What in the hell is Take-Two Interactive thinking? NBA 2k24 has had a whirlwind of headlines around it of late as 2k and Take-Two Interactive announced the game is getting a Season Pass for $10-$20!
How has sports gaming fallen so low?
2k and Take-Two Interactive are getting a ton of hate ever since they announced that NBA 2k24, this year’s edition of the famed basketball video game franchise, will be receiving TWO classes of a Season Pass on top of the already expensive opening-day prices. And, to be honest, Take-Two and 2k should be getting even MORE HATE than what they already have received.
Now, 2k has already been an extremely controversial series of late given the fact that the franchise has taken a sharp, noticeable, and more than unwanted turn towards microtransactions and extremely expensive release-day prices.
And this year’s upcoming game is no different as the game not only ranges from $70-$150 (yes, the 25th Anniversary Edition of the game costs $150!), but you now have to pay a 6-week payment of either $10 or $20 for the Gold and Hall of Fame Season Passes, respectively.
I’m sorry, 2k and Take-Two, but pricing the game at anywhere over the $156-$320 price range for people who buy the base game (whether it be the Standard $70 edition, $70 Kobe Bryant Edition, $100 Black Mamba edition, or the $150 25th Anniversary Edition) and either the Gold ($10/every 6-week interval of the 2k “season”) or the Hall of Fame ($20/every 6-week interval of the 2k “season) is predatory and completely against the interests of their own consumer base.
I understand that Take-Two, the parent company of 2k, is a business and needs to make profits off these game titles, but does it really take charging $70-$150/game to justify producing a basketball game that carries over 9-% of the features seen in last year’s edition? And the year before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, etc.
I hope you get the point.
And, to be honest, there’s no real point of even buying the Season Passes as only My Team and My Career points are on offer in these bundles, yet the fear I have (and many others) is that actual features of the games might be taken out and pushed into these abhorrent, fraudulent-like paywalls.
Still, in a feat completely unique to sports video games, the necessity for grand scale innovation and ingenuity for every new gaming title is really not demanded by us fans as it would be for other subsects of the gaming industry, such as first-person shooter games, action-adventure games, fantasy games, RPG games, strategy games, sci-fi games, etc., due to the fact that the central concept never needs to change.
(Take-Two Interactive/2k-NBA 2k24-Official Gameplay Trailer)
When you want to play a basketball game, you want to play a game that features the central tenants and aspects about the sport. You don’t want to play a basketball game that changes every single team in the NBA to an alternate version of itself, fills the roster with Looney Tunes characters (unless you’re REALLY into Space Jam), sets the game in space, and has all team’s fighting for the NHL’s Stanley Cup.
And vice versa for Madden games, FIFA (now EA Sports FC) games, NHL games, and MLB: The Show titles.
However, due to the completely RESTRICTED, MONOPOLISTIC, and, in my personal and humble opinion, UN-FREE MARKET concept and implementation of “exclusive titles”, all sports games are dominated by three major companies: EA Sports (the literal incarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge for video games), Take-Two Interactive/2k (I guess the Jacoby Marley to EA’s Scrooge), and Sony Interactive Entertainment (one-half of the Standard Oil incarnation in the gaming industry).
I’m not saying that companies can’t make exclusive titles for their own IPs or games they made in-house and sell on their own in-house consoles as that’s well within their right, yet sports games are NOT IPs of these gaming titans. The NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, FIFA, and European domestic football leagues are their own separate entities (who have played a large role in this monopoly too) with no affiliation with these gaming studios aside from the sports titles.
And, with Take-Two being greedy assholes, we’re seeing how this monopoly of sports titles is seriously hurting all consumers as these companies have no restrictions on these blatant price grabs and microtransactions pushes on their younger fanbases (most sports games users are kids).
I hope this backlash actually gets 2k to stop the implementation of the Season Passes, but I sadly don’t think it will.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Take-Two Interactive/2k) (NBA 2K24 | Official Gameplay Trailer – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Take-Two Interactive/2k) (NBA 2K24 | Official Gameplay Trailer – YouTube)
