Wow: Company Accused of Using the Memory of Kobe Bryant to Keep Gamers Engaged
It shouldn’t be this hard to run an inherently predatory video game mode.
If you haven’t played a sports video game in the last dozen or so years, you’ve thankfully missed the rise of card collection modes that have become a pillar of any modern sports game.
These modes will generally have you build your team via player cards obtained from opening digital “packs.”
Want to have Joe Montana throw to Travis Kelce? Want to have Luka Doncic throwing alley-oops to Michael Jordan? Want to have Wayne Gretzky and Sidney Crosby fly around the ice as teammates? It’s all possible in these card collection modes.
It’s easy to see the allure of these modes as a sports fan.
The issue, however, is that if you want a Montana, Kelce, Doncic, Jordan, Gretzky or Crosby on your squad, you’re going to have to effectively gamble to acquire them, more often than not.
Just like the real-life counterpart it’s inspired by, you have to buy digital packs — with real money being the easiest way to buy them — and hope that you pull one of those coveted player cards.
As an example of how predatory this can be, in NBA 2k’s MyTeam mode, there’s typically a less than one percent chance of pulling the best possible card in a given pack.
And to offer an idea how quickly this pricey practice can add up, in NBA 2k24, it’s currently $49.99 to buy 200,000 Virtual Currency in MyTeam. 200,000 VC will get you 20 of their premium card packs. Twenty stabs at less-than one percent odds is not particularly favorable for the consumer, especially at 50 bucks a pop.
And yet, the mode’s popularity across all sports (“Madden Ultimate Team” mode is a key staple of the omnipresent NFL video game) has persisted, despite the predatory practices getting worse with each passing year.
Things may have finally reached a tipping point, in at least one game’s card collection mode.
The aforementioned NBA 2k franchise is in hot water after it seemingly reneged, last-second, on a promised Kobe Bryant card for players that was due in April.
In a blog post leading to NBA 2k24’s release, the company offered a mysterious Bryant card as an award for hitting a certain “collector level.” You achieve those collector levels by acquiring a ton of those aforementioned cards — including the sub-one-percent cards.
“Collector level rewards have always been important in MyTEAM, and last year the rewards came as surprises with a hidden end goal,” the blog post reads. “So let’s look forward a few months and reveal that Kobe Bryant will be the top reward in the Collector Level, and this reward will be available in April, during Season 6.”
In a late Tuesday post (which would be the last possible day to hit that aforementioned April deadline) on the NBA 2k Community Discord, as reported on by Forbes, the company offered a sudden change to the previously promised Bryant card:
“2K strives to deliver the very best NBA 2K24 MyTEAM experience to the community. Please note that a change to a reward has occurred. Players who achieve a top Collector Level will now receive an Option Pack for two picks out of ten previously released 100 OVR Cards. We appreciate that players have dedicated time and effort throughout the year to achieve this reward and 2K is committed to ensuring players continue to earn valuable content as their reward.”
Fans are furious with this bait-and-switch, as Forbes, Game Informer, and The Mirror have all documented.
Forbes’ Paul Tassi actually expressed incredulity at how badly 2k botched the language of this sudden and unexplained change:
do you know how nuts something has to be for me to write about a sports game? 2K promised Kobe as a reward for players in April, and with literal hours to go they switched and said they were pulling him without saying why. Players are livid
— Paul Tassi (@PaulTassi) May 1, 2024
Some of the game’s online content creators are vocally expressing their collective discontent with the mode. Some even went so far as to swear off the game altogether.
I don’t care about all of the pre-launch promo we’re going to see for 25
Unless the blog starts with “The auction house is back” (it won’t) I will not be hyping anything before launch!
It’s going to take a LOT for 2k to earn any trust back and I can’t see it happening
— DBG (@DBGyt_) May 2, 2024
Terrence Ross is a real one 💯
2K you have NBA players who don’t even wanna play the mode anymore.
Time for a change https://t.co/K2a4pyxkQe
— lethal2K (@LethalPasquale) May 2, 2024
As The Mirror documented, some fans online have went so far as to accuse the NBA 2k developers of “using” the memory of Kobe Bryant (who passed away in 2020) as a dangling carrot for players to continue the lengthy — and costly — grind of acquiring all those player cards.
In a statement to The Washington Post’s Herb Scribner, 2k has declined to comment on the controversy.
According to Forbes, due to NBA 2k24’s terms of service, any legal recourse is unlikely.
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