Take Two CEO on Microtransactions

[Andrew]

I don't mind taking part in practice drills with the team in order to earn extra XP towards the all-important Badges, and levelling up in general. I like the idea of having mini-games to enhance player development, and I feel they help keep my stick skills sharp. However, it's a long, painful grind there as well. At least you can't buy your way to Badges, but the progression rate could stand to be a lot better.

Having to work out in the gym on the other hand is very annoying. It's technically optional, but if you want the helpful boost it gives, you need to do it, and you'll need to do a few exercises to get the boost to 100%. Furthermore, online games drain the boost as well, which means you have to interrupt a session to go back and work out to refill it. It should really only apply to offline games, both for balance and an uninterrupted session online.

[sticky-fingers]

In a way, 2K has already won the battle. Most users seem to have accepted VC system, but it was TOO deep in 2K18.

For me - you can check my previous wishlists - VC are simply unacceptable in an AAA game.

[Andrew]

phpBB [video]

The title is a little hyperbolic, and NBA 2K18 is actually the best-selling game in the series to date (or right up there among them). Other than that though, I'd say it's another on-point video from Cleanprincegaming.

[bongo88]

The community of NBA2K is obviously much larger than Battlefront II, although it is definitely true that there are a lot more casual players playing 2K compared to passionate Star Wars fans who are known for criticising a lot.

I guess that comparison isn't the best but it definitely shows what people can do to change a game, especially when criticism is more centralised.

I play a variety of game genres. Follow the newsfeeds of various games. There was a blog post from EA about Battlefront 2 changes link here.... that caused trepidation within the battlefront community. It made people a little upset (is leery/wary a better word??) and they cautiously waited for news about the game. Then the real outrage of battlefront 2 was immediate, like within days of launch.

https://old.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattle ... d/dppum98/ 668k downvotes (obviously, some might be bots, alternate accounts, just general EA Haters, etc etc). But the outlash was severe. this is just one thread/comment. there were hundreds of threads/comments. and those were the people who bothered to comment/thread about the state of the game.
This isn't the whole timeline, but i don't have much time today, unfortunately.

But, of course, community outlash does nothing unless people vote with their wallets.
Battlefront 1 sold 14 million copies: http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/05/10/ ... 14-million
Battlefront 2 sold 7 million copies: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018 ... tlefront-2
cant find a more recent article about battlefield 2 sales (battlefield 1 article dated May sales; battlefield 2 article is dated January sales) so not complete direct analysis about sales
The point being.... battlefront 2 lost perhaps 50% of possible returning customers ( or even more lost customers/sales using advance business projections, but that post would be too long).

14 million people bought battlefront 1, but only 7 million people bought battlefront 2. (again, not exact sales comparison due to timeframes.)

The community may not be extremely larger than nba2k, but the outlash was greater (50% or greater customers were unsatisfied).
It would take a huge community outrage to force Take Two to change nba2k basketball's future.

Anyways, the point of this comment is that for large companies like EA and Take Two, it requries a large proportion of the userbase to be upset with the game changes and not buy the product. Whether or not the NBA2k basketball customers have this proportional outrage will be seen with 2k19 and 2k20--if they decide not to buy the game.

Personally, i won't buy 2k19. i only buy basketball games every few years after seeing if the game has made improvements over the dev cycle.

[Dee4Three]

The community of NBA2K is obviously much larger than Battlefront II, although it is definitely true that there are a lot more casual players playing 2K compared to passionate Star Wars fans who are known for criticising a lot.

I guess that comparison isn't the best but it definitely shows what people can do to change a game, especially when criticism is more centralised.

I play a variety of game genres. Follow the newsfeeds of various games. There was a blog post from EA about Battlefront 2 changes link here.... that caused trepidation within the battlefront community. It made people a little upset (is leery/wary a better word??) and they cautiously waited for news about the game. Then the real outrage of battlefront 2 was immediate, like within days of launch.

https://old.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattle ... d/dppum98/ 668k downvotes (obviously, some might be bots, alternate accounts, just general EA Haters, etc etc). But the outlash was severe. this is just one thread/comment. there were hundreds of threads/comments. and those were the people who bothered to comment/thread about the state of the game.
This isn't the whole timeline, but i don't have much time today, unfortunately.

But, of course, community outlash does nothing unless people vote with their wallets.
Battlefront 1 sold 14 million copies: http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/05/10/ ... 14-million
Battlefront 2 sold 7 million copies: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018 ... tlefront-2
cant find a more recent article about battlefield 2 sales (battlefield 1 article dated May sales; battlefield 2 article is dated January sales) so not complete direct analysis about sales
The point being.... battlefront 2 lost perhaps 50% of possible returning customers ( or even more lost customers/sales using advance business projections, but that post would be too long).

14 million people bought battlefront 1, but only 7 million people bought battlefront 2. (again, not exact sales comparison due to timeframes.)

The community may not be extremely larger than nba2k, but the outlash was greater (50% or greater customers were unsatisfied).
It would take a huge community outrage to force Take Two to change nba2k basketball's future.

Anyways, the point of this comment is that for large companies like EA and Take Two, it requries a large proportion of the userbase to be upset with the game changes and not buy the product. Whether or not the NBA2k basketball customers have this proportional outrage will be seen with 2k19 and 2k20--if they decide not to buy the game.

Personally, i won't buy 2k19. i only buy basketball games every few years after seeing if the game has made improvements over the dev cycle.

Well this is obvious, of course if sales take a dramatic downturn (like you mentioned, cut in half) the company will be forced to react. We are outraged here (Many of us, anyway) but as peace mentioned, the number of casual players playing 2K is the majority (By a large margin). And while the game gets pummeled on Steam, that's a super small sample and as you stated - It's not making a big enough impact on the overall bottom line.

My thought is: As long as 2K is the cool thing to play, and a "must-have" in social circles, the game would need to be so bad that it's unplayable in order for the sales to take a huge dive. Or, it will take a major slip up, like the idea sticky-fingers mentioned above about monthly subscription, in order to make the sales tumble. If they implemented something like that, while Live or another company stuck with the original game price and own for life, that would could cause the major downturn. I wouldn't be surprised if the company has already talked about that as an idea.

The only other way the sales take a huge downturn, is if Live 19 makes a little bit more noise, and Live 20 comes to use with frostbite. In my opinion, Live is on the upward trajectory (Which is great!), but obviously they are still a couple/few years out, and 2K needs to keep slipping up.

[sticky-fingers]

Konami's PES was really the king during PS1 and PS2 era, and everyone was joking about EA Fifa arcade style.

Then on PS3 and XB360, FIFA appears to be better, most of the soccer community drop PES.
for about 10 years EA dominates Konami. PES seems to came back only since 1 year.

So it can change very quickly, especially with 2K's mentality.

[[Q]]

BF2 isn't the best example to look at because they suspended the loot boxes long enough for people to forget about it and then brought them back. Also, they still sold a ton of games. It's not like they went broke over that game. But I understand what you are trying to say.

[PeacemanNOT]

BF2 isn't the best example to look at because they suspended the loot boxes long enough for people to forget about it and then brought them back. Also, they still sold a ton of games. It's not like they went broke over that game. But I understand what you are trying to say.

That's not true at all. I play Battlefront II and loot boxes/pay to win microtransactions have been removed completely. The only form of microtransaction is in cosmetics, and you can only get loot boxes by doing challenges in game by playing the game.

I don't know where you got that idea from but I'm going to guess it was the articles that came out. Fake news at it's finest I guess lol

[[Q]]

Ah, gotcha when they brought it back it was only cosmetic items. I didn't know that

[JWL3]

You guys all know me. I’m 42 years old. Have played b-ball vid games since Lakers v Celtics (1989) on the PC. I loved 2K for stepping in when EA gave up on the PC. But the hacking and cheating on PC killed NBA 2k for me, to the point where I bought an entire Xbox just to play the game cheat free last year. Well, guess what, the cheating was solved, but the VC cash grab killed it for me. It was absolutely brutal working my player up to 90 without buying Vc. I was spending hours in a damned virtual gym doing repetitive bs when I should have been going to an actual gym. I was waking up exhausted for work from staying up until 3am the previous night grinding and not having fun. I was short with the wife and kids because of this game.


This is the year that it’s time to put away childish things. I’m done with 2k b-ball. It is not going to be any different and, as principal, I want to make my point with my money. I’m just one guy but I know a lot of people feel the same way. Good riddance.

[JWL3]

That's the thing, though. The success of NBA 2K18, in sales and recurrent revenue, suggests that they can. As vocal as the backlash was, the dollars spoke louder.

You are absolutely 1000% correct Andrew. Their thoughts are “you can hate us all the way to the bank. It worked. “

[[Q]]

You guys all know me. I’m 42 years old. Have played b-ball vid games since Lakers v Celtics (1989) on the PC. I loved 2K for stepping in when EA gave up on the PC. But the hacking and cheating on PC killed NBA 2k for me, to the point where I bought an entire Xbox just to play the game cheat free last year. Well, guess what, the cheating was solved, but the VC cash grab killed it for me. It was absolutely brutal working my player up to 90 without buying Vc. I was spending hours in a damned virtual gym doing repetitive bs when I should have been going to an actual gym. I was waking up exhausted for work from staying up until 3am the previous night grinding and not having fun. I was short with the wife and kids because of this game.


This is the year that it’s time to put away childish things. I’m done with 2k b-ball. It is not going to be any different and, as principal, I want to make my point with my money. I’m just one guy but I know a lot of people feel the same way. Good riddance.

I get you. I am an adult with real world problems. I got 2 jobs, I don't need a third

[Andrew]

And that's what it comes down to. As I said on the latest episode of our Podcast, it's not as though people want to hit 99 Overall in the first week of playing the game. That would be a letdown, not nearly enough of an engaging experience. No one - or very few people to say the least - wants the journey to be that short, and the game that easy. However, if it's a matter of choosing between working and grinding ridiculously hard to get to a point where the game is enjoyable, or paying extra money to avoid that, then that's not offering a quality experience.

The grind is something that's aimed at younger gamers who have the time and patience to go through with it, whereas the microtransactions are arguably aimed at older gamers who have the disposable income to skip all that if they prefer. Of course, that's still a cash grab, and younger gamers are going to spend money as well (or their parents' money, as the case may be), so it's hardly pro-consumer whichever way you look at it. Microtransactions are inevitable these days, and as long as the game isn't aggressive about them and they don't intrude on the general experience, they're tolerable at least. Last year, 2K really pressed their luck with it, and the experience suffered. Of course, a lot of people still shelled out money, so it wasn't an unsuccessful strategy. They did lose some face, however.

I think that's a wise decision to make, skipping the game when you're fed up and done with all that. As you noted, it may be a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things, but the important thing is saving yourself the frustration (and money). It's the reason that I pretty much stopped playing NBA 2K18 a few months back. I wasn't enjoying it as I did NBA 2K17, I'd played it enough to form an opinion and compile feedback to send along via the people I know at Visual Concepts, so there was no need to keep playing an entry in the series that wasn't resonating positively with me.

[ThePointForward]

As I always said... If you make an option to skip content in your game the content probably wasn't too good in the first place. Which applies to grinding to hell - you have to make content bloody amazing to make heavy grinding acceptable and many games fail on that count.

Now for 2K19 I'll try the Prelude although I do not expect it to have full on NBA gameplay like the Live 19 demo (which is big shame). I can then wait for reviews to see if I even want to get it early in the cycle because there is literally no incentive to pre-order or buy day 1 anyway.
If it's the same grindfest as 2K18 I might as well just wait until April or whatever when NBA 2K typically goes with Humble Monthly to try the game.


I've also seen some sentiments on "but not buying the game will make difference"... It's the same damn thing as with elections. People are not voting for smaller parties because they have the mentality of their vote going for nothing. If people get rid of this and actually vote for the third party or in this case with their wallet, you might be surprised how many of those "few" people there are.

[Andrew]

On a related note, this week's Monday Tip-Off is about how I feel burned out on career modes, in part due to aspects such as stories, grinding, and starting over each year: https://www.nba-live.com/mto-career-modes-burnout/

[JWL3]

And that's what it comes down to. As I said on the latest episode of our Podcast, it's not as though people want to hit 99 Overall in the first week of playing the game. That would be a letdown, not nearly enough of an engaging experience. No one - or very few people to say the least - wants the journey to be that short, and the game that easy.

Yep, almost every game today involves some sort of a power-up concept where you unlock abilities and skills, to the point where at the end, you are near invincible. Except that for most games, that works fine because the enemies or challenges at the beginning are toned down so that it is playable and you do not need these invincible powers to play well. You’re still enjoying the adventure and earning skill and xp points while actually playing the game, not going in the forest/gym to chop trees/lift fake weights. And you are also not facing multiplayer users who are already 5x better than you stat wise. Add to this frustration the fact that 2k is a yearly title and that just when you get to a comfort zone by August, you start all over again, and it is all the reason I need to quit.

[Andrew]

It's a situation that needs to be remedied, at least in terms of providing an enjoyable experience that isn't painful to start over each and every year. Obviously, the current model isn't hurting sales and results in significant recurrent revenue, but it could be providing a much better experience for loyal gamers.

[PlatinumPlus]

https://www.vg247.com/2018/08/27/nba-2k ... therlands/

[Andrew]

We talked about that in the latest episode of our podcast. It'll be interesting to see if further legislation is made, and how it's going to affect those practices as a whole.

[Hadley88]

Lets hope Germany or the whole EU follows.

[Andrew]

Jim Sterling sums it up once again.

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[sticky-fingers]

A new article on PC Gamer : https://www.pcgamer.com/microtransactio ... g-says-2k/

[Andrew]

As many people have pointed out though, 2K themselves are in control of the grind, which allows them to test our patience and make microtransactions more appealing/seemingly the only way to go if we want to have a decent experience. This approach of trying to paint themselves as innocent and victims of circumstance may fool the most myopic fanboys, but I think a majority of people see through it. Whether it leads to a boycott or anything is another matter entirely, but as far as PR moves are concerned, I don't think they're doing themselves any favours.

I think it's one of those situations where saying this stuff only digs a deeper hole.

[JEDL]

Somehow I believe 2K will come out of this relatively unharmed unfortunately. I mean, it didn't stop them from profiting off of 2K18 despite the negative feedback.

[Andrew]

In the end, I don't think it'll really affect their success. I think their image continues to take quite a hit, though.