Tag Archives: Greed

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on the backlash that NBA 2K24 has received, and trying to put it all into perspective.

It’s fair to say that NBA 2K24 has received significant backlash. The PC version was at one point the worst-rated game on Steam, and although its rating has rebounded somewhat since then, the reviews still skew mostly negative. It doesn’t help that it’s a port of the PlayStation 4/Xbox One version, but a glance at Metacritic reveals a user score of 2.1 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X as well. There are positive reviews for NBA 2K24 on Metacritic, but for the most part, once again the user scores are far more negative than the ones from professional critics.

The backlash goes beyond scathing scores for NBA 2K24, however. You’ll see far more negative comments about the game wherever it’s being discussed, be it social media, forums, or Reddit. Dissatisfaction with the game and disgust with recurrent revenue mechanics has been building for years, and as a result, gamers are more forthcoming with criticism and disdainful remarks than ever before. This has only increased since content creators who cover MyTEAM have exposed how the mode has reached new heights – or perhaps, lows – in terms of greed. Yes, there’s backlash against NBA 2K24, and rightfully so. Unfortunately, it likely won’t make a difference.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #517 of the NLSC Podcast!

The community has really been cooking with their submissions for the NLSC Top 10 Plays as of late. Indeed, we’re still excited about last week’s countdown! To that end, we recap what was a diverse array of spectacular virtual hardwood moments from a variety of titles, and also provide advice for both recording and submitting your highlights for future Top 10s. We also note some recent improvements to PlayStation 2 emulation (particularly in regards to NBA Street), discuss the ongoing saga with MyTEAM greed hitting an all-time high, and join the community in reminiscing about the introduction of Freestyle Control in this week’s mailbag.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:06:08 — 45.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #515 of the NLSC Podcast!

Following up on last week’s discussion, we react to Take-Two’s shady defense of Virtual Currency as “fictions” that it can legally remove at any time. On a slightly contentious note (for the most part), in response to a post on our Discord, we weigh in on the NBA Jam vs. NBA Street debate. Which arcade hoops game do we believe is king? We also recap a co-op session of NBA Live 2002, and make some potentially controversial comparisons to NBA Live 2001. Joining the community for a discussion of our favourite camera angles leads us to declare our appreciation for broadcast views once again. In this week’s mailbag, we share how we’d handle microtransactions in a Triple-A release if it was our call.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:26:44 — 59.9MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #514 of the NLSC Podcast!

NBA 2K24 is prompting gamers to accept a new Terms of Service that includes updated clauses regarding class action lawsuits and digital purchases. We discuss how the move has further eroded goodwill, especially as the language comes across as threatening in the wake of recent legal action against Take-Two, and opting out is a deliberately challenging process. While noting NBA 2K’s fall from grace as the darling of basketball gaming, we also criticise the silence from influencers and much of the gaming media, as well as the apologist rhetoric that some gamers are spouting. In short, it’s not an issue that basketball gamers should allow to be swept under the rug!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:05:50 — 45.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off by discussing something that many of us tried to warn our fellow NBA 2K gamers about, that’s finally being widely acknowledged.

There’s an old episode of The Simpsons­ – a Season 1 episode in fact, so a very old one indeed – wherein Marge contemplates having an affair with her bowling instructor, voiced by Albert Brooks. Lisa recognises that Marge is showering her and Bart with treats out of guilt; predictably, Bart is only interested in reaping the benefits, leading Lisa to explain that he’s still in the denial stage, whereas she’s already feeling fearful. Later on, when Bart reaches the fearful stage, Lisa says she can’t help him because she’s already moved on to a new stage: self-pity.

Look, I’ll take any excuse to make a Simpsons reference, but that scene aptly sums up what I want to talk about today. For years, many of us have been pointing out the greed and anti-gamer/anti-consumer approach in NBA 2K. We’ve been shouted down time and time again, with predatory mechanics and subpar design being defended with every clichéd argument in the shill’s handbook. This isn’t to say that there hasn’t been successful pushback – hey, haircuts are free now, whoopee! – but way too many people were comfortable with VC-related issues, until suddenly they became too much. For those people, and for those who still shill: don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with my candid thoughts on the greed involved with the attribute upgrades in NBA 2K’s MyCAREER.

So, you may have two questions. First, why am I still talking about MyCAREER when I’ve moved on from the mode? Second, do I think that I’m revealing some shocking truth here? To answer the first question, I am still playing the mode in NBA 2K14. Additionally, having spent many years playing MyCAREER, I have thoughts on how it can improve. I want it to be as good as it possibly can be for everyone who plays it, and I believe in advocating for my fellow gamers. If nothing else, if you’re feeling frustrated with the situation, it may help to know that you’re not alone.

That leads into the answer to the second question. Gamers – and not just basketball gamers, mind you – have a tendency to be temporarily outraged at injustices, only to quickly move on and seemingly forgive and forget; at least until the issue affects them once again. It’s important that we keep discussing these matters, and that we get to the heart of the issues. It’s no secret that all of the modes in NBA 2K that utilise Virtual Currency are a cash grab, because recurrent revenue mechanics are the major money-makers for publishers. I’ve previously discussed the rising cost of MyCAREER, but the greed goes beyond that when you realise attribute upgrades are now pointless.

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Start your week here at the NLSC with a feature that’s dedicated to opinions, commentary, and other fun stuff related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games. This week, I’m tipping things off with my thoughts on how a large amount of the historical players in NBA 2K are going to waste.

I’ll admit that I feel slightly petty when I criticise the usage of historical players and teams in NBA 2K. Over the past decade, NBA 2K games have done what was once unthinkable, simply by including a huge range of historical players and retro teams. We may not have modes like the Jordan Challenge or NBA’s Greatest anymore, but we still have retro teams spanning from the 60s through to the 2010s, All-Time squads for every franchise, and several historical players to collect in MyTEAM. Of course, some players are exclusive to NBA 2K’s card collecting mode.

That’s a major point of contention, though. We have access to many historical players thanks to the individual retro teams and All-Time squads, but not all of them. There are several mid-tier players who don’t belong to any retro teams and aren’t big enough names for the All-Time squads, and are therefore more or less exclusive to MyTEAM. Their assets being in the game is still a tremendous help to modding projects, but the situation still isn’t as convenient as it could be. Now, MyTEAM is definitely a popular mode – despite some people’s bizarre claims to the contrary – but to me, it still feels as though a large number of historical players are being wasted by that exclusivity.

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Start your week here at the NLSC with a feature that’s dedicated to opinions, commentary, and other fun stuff related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games. This week, I’m tipping things off with some reflections on a Reddit post that tried to warn us about some looming issues with the direction of the NBA 2K series.

There’s a Reddit post that I’ve mentioned and linked to in quite a few articles since it was made in the official NBA 2K subreddit back in 2018. That post was titled “The ‘MMO-ification’ of NBA2K and the perils of ignoring player retention: Thoughts from a former MMO developer“, and it was very well-received. After all, this wasn’t just a random gamer speaking out in frustration, or even a prominent content creator or pundit. This was someone who worked in video game development, and saw first-hand how certain approaches affected both gamer enjoyment, and a game’s success.

The criticisms this former EVE Online developer made were astute, and they were on the money about it only being the beginning. Their post touched on matters that many reviewers, and even content creators and community leaders, tend to ignore. It spoke about design philosophies – matters beyond tech and specific game features – that were responsible for problems in the games, and painted a worrying picture for the future. Today, I’m revisiting that Reddit post, and picking out some relevant quotes that identify problems that were troubling in NBA 2K18, and have remained so in its successors. As you’ll see, the insights of that Reddit post were almost prophetic.

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Episode #314 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! This week, Dee4Three and I discuss a recent controversy with MyTEAM in NBA 2K20, as well as having unfinished business and nostalgic phases when it comes to basketball video games.

In the wake of the NBA shutdown, the official NBA 2K Twitter has been doing a great job of engaging with fans. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of 2K’s handling of MyTEAM bans due to Auction House sniping. We discuss the lack of communication and clear guidelines, as well as the staggering amount of money some gamers pump into the mode. Turning our attention to older games, we reflect on unfinished business in titles from yesteryear. In particular, we discuss the difficulty of going back and spending a lot of time with old favourites, the idea of basketball games (and sports games in general) having a different concept of completion, and games we wish that we’d played more. This leads into a discussion of nostalgic phases: the times where we’ve briefly become obsessed with revisiting certain hoops games that we love.

Tune in below!

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 2:06:15 — 86.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

What are your thoughts on the NBA 2K20 MyTEAM controversy? Do you go through retro gaming phases with classic basketball games? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear us discuss in future episodes. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki.

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at NBA 2K18, and the legacy that it has created.

The NBA 2K18 servers are no more. Well, I imagine they’re still physically around. It’s highly unlikely that 2K instructed someone to take a sledgehammer and go all Triple H on them, rather than just switching them off. The point is that online support has ended, which means MyTEAM, the first version of The Neighborhood, and all other connected content is gone. With this infamous release being officially put out to pasture, I believe it’s an apt time to offer up a final take on the game, and reflect on its legacy.

I know that it’s fairly recent by Wayback Wednesday standards, but it was released going on three years ago, which is about how old the All-Time College Teams DLC for NBA 2K17 was when I covered it. Besides, NBA 2K18 came out last decade, and that makes it sound old, right? Hey, it’s my feature, and I’ll bend the rules if need be! In any event, a retrospective of this controversial game feels quite timely, so let’s take a look back…not too far but still wayback…

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