Another year goes by and another NBA2k game is released. Fans fork over $60 for upgraded graphics, gameplay, and NBA rosters. Hell if you’re planning on picking it up on the Xbox Series or the PS5 you’re looking at a $70 investment. With all the money you’re spending on this new game the last thing you’d expect to find are ads in your game, and unskippable ones at that.
For the last few years now 2K games have made it a tradition to include ads that play right before your game starts. And every year the fans continue to let 2K games know that what they’re doing is s*****. You’d think by now they would listen to feedback from the consumers and cut them out. But nope, they just keep them coming. Here’s the one from this years game if you’d like to take a look:
Now it’s bad enough that 2k is LOADED with microtransactions. The in-game currency, VC, or Virtual Currency, is something you can SLOWLY earn by playing through the game. If you’re trying to unlock new shoes for your players, new animations, or virtual card packs to flesh out your team for the MyTeam multiplayer mode, you’re forced to spend a long grind in the game or give in and buy the currency. You’d think with all the money they’re making from the game itself and the microtransactions, they’d be satisfied. But that’s where you’re wrong. You still gotta sit through an ad right before each and every game.
This year 2k deiced they would try and remedy the situation by listening to user feedback. Except they really didn’t. 2k issued this statement on their Twitter page:
2K Community 🗣 pic.twitter.com/rvMC9z0Wft
— NBA 2K21 (@NBA2K) October 20, 2020
Instead of apologizing for running ads in the game and removing them altogether, 2K apologized for the ad placement. They aren’t going to remove the ads, they’re just going to change up the way they give them to you. As I sit and write this article I had to pause and proceed to facepalm to the fact a company decided to just change the ad placement around instead of removing them altogether.
Now I’m no stranger to in-game ads. I like to play the occasional mobile game. I’m obsessed with Final Fantasy Tactics: War Of The Visions and King Of Fighters All-Stars. Both of these games are free to play and you’re given the option to pay for in-game currency if you’d like to unlock extra characters and upgrades quicker. They even let you watch a 30-second ad to get a free unlock. I’m also currently playing Among Us which is free on mobile. At the end of each match, you have to watch a 15-second unskippable ad. I don’t mind this. The game itself is free and the developers need to find some type of way to make money off of it. I expect this from a free to play mobile game, but a console game that I paid full retail price for? That’s some shady business practice right there.
Maybe 2K games will finally learn from this year’s experience and get rid of the ads altogether. Or maybe they’ll just keep taking $60 from everyone and continue to charge for outrageous micro-transactions paired with ads no one wants to watch. As long as NBA2k is the only Basketball game available to gamers, they’ll really have no choice in the matter if they want the NBA experience on their home console. What do you think? Are in-game ads unforgivable or do we just have to accept that in this day and age, this is what developers are going to do to us to keep turning a profit?