first is because these companies know how pliable the sports audience can be, and they know that if they can't pull a trick on them, there's no chance they could pull it over the rest of gaming. Therefore if there's ever something vile and unappealing that you see make it's way over to sports you have to call it out there, else it makes it's way to a franchise you love and care about. (And it will. Trust me it will.)

As of right now the issue isn't widespread. In the conniving way that these companies do, 2K have saw it fit to shadow launch this new feature a month after launch (so that it wouldn't effect review scores) and to a limited amount of people. (To limit potential backlash.) But the news has already made it to the outlets so it's likely only a matter of time before the plug is pulled and the team slink back into the darkness, but make no mistake they'll be back again next year! This is the same crap that they pulled last time and you can bet they learnt nothing from it; they're just going to keep testing the waters until we grow too used to it in order to call them out, at which point it'll become a mainstay feature of every one of their games from that point forth. I may sound alarmist, but look at Season Passes, Lootboxes and low-effort Yearly recycle releases, then tell me I'm making mountains out of molehills.

So once again we do this dance of whack-a-mole, 2K pushes the envelope and we shout them down, no ground is made and we all convene again next year to do it again, but meanwhile other liberties get taken. The jacking up of sports game prices has gone over practically unchallenged and many believe this new $70 pricetag might be here to stay, which could start to have an effect on other AAA games in it's orbit. That's how people like this win, they dangle the small bait to rile everyone up whilst sneaking their policies through the backdoor, and time after time we just let them. It's a little galling to think that enriching the gaming space cannot be done in a manner that enriches the player as well, but I suppose this us-vs-them environment is exactly the one that companies like 2K have been trying to build all these years, we'll just see how long it persists before it starts to bring the industry down around our ears. (and I'm only being mostly sarcastic there)

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.