NBA 2K18 had a lot of problems, the biggest being the fact it was riddled with microtransactions. I’ve been playing 2K19 all weekend and while some of the same issues persist at least there’s one difference: haircuts are now free, and the new barber is very aware of it.
Last year’s game turned a change of hairstyle—previously a free and easy part of character customisation—into an experience that wasn’t just charging the player virtual currency, but wouldn’t let them preview the look on their character, or even let them get the same haircut later without charging them all over again.
It was only one of a litany of cash-grabbing intrusions into what’s otherwise the best basketball game on the market, but it quickly became a flashpoint point for angry fans, who rightly saw it as a farcical piece of nickel-and-diming on the part of 2K.
This year’s game is still very geared towards microtransactions, sadly, and I’ll cover that more once I’ve played some more (early thoughts: they’re still offensively implemented, though not as bad as last year), but I did at least get a chuckle from this cutscene, which plays the first time you enter the neighbourhood barbershop.
That is about as clear a mea culpa as you’re ever going to get from a major video game publisher. To have it enshrined in the game itself, and not just relegated to Ronnie 2K’s Twitter or something, was a nice touch.
Now if we can just get the NBA Shop guy to apologise for charging so much for a pair of shorts, we’ll be good.
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10 responses to “NBA 2K Is Very Sorry About Charging Players For Haircuts”
“Sorry”
On a more serious note. They aren’t sorry. They are pretending to try and get gamers on their side because the tides are turning against lootboxes and exploitative microtransactions. You only need to look in Belgium where 2K pleaded with gamers to write to their representatives in government to plead to allow lootboxes in their games again. These publishers are worried about it spreading in Europe and then worldwide.
Did he just intro himself as A.I? >_
They are not sorry, they just figured the earnings from haircuts were not optimal and are developing a new strategy for 2k20 for the next idea to assault your wallet. Every AAA game that pushes mtx and loot boxes too far, pulls back the next game and then pushes harder the one after that.
I can’t wait to see their submissions to the Australian senate inquiry, since they shut down their Canberra studio and left the country.
Yeah no, I’m not buying it this year out of protest. I’m sick of the way we are manipulated for micro transactions.
As soon as I read MTs were offensively implemented again I resigned myself to no nba game this year. Which sux.
Even though it’s mostly all cosmetic, I feel ripped off undone have access to it.
2K: “Hahaha remember when we used to charge real money for haircuts? Good times, good times!”
Also 2K: “Hey gamers we need to you bully the Belgian government into letting us put gambling into our games”.
Never buy 2K games.
Have to I’m afraid. They own X-com
True. However I hope the XCOM dev team have more common sense when XCOM3 comes out, nickle and diming players isn’t cool, even if there is a bunch of morons out there that fall for it!
You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. 🙂
X-COM!!!!!
Just had a look at the costs for some of their micro-transactions and the cost of buying their virtual currency. The *only* good thing I’ll say about it is that for $5 you get 15,000 VC which translates to about 50c a haircut in real money. So it’s at least a small amount and not $10.
That said, holy crap the amount of micro-transactions in the game are horrendous. It literally looks like one of those horrible free-to-play phone games that people bitch about. But it’s a full price game. How the hell can they justify this sort of business model to their customers? And why are people willing to put up with that sort of shitty business model?
Because in general, people are idiots, and 2k know this. Their NOT sorry, they are only sorry that media attention has reduced sales… they’ll be back to it in no time, like when everyone forgets, which seems to be about 6-12months apparently…..