NBA 2K23: Mediocrity and Monetization
When it comes to basketball video games, there is no game remotely close to the NBA 2K series. Over the years, they have taken major strides in improving the graphics, gameplay mechanics and overall popularity of the game to ascend the series to one of the most popular franchises in North America. NBA 2K provides many different game modes all revolving around the National Basketball Association such as a solo player mode called MyCareer, a team-building mode called MyTeam, and simulation modes such as MySeason where you get to manage your own NBA team (2K Games, 2022).
For myself, NBA 2K was always a fun game I could spend hours on. The game always provided a fun environment for my friends and I to team up and enjoy while fostering a fair, but strong sense of competition which established the clear goal of upgrading your character and reaping the rewards of reaching the top level.
However, in the most recent addition to the series, NBA 2K23, I do not find that same enjoyment that I used to find, and this has led me to completely cut the game out of my rotation, just months after purchasing it. The game's appeal and playability have been minimized due to the 2K corporations' focus on monetary gains, and reluctance to listen to the community about how to improve their product. Players have now been bombarded with in-game ad placements and pay-to-win propositions which stray the game further and further away from its roots as a top-tier sports game, into a game that attempts to milk its customers in favour of media attention and financial benefits. Overall, when exploring NBA 2K23 through the lenses of perceived gamer dedication, the impact of the game environment on player progression and the flawed system of social dynamics, we can truly see the impact of corporate greed on the game community which leads to a drop-off in competitiveness, player engagement, and overall enjoyment.
Gamer Dedication
The First NBA 2K game I played was NBA 2K16. It was offered to PlayStation users for free during that summer and it became the game I played for months on end. Despite getting the game late compared to others who had been playing it months before me, I was able to quickly level up and progress my character to a suitable skillset that would allow me to compete with these players. This made the game more fun to play for everyone, as it was easy to adopt and the community around the game was only growing.
Fast forward to the newest release of the series, NBA 2K23, and this extremely important facet of gameplay is non-existent. 2K’s pursuit of monetary gain has pushed them to give consumers ways to streamline their progression in the game while making it harder for those who do not keep up. 2K offers pre-order bundles of its game for a higher price that come with discounted virtual currency, called “VC” which is used to upgrade your player (2K Games, 2022). By purchasing the regular version of the game, you start with an empty wallet, so it then falls into the consumer’s hands to put in extra work to earn VC and level up their character, whereas consumers who decide to order these bundles have a free pass to making their characters a high level from the beginning. So, when they match up against players who don’t have that advantage, it makes it very easy for them to succeed, and the latter to fail.
Serious gamers have a greater willingness to pay, meaning they will not hesitate to spring for these upgrades if they see that it is worth it (Filimowicz, 2023). On the other hand, casual gamers do not see these situations as feasible, potentially because they may not see themselves playing the game too frequently and would rather save their hard-earned money. However, in making this decision, the casual gamer is digging their own grave. Because of this instant skill gap, the casual gamer will not be able to obtain the satisfaction of levelling up and enjoying the game because it will be far too difficult and the less you play games like NBA 2K, the easier it is to fall behind and never catch up unless you spend more money, which is not an option for most people.
Although consumers who do this are not breaking any rules, according to Guo Freeman’s article, “Pay to Win or Pay to Cheat: How Players of Competitive Online Games Perceive Fairness of In-Game Purchases”, fairness and the ability for everyone to compete can be seen as arbitrary rules for any video game, and casual gamers may frown upon players who take these shortcuts to the top (Freeman et al., 2022). The ability for consumers to use real-world money to avoid obstacles to their progression makes the game unfair for those who cannot or choose not to. People who took part in Freeman’s study suggested that any game that wished to incorporate in-game purchases, use them to create consumables that do not impact a player’s skill, but rather their aesthetic (Freeman et al., 2022). We see this in games like Fortnite where the only consumable items are avatar skins which provide no advantages to players. When NBA 2K decided to implement these features into their game, it only showed that they did not care about the community as much as they did about putting money into their pockets, and this corporate greed ruined the competitiveness that the NBA 2K series once encompassed.
Player Progression and Environmental Barriers
In NBA 2K23 the main way to level up aside from purchasing in-game currency is to play the MyCareer mode and earn VC for your upgrades (2K Games, 2022). MyCareer is a mode that attaches your 2K character to a storyline that showcases how your player progresses toward the NBA (2K Games, 2022). In previous games, the focus of these stories always used to be on basketball, with less restriction on playing games and earning VC for your character, but NBA 2K23 has flipped this idea on its head. To play these games in MyCareer mode, players are forced to complete convoluted side quests that relate more to the storyline of your player than any actual progression in the game. In a Washington Post article by Herb Scribner, he explains how 2K’s once faithful community members are leaving the game behind because there is less of a focus on basketball (Scribner, 2023). Instead, 2K is placing its focus on developing a story that allows it to pump endorsement deals and ad money into its pocket while halting player progression and taking the game further away from basketball.
The sidequests that players complete in NBA 2K23 have no actual implementation into the game for players. The quests you complete revolve around pop culture topics such as making music, getting sponsorship deals and product placements for products like Beats headphones and clothing items from brands like Nike (2K Games, 2022). These meaningless tasks inhibit you from progressing the skill and level of your character and are just ways for 2K to make money. This has become a large speaking point for the 2K community, who simply want to focus on basketball and are being forced to waste their time. Providing them with ancillary awards like a popularity ranking or a clothing item is reminiscent of what one would expect in a story-mode game, where exploration and the overall environment around you are vital to the gameplay (Filimowicz, 2023). Of course, NBA 2K23 is a sports game that does not need to provide players with an eye-catching story. In a review of the game by Kotaku, reviewer Luke Plunkett summarized this well by saying, “I don’t want to have to work to enjoy a game of basketball. I just… want to enjoy a game of basketball.” (Plunkett, 2022). Alongside this, casual gamers will continue to struggle because their minimal time to play the game will be wasted doing these missions, which only further places them behind in the race to make their player better.
Authors Sky Larell Anderson and Mark R. Johnson discuss in their article, “Cultivation play: Video games and the labour of character progression” that the traditional sense of gameplay labour is becoming “inherently difficult and manipulative” (Anderson & Johnson, 2021). NBA 2K23 blocks players from levelling up their characters until they complete the sidequests that inherently give them nothing in the game. Therefore, they are being manipulated as the only people benefiting from them completing these missions, are 2K themselves, who are pocketing the big-time ad money. Anderson and Johnson suggest that any game that implements missions into its core mechanics must use them as a way to foster an upgrade path and provide players with, “an environment of gameplay work which players may find engaging” (Anderson & Johnson, 2021).
Social Dynamics and a Flawed Reputation System
In previous versions of NBA 2K, they had implemented a “Rep Reward” program that would allow players to earn experience points that contributed to a reputation level that would be associated with their account (2K Games, 2022). According to friends of mine, and many other players, this system was perfect. One of the reasons it was enjoyed so much is because the final level, legend status was so hard to reach, and once you had reached that point, there was a certain aura around your character. Other players would take notice, and admire your skills and as someone who had reached legend in previous games, it felt good to know that all my hard work and hours on the game materialized into something that mattered.
Fast forward to today, NBA 2K23 has completely ruined a perfect system that no one has complained about, by implementing the newly popular “Season Pass” concept to their game (2K Games, 2022). This is a new rep reward system that resets every six weeks, and players have been complaining about it since its implementation. According to Scribner, many players believe that the rep system can be completed far too easily by someone who grinds the game, almost within a couple of days of it coming out, and the rewards you receive are subpar items such as emotes (dance moves), clothing items and in-game animations (Scribner, 2023). The ease at which the season pass can be completed takes away the motivation to grind through the ranks that the season-long rep system had. Since it can be easily completed by anyone, or even purchased through skipping levels by spending VC, it makes reaching the max level something that’s not out of the ordinary, but something that is expected.
Personally, this is what turned me off from the game as there was no consistent goal that I could put my hours towards. Even if I played the game for a while, then stopped, and came back to it, the season I competed in would have ended, and I would be back at square one again. In my case, and the case of many others as well, if players had a consistent year-long goal to strive for with more worthwhile rewards such as VC or rare consumables, it would hold much more merit and entice more players to play the game.
Elena Petrovskaya and David Zendle’s article, “The Battle Pass: A Mixed-Methods Investigation into a Growing Type of Video Game Monetisation” talks about player opinions on battle (season) passes and how they affect the gameplay experience for players (Petrovskya & Zendle, 2020). They found that in most cases, the tradeoff for grinding out season passes is not usually fair, as the work put in compared to what players receive in the end does not feel worth the hours put behind it. For example, one of NBA 2K23’s battle pass rewards was a Go-Kart that could be used to drive around the map, however, this Go-Kart was also a purchasable item in the game. So what was stopping players from obtaining VC in different ways, and essentially skipping the entire season pass and purchasing the final reward? Games like Call-of-Duty place exclusive items in their battle passes which incentivizes players to grind for that item which is the way it should be done. In the end, the conversation comes back to the opportunity for developers to add as much monetization to their games as possible, and season passes are just another method for them to obtain consumer dollars (Petrovskya & Zendle, 2020). Petrovskaya and Zendle interviewed people who play the popular online game “Dota 2” who viewed season passes in their game as a way to “Milk a loyal fanbase” (Petrovskya & Zendle, 2020). They also mentioned how the rise of Season/Battle Passes came during the pandemic, when a lot of people were facing economic hardship and had more time to play video games, Developers were instead making them more expensive to play, with less actual benefit (Petrovskya & Zendle, 2020).
Conclusion
In summary, The NBA 2K series has evolved from a video game that focused on camaraderie, skills and community into a game that prioritizes its profit-driven motives and finds ways to extract money from its loyal fanbase through pay-to-win tactics, and useless consumables that provide them with no benefit. The final product which is NBA 2K23 has led to a trivial disconnect between the game and its community and has led to a legion of fans wishing for the game to simply go back to the way it once was. For 2K to rectify this issue, they must look at the communities which they make the game for and use their feedback to create a product that will be equally enjoyable for everyone. Using tactics from previous, and new games, players and developers can find a balance that will allow both parties to benefit in the ways they wish. But until the creators of NBA 2K23 realize why they are losing the support of their audience, we cannot expect anything to change.
Work Cited
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