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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 that weird Zion trailer for NBA 2K21 Next Gen.
Way back in the fourth season of The Simpsons, in the classic episode “Mr. Plow”, Homer becomes…well, Mr. Plow. At first his business succeeds, thanks in small part to his creation of a surprisingly competent commercial. When Homer begins to lose customers to Barney’s Plow King business, he seeks the help of an ad agency that ends up creating a commercial that is a hilarious send-up of just about every artsy, pseudo intellectual advertisement that has barely anything to do with the product or service in question.
To me, that’s the perfect analogy for the weird Zion teaser trailer for the Next Gen version of NBA 2K21. It was weird, it had questionable imagery, and judging by some YouTube comments, it offended a few people as well. Normally I’d wait a bit longer to cover basketball games and basketball gaming subjects in my Wayback Wednesday features, but hey, it was over a year ago, so I’ll bend the rules on this occasion. Let’s take a look back…a little way back…
There are a handful of NBA 2K21 trailers for both Current Gen and Next Gen, but the one I’m referring to here is the “Zion Next Gen Coming” trailer that revealed Zion Williamson as the cover player on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Like most early trailers, it didn’t reveal much about the game itself. There are quick glimpses of Zion in action from cinematic angles, and a close-up of his face intended to highlight the graphical improvements. Oh, and there’s a ton of weird imagery that has very little to do with basketball and basketball video games. If you haven’t seen the NBA 2K21 Zion “Next Gen Coming” trailer, or have forgotten about it, here it is in all its glory.
It’s just your standard basketball video game trailer, right? Yeah, this is one esoteric teaser to put it kindly, and borderline crazy to be blunter about it. It gets to where it needs to go by featuring glimpses of Zion in-game at the very end, but along the way the NBA 2K21 Next Gen teaser trailer strays into some really, really weird territory. From symbols akin to hieroglyphs or perhaps a runic alphabet, to flashing photos of the pyramids, moai of Easter Island, and other mysterious imagery, the teaser evokes thoughts of conspiracy theories, ancient secrets, and mysticism. Judging by some of the comments on both the NBA 2K and GameSpot channels, many felt it was Satanic.
Personally, I don’t think a Triple-A publisher would intentionally make that kind of statement in an E-rated, NBA-licensed basketball game. It’d be an unnecessarily risky move to offend people in the core demographic. They certainly opted for very unusual imagery, but my assumption would be that the trailer is meant to be mysterious in a generic sort of way, tying into the idea that Zion Williamson’s arrival – and the Next Gen version of NBA 2K21 – are a legend that has been prophesised. There are video games that have marketed themselves with blasphemy and other controversies, but it would seem extraordinarily out of character for NBA 2K to adopt that approach.
Nevertheless, a glance at the comments – especially the ones on GameSpot’s channel – suggests that some were offended. That video has a negative likes to dislikes ratio, though the upload on the official NBA 2K channel has a far more favourable 87% approval rating. Quite a few comments chided the game for its immorality, while declaring they wouldn’t buy it. It’s a little ironic that it took a trailer with questionable imagery and not greedy recurrent revenue mechanics or legacy issues to declare the game immoral and boycott it, but it does underscore how the tone of the teaser failed to connect with fans. Even those of us who weren’t offended thought it was bizarre.
I will say that although the mystic symbols and whatnot didn’t bother me and I wasn’t offended by the Zion Next Gen teaser trailer for NBA 2K21 as such, there were a couple of images that I found a little discomforting. Around the 8 or 9 second mark, there’s a shadowy figure with angel-like wings standing in the woods. Then, at the 24 second mark, there’s a hooded figure shrouded in shadow. It’s very dark and creepy, which if nothing else is an unsuitable vibe for a sim NBA title. What’s uncomfortable is that they seem like references to Kobe Bryant, who of course was killed earlier in the year in a tragic helicopter accident, and appeared on the special edition cover.
It could be a major coincidence and reading too much into it, but the fact that those images flash up at those particular timestamps – 8 and 24 – combined with a spooky, ethereal aesthetic, does lead one to infer that they’re referencing Kobe Bryant. As I said, I’m not personally offended by the NBA 2K21 Zion Next Gen teaser trailer, and I’m not trying to be oversensitive or make a big deal out of a non-issue. However, if those images were intended to reference Kobe, even as a respectful gesture, it’d be in questionable taste. At the very least, it doesn’t really fit the tone of an annual sports game, coming across as needlessly provocative and perhaps hoping for controversy.
As far as a boycott from offended gamers is concerned, I’m sure that some gamers felt strongly enough to abstain from buying NBA 2K21 Next Gen and/or Current Gen. My wry remark aside, it may well have been a final straw situation for some people, and if so, fair enough. We all have something that causes us to draw the line, and if the imagery of the NBA 2K21 Zion Next Gen teaser trailer offended you, then I’d say it’s a sign that 2K’s marketing department majorly erred in their tone and intended message. Suffice to say that it probably didn’t have the desired effect as even gamers who weren’t offended still seemed to think it was a strange and unfitting trailer.
For what it’s worth, it doesn’t appear as though the NBA 2K21 Zion Next Gen teaser trailer hurt sales at all. As of this writing, VGChartz estimates that NBA 2K21 has sold about eleven million copies across all platforms, and the actual total could be at least slightly higher than that. Throw in people who have Current Gen and Next Gen copies thanks to the Mamba Forever Edition’s free upgrade, as well as those who got a free PC copy when it was on offer in the Epic Store, and millions of people picked up NBA 2K21 this past year. Perhaps it’s true that all publicity is good publicity, or the people who were speaking out were unlikely to buy NBA 2K21 in the first place.
Again, I wasn’t offended by the trailer myself, though I did find the potential Kobe Bryant references to be a little iffy. I’d suggest that 2K would be better off avoiding a similar tack in their marketing in the future, for creative reasons as much as anything else. There are opportunities for them to think outside the box with their presentation and marketing, such as the introduction video for NBA 2K16. Like the professional Mr. Plow commercial that left Homer and the family bewildered, mystical runes and dark imagery don’t effectively promote the product in question. If I may make another Simpsons reference, it puts us in Krusty’s shoes, wondering “What the hell was that?”
At the same time, I understand wanting to take chances creatively and build intrigue. It obviously didn’t hurt the brand given the number of sales, and the outrage – such as it is – seems to be mostly confined to those YouTube comments. As Jim Sterling has pointed out in their videos, video game boycotts seldom work. Furthermore, in the grand scheme of things, charging for haircuts in NBA 2K18 was a much bigger controversy, and certainly the one that’s most indicative of a recurring problem in recent NBA 2K titles. The Zion teaser trailer also got people talking about NBA 2K21 Next Gen and is memorable in its weirdness, so in a way, mission accomplished.
Still, 2K would ultimately be better suited focusing on basketball, or at least aiming for less esoteric and out-there imagery, in their teasers for NBA 2K. It’s not a matter of them alienating people with unintended implications, though since they are aiming for a broad appeal, that’s arguably something they should keep in mind. Rather, it was a needlessly weird trailer with a bizarrely unfitting tone. It doesn’t exactly hype one up for a forthcoming basketball video game. Then again, a bunch of other comments were seemingly far more offended by the fact a player with only 19 games under their belt was set to appear on the cover. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I guess.
