Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five issues with NBA 2K that are seemingly evergreen.

Since I’ve taken a look at some evergreen issues with the NBA Live series, it’s time to examine similar problems with NBA 2K. Obviously, NBA 2K is a powerhouse in the basketball gaming space, with a virtual monopoly on sim titles. Even in the years that NBA Live was released during the past generation, the NBA 2K series outsold it by a significant margin to say the least. The competition hasn’t been close in terms of sales and critical reception since 2008, in large part because NBA 2K has maintained a high level of quality, while NBA Live has suffered from its own evergreen issues.

However, there are definitely problems that continue to plague NBA 2K to this day. They’re in too comfortable of a position to fail, which once again is the result of them maintaining a generally pleasing level of quality through the years. At the same time, these evergreen issues do affect the quality of NBA 2K games, as well as the overall image of the series. As NBA Live stumbled, NBA 2K became the darling for hoops gamers and the yardstick for its genre. Without competition though, its flaws have been exposed, and its reputation has been tarnished. The evergreen issues that NBA 2K has failed to address are responsible for that, so let’s take a look at five of them.

1. Accepting Criticism

Before I go any further, I must acknowledge the difficulty in being a developer in the social media age. A lot of people aren’t polite and courteous, and I don’t condone any abuse being directed at the developers. With that being said, NBA 2K is a victim of its success. It’s set the bar high, and as the only viable option on the market from year to year, gamers have lofty expectations. 2K fatigue is also very real, just as it was with NBA Live. More to the point though, as noted above, NBA 2K became very used to being the darling of basketball gamers. We couldn’t say enough good things about it, especially while NBA Live continued to disappoint. Reception was mostly positive.

In recent years, a combination of high expectations and controversial practices by NBA 2K has led to more criticism and dissatisfaction with the games. While I don’t want to say that the 2K devs aren’t receptive to constructive criticism, some of them have lashed out in ways that are, quite frankly, petulant. They were quite happy to lap up praise that was lavished upon 2K in years gone by, often while smirking at NBA Live’s shortcomings. Now that NBA 2K is dealing with some evergreen issues and a sullied reputation, their attitude towards valid feedback has been disappointing at times. Yes, toxic gamers don’t help, but constructive criticism is too often shot down.

2. Fostering Goodwill

Although NBA 2K can boast some very impressive sales figures, as well as recurrent revenue and engagement numbers, their reputation is at an all-time low. User reviews are generally quite negative, as dissatisfaction grows. A not insignificant amount of people have said that they buy NBA 2K simply out of wanting a new basketball title, rather than affection or enjoyment as they previously did. Technical issues and gripes with gameplay and modes are commonly cited in negative user reviews, but one of the evergreen complaints with NBA 2K is the lack of goodwill when it comes to microtransactions and grinding in MyTEAM, or MyCAREER and its online modes.

Simply put, NBA 2K’s recurrent revenue mechanics have become pushier over the years, and a lot of gamers are getting fed up. On top of that, 2K has been quick to patch VC exploits and ban users, while dragging their feet on fixing issues with VC earnings and other issues that affect us gamers. They also lack a proper community manager that can navigate the rough waters of the job, and interact without snark or pretension. It seems that the role is only fulfilled in an unofficial capacity, with LD2K hosting 2K TV and Ronnie being a digital marketer who also serves as a lightning rod and punching bag for community outrage. It doesn’t do much to inspire any goodwill.

3. Transparency & Acknowledging Issues

If there’s one thing that NBA Live has been good at amidst their evergreen issues, it’s admitting to fault and failure. Unfortunately they’ve had a lot of practice in doing that, but the point stands that they haven’t shied away from acknowledging when they’ve messed up. The approach has been very different with NBA 2K, with attempts to quietly sweep issues under the rug. From the debacle with the Pink Diamond LeBron in NBA 2K19 to the Daily Bonus being broken in NBA 2K21 Current Gen, 2K won’t acknowledge problems unless they’re really forced to. They’ll also avoid responding to certain questions during preview seasons, knowing the answers won’t be popular.

Their motivation here isn’t a mystery. It’s born of the belief that admitting fault will make them look bad, and bring negative attention to the brand. The irony here is that by not acknowledging troubling issues, they end up looking much worse due to a lack of transparency, and an apparent disdain for gamers. One can understand the desire to never look weak or incompetent, but when the alternative is appearing deceptive and uncaring, I’d suggest that the former is the lesser of two evils. Furthermore, while some gamers certainly would be hostile or try to use it as leverage, by and large, I think most people would appreciate the honesty and transparency in any bad news.

4. Communication

There’s some overlap with the other evergreen issues plaguing NBA 2K here, but specific aspects of their communication are problematic, and have been for a long time. As noted above, there’s the silence when there’s bad news, which ends up making them look a lot worse than if they admitted fault, tried to make amends, and pledged to do better. Another of the frustrating evergreen issues with the way that NBA 2K communicates is that they don’t seem to be able to do so without sounding passive-aggressive. It comes back to their unwillingness to admit fault, but the result is placing the blame on gamers for problems that are clearly with the game itself.

I’ve talked about this issue in previous articles and on the NLSC Podcast, but some of the error messages in NBA 2K are incredibly patronising. There’s the classic “there is a problem with your connection to our servers”, which implies that it isn’t the fault of the flawless 2K network (yeah, right). When face scan data for MyCAREER fails to upload, an almost scolding message tells us to try again and “pay close attention to the instructions”. Never mind that there are no instructions, and as far as the app told us, everything had worked. Throw in some of the social media gaffes, and NBA 2K has evergreen issues with communicating without adopting a rather condescending tone.

5. Technical Support

I’m just going to be blunt here: 2K Support sucks. There are very few stories of them being helpful, and in my own experience, the only times they’ve been able to resolve a problem to my satisfaction, I’ve had to jump through a ridiculous amount of hoops to get there. Now, I’m not going to lay the blame at the feet of the actual people who are working for 2K Support, because they can only take the action and provide responses that they’re authorised to. With that in mind however, they haven’t been given a lot of tools or answers that allow them to be helpful! As someone who has worked in tech support, I empathise with them over the hostile responses that I’m sure they receive.

While I won’t blame the support staff, I certainly will blame the company for not allowing them to be helpful, and furnishing them with stock replies that often come across as condescending (again, 2K has evergreen issues with communication). I’ll blame them for the lack of steps and criteria for getting an account unbanned, even when it’s been done in error. I’ll absolutely criticise their paltry compensation when someone loses VC or progress due to a fault in the game, or inability/unwillingness to do anything about it as the case may be. From policy and procedure to response time and helpfulness, 2K Support is among the worst that I’ve experienced or observed.

Those are five issues with the NBA 2K series that unfortunately seem to be evergreen. Have you ever encountered any of them, or experienced any other frustrating issues year after year with the games? Let me know in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.