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 aspects of MyCAREER stories that are played-out at this point.

Honestly, I admire the ambition and creativity in some of the MyCAREER stories over the years. I can’t say that it’s prevented me from spending many enjoyable hours with the mode, and indeed, when I finally played through NBA 2K14’s tale, I had to admit that I’d been somewhat unfair towards it. However, there’s also a reason that I’ve been critical of MyCAREER featuring a cinematic narrative. Some of the tales have negatively impacted the gameplay experience, while others have just featured really bad writing and acting. Sometimes, the mode has been afflicted by both.

It’s a shame, as even when MyCAREER stories have fallen flat, it’s clear that a lot of effort has gone into them. Some prominent names have been involved with them, from filmmakers like Spike Lee to actors like Michael B Jordan. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that no one has any fond memories of MyCAREER stories, but they do tend to draw a considerable amount of scorn, especially in recent years. It’s not surprising of course, as many aspects of MyCAREER stories have become played-out over time, whether its tropes they employ, or their effects on gameplay. Either way, these five played-out aspects of MyCAREER stories have worn out their welcome.

1. Tragic Twists & Back Stories

For a game about basketball and a mode that’s about stepping into the shoes of an NBA player, MyCAREER stories have gone down some dramatic paths so often that it’s really played-out at this point. Let’s recap some of the tragedies we’ve experienced in MyCAREER to date. NBA 2K16 brought us troubled Vic Van Lier, whose parents who are strongly implied to have died from complications related to HIV/AIDS. He ultimately dies himself in a car accident that was seemingly suicidal. Freq meanwhile is implied to have accidentally killed or at least seriously injured someone. In NBA 2K17, Pres lost his father just a few years before he started playing college ball.

It doesn’t stop there. In NBA 2K21, Junior’s tale includes flashbacks featuring his father whose long shadow he’s trying to escape, who has also passed away by the time the story begins. Other tales haven’t been quite as tragic, but have instead featured our MyPLAYER being betrayed, jeopardising their future through protesting an injured teammate losing their scholarship, and generally kicked around and screwed over. Some of the stories have been better written than others, but the bottom line is that the drama and tragic back stories are getting to be a bit much. If nothing else, we don’t need another story where our MyPLAYER is grieving the untimely loss of a parent.

2. The Road to the NBA

This is actually something that I liked about NBA 2K23’s MyCAREER story. It placed us in the NBA very quickly, which was a welcome change of pace after several years of long stories about the journey to the pros. Some of those stories were fun and well-told, and the first couple of times we played through high school/and or college before getting to the NBA were a novelty. After a few years though, that lengthy road to the NBA was a played-out story. It was also a problem once The Neighborhood was introduced, as the online modes couldn’t be accessed unless you completed or skipped the story. Later games remedied this, but it was still often a hassle.

One of the main problems with the “Prelude” approach is that it ultimately amounts to the same tale every year. Sure, the specifics change and there might be a memorable character or two, but the story is going to be about the trials and tribulations that your MyPLAYER avatar faces before finally achieving their dream of making it to the NBA. Yes, sometimes it’s more about the journey than the destination, but when it’s the same journey every year, it becomes tiresome. In that regard, it does serve as a metaphor for the annual grind, but we can do without it. I’m all for MyCAREER stories taking a break from that narrative, and getting us into the NBA quicker.

3. The Rival/Antagonist

Considering the memorable rivalries in NBA history, I understand the appeal of having a rival as an antagonist in MyCAREER stories, but it’s a played-out trope. It was a novel idea when Jackson Ellis debuted in NBA 2K14. By the time Marcus Young was stabbing us in the back in NBA 2K19, having an antagonistic rival was beginning to become melodramatic. Now that we’ve also feuded with coaches, NBA pundits, and a YouTuber posing as a professional basketball player, I say, enough. Whereas Jackson Ellis was an entertaining character in a brand new approach to MyCAREER, the parade of jerks since then has just made the stories infuriating.

They might not have been so bad in a vacuum, but when so many of the stories have focused on having a villain, it gets old. Remember, I’m talking about things that are played-out, not universally terrible. With that being said, some of the antagonists have been obnoxious to the point of being off-putting. This wasn’t so bad when we could choose to skip the entire story at the beginning of MyCAREER, but now the tale is tied up in quests and the overall experience of The City. Sure, you can skip cutscenes, but not story-related tasks. If there must be rivals, make them worthy opponents that we’re friendly with. That seems to be how it is in the NBA these days, anyway.

4. Warming the Bench

So, from the very beginning when it was still called My Player, MyCAREER has challenged us to earn playing time while relegating us to the bench at the beginning of our NBA journey. I understand why, and it’s certainly not an unrealistic scenario to be placed in. It has become played-out though, especially when the various stories in MyCAREER have made it feel very contrived. Considering that many of the all-time greats were regular starters from the very beginning of their careers, it wouldn’t be unrealistic to allow us the opportunity to earn a starting spot in our NBA debut, if we can turn in a strong performance in a Rookie Showcase or Summer League game.

Again, it’s not that a rookie earning a starting role isn’t a realistic and logical approach to the journey in MyCAREER; it’s just that it’s played-out. Every single year, we start out on the bench with limited minutes, regardless of our ratings, performance in any pre-NBA games, and where we were taken in the Draft. It’s even worse when the story has some contrived reason that forces us to warm the bench or be a sixth man, despite putting up ridiculously good numbers. It highlights how MyCAREER stories don’t gel with the gameplay experience when these played-out plot points are running the show. Giving us the chance to be a starter from Game 1 would be a fresh idea.

5. Stories over Gameplay

From the aforementioned inevitable benching to other plot points that control our destiny, MyCAREER stories too often interfere with the gameplay experience, or render your performance moot because the narrative is on rails. This has always been an issue to some extent since the story-driven approach was adopted in NBA 2K14, but sometimes the concept has been more intrusive than others. Some games have been able to strike a good balance between being a pure career mode experience and having unavoidable predetermined beats, with a story that’s well-written and acted. In those games, the story has been flavour content, a welcome backdrop to the mode.

Unfortunately, as MyCAREER has leaned more heavily into being an MMORPG, there have been more misses than hits, more played-out stories. The funny thing is that the stories don’t seem to be very popular, so it’s not as though they’re an aspect that most MyCAREER gamers want. It feels like the only reason we still have them is because removing them would give the appearance of going backwards rather than innovating and getting bigger. I’m not suggesting that the tales are universally hated, but I very rarely see them receiving much praise. To me, that suggests that while the concept can be put to good use, at this point in time, stories are extremely played-out.

What’s your take on the matter? Are MyCAREER stories played-out? Were they ever good to begin with? Do you still enjoy them? Or, have they always turned you off the mode? Have your say in the comments below, 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.