Take Two is once again under fire from its community of players. This time, the NBA 2K franchise is at the forefront of controversy following the launch of NBA 2K20 last week. At the center of the outrage appears to be the heavy microtransactions that have been added to the experience, with many players likening the game to a casino more than a basketball sim. Anger has also turned to 2K's Digital Marketing Director Ronnie Singh, someone who is usually very visible to the community in promotional items, streams, videos, and more.
Unfortunately, the community of NBA 2K20 players have turned on Ronnie and have actually gotten #FireRonnie2K trending on Twitter. While this isn't the fire time the community has been upset with Singh, this is the loudest it has been. The issues seem to stem from multiple places including a host of launch issues with online servers, corrupted save files, weird basketball glitches, and the previously mentioned heavy microtransactions.
Much of the community has targeted Singh for is role with company, though many have already pointed out that there have been more than a few times that something has been promised, but not delivered in the final game as expected. One example that has found its way online is about players being able to respec their created My Players as many times as they want, though once the game launched, players found out that in order to use a newly modified player build, it costs additional virtual currency to use the build in a new MyCareer. This is just one example of why the community is upset and feels like they were misled by Ronnie Singh.
The outrage against the game and Ronnie2K has even spilled to other places. Steam, Xbox Live, and other digital marketplaces have also been review bombed, overrun with negative scores and comments advising consumers to steer clear of the product. Many are saying that the game is basically a copy of last years game and PC players are even seeing NBA 2K19 on the computer task bar when alt-tab is used to minimize the screen.
As unfortunate as the situation is, this sort of behavior is becoming alarmingly commonplace for Take Two, who are also involved with a pair of games that have their own share of online and microtransaction difficulties lately: Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto 5. Red Dead Online famously angered its community by keeping most useful items locked behind Gold Bars, a scarce resource that pushed players to buy more with real money. Rockstar eventually made the system a bit more lenient, but it continues to add new microtransactions into the game, most recently with the Frontier Pursuits content and using Gold Bars to purchase new careers and a newly implemented Battle Pass.
On the other hand, Grand Theft Auto Online has stayed relatively under the radar, even following a lot of success selling Shark Cards to players. That changed a bit earlier this summer when the game's latest expansion called The Diamond Casino & Resort arrived. The newest content focuses heavily on gambling, letting players purchase chips to play in the many online gambling games like slot machines or blackjack. However, the content was either heavily modified or outright blocked in over 50 countries due to various gambling laws and restrictions. The problem was that Rockstar didn't communicate the changes or potential issues beforehand, letting players discover things when they logged in.
NBA 2K20Â is available now for iOS, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: Twitter
