 Hey, I'm chilling right? Do my thing. I hop on Twitter and the impossible happens. I ain't think I ever see the day. Ladies and gentlemen, NBA 2K just apologized. We all have that one friend of mine is named Lee that doesn't know how to say he did something wrong. And especially in the business world, it's almost like you're not even supposed to. Like NBA Live only apologized about how bad NBA Live 14 was when 15 was about to come out because that was their selling point on apology. So that's the kind of people we're dealing with right now. Unbeknownst to me, I've been caught off guard when the situation I didn't even think was that big 2K just apologized for. Let me fill you in. Hey, so if you haven't been paying attention, 2K caught a lot of flak from industry media for including unskippable ads in their 2K TV episode that started before the games, right? And the important part here is unskippable. The fact that they would add that into a game that already exists $60 is mind blowing. But if you've been playing 2K, that's not nothing new to you because you could hop into the neighborhood where that's also an unskippable ad. Why do you think they don't add draw distance settings or an ability to just blur out the background when you're playing on the park? It's because people pay to be on those billboards. And so if those were blurred out, then that'd be a lot less impressions, a lot less sales. We haven't forgotten about NBA 2K18 and how they just stuffed in all those Reese's ads in the cutscenes and they wouldn't let you skip them regardless of how many times you played it. And remember that year, everybody was furious about the fact that we had to sit through a micro we already played because we made another character just so we could see more ads. That's crazy. Every one thing if 2K was free to play, but the fact that it's a $60 game is the reason why people were getting furious. And in NBA 2K18, we saw them take steps backwards and give people the ability to skip cutscenes after the first time they play a micro to the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth. They don't have to watch them no more. Same thing happened with haircuts in 2K18. We got like a mini apology about that, like a my bad, we got a my bad about the haircut prices. But this is like a real, like they put out a whole statement. They say 2K community as many are aware in recent years ads have been integrated into 2KTV segments. Yesterday's 2KTV ad placement impacted our players experience in a way we didn't intend, as these ads are not meant to run as part of the pregame introduction. This will be fixed in future episodes. Thank you for your continued feedback. So after you just heard me say what I said and then you read what 2K just said, you be like agent, the stuff you talked about about the billboards and the stuff that happened in 2K18 was way worse than 2KTV ad placements before you play a game. So I got to thinking, why did 2K apologize for this of all things? I'm curious. Keep in mind, remember who's talking here. I'm a guy who spent thousands of dollars on cameos so celebrities can say things to 2K that I wanted in the game because they don't listen to me or other content creators that listen to a celebrity though. But that didn't work. Man, I got Kareem to ask for some stuff. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I mean, if Kareem don't work, then I don't know what will. But it seems like today on this very fine afternoon evening, night, morning, whenever you're watching this, I got my answer. Industry. Guys, industry would solve the problem. You guys had to think about how this gaming ecosystem works. For me to get invited to like, for example, let's say I want to go to E3 and I want to get invited, it's hard to do that on your own. To be able to do that, you have to reach out to an agent who's more industry, right? But more than likely, you probably have a connection to a brand. And so the one time I went to E3 where I did get an invite to the Sony press conference was through a company called World Gaming that's owned by Cineplex. Industry. It seems like to be connected in the business world, you have to know people in the industry. And so regardless of how much outrage there was in 2K18 about haircut prices or a beef fresh and unscapable Reese's cut scenes, regardless of all of that stuff, the fact that it was coming from gamers or online content creators meant that it just carried less weight. That's what I'm coming to realize. Mike Wang even said the reason that there's six eight point guards in 2K right now is because Damien Lillard asked for it. And so that's a celebrity right there. But the most effective way to get something done is to have Polygon drop an article about it. So think about how this goes. The only reason all of this stuff got attention is because a few people fought something and then it wasn't those thoughts that created nothing. It was the articles that dropped as a result of those thoughts. So the first article I seen was from Polygon and the title was unscapable advertising returns to NBA 2K fans angry. And it just talks about what we just talked about. They actually even have an in game example. I kind of want to see it. So this is the ad that they're referring to. And I've seen this ad on Twitch before. So 2K is really just using their pregame as an opportunity to sell things. Hey, to me, this is not even remotely the worst thing 2K has done in the last six months alone. So for this to be the thing they apologize for catches me off guard. There was another article that dropped from another industry website, Eurogamer 2K under fire for adding unscapable in game ads to the full price NBA 2K 21 one month after release. I could tell just based on the title they was talking. 2K pulled a similar trick with last year's game, a move that was similarly criticized by fans. So that's why I can't take this apology seriously because if you've been paying attention, they did it last year. And last year, the only reason it was brought attention to it was because of a Reddit post saying unscapable ads in a $60 game 2K and has 15,000 upvotes. Ladies and gentlemen, look at the date of this article, October 28, 2019, and it's people complaining about the same thing. So they did it last year. People didn't like it and they removed it and they did it again this year, had the same result and was like, sorry, it had, and I quote, unintended consequences. How, how, how could you? That's what the f***. That'd be like if I shot you in the knee and you died and I was like, that was an unintended consequence. But we knew it was going to be very painful regardless of whether or not the result was death because I've shot you in the knee before and you were screaming in agony. So I don't, I refuse to believe that this is a real situation. I've been to a few NBA 2K community day events before and you know what's crazy is when you go to those events as a content creator, you almost expect the whole event to be other content creators, but it's not. It was like a quarter of content creators, a quarter was like Instagram models that really had no business there. They were just bored and wanted Instagram photos. And then the last group of people was 50% industry. And you know who those people were just based on how they dress. Hey, how you doing? What do you do? Oh, I work for this company. We do blogs or we do videos or we write articles or we do game reviews. That is like a huge focus for a lot of like these gaming companies. They want to be on the good side so that polygon isn't talking, Eurogamer isn't talking. 2K does not care if I criticize them. It really does not matter to them. If I have great feedback and it helped improve the game and a dev side, then they'll pass it along. That's how it works. But if I say something bad about the game, they're like, that's agent's opinion. We don't really care about agent's opinion, but they care about Eurogamers. That's what I'm trying to say right now. They care about Eurogamer and Polygon's opinion, which is the real question you want to ask then is why? Because if I'm 2K and I wanted to get the information out about a dope feature they want to add to next gen 2K21, I hit up like Chris Moog is going to guarantee to get anywhere from 300,000 to a million views on the video. Everybody watches and trusts Chris Moog or any content creator in this space as trusted as him and you know it's going to bang and it's in a video that it's easily digestible. Text and blogs are not easily digestible. The world has been moving away from this and I don't know the exact numbers on these websites, but I can't imagine they're more than Troydan. I just can't. There's just no way. But Troydan's opinion really doesn't matter neither. So I mean I'm not saying that content creators should get like million influence points. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just perplexed as to why this warranted an apology. Well if that's the case, Polygon needs to drop a video about micro transactions tomorrow because we just got used to it, but it's still wild. The fact that I dropped $60 on the game and then $50 for every additional player and then on top of that God forbid you play my team and every time they drop a new box you got to spend a 20 or 30 on that. 2K is a business you know what I'm saying and the reality about the gaming industry is that it's very very competitive and it's very very high risk. So the benefit about 2K is 2K is one of the lowest risk games out there. You know what I'm saying when you make a new IP like Horizon Zero Dawn and you're Sony the publisher you don't know if it's gonna flop. You have no clue whether or not you're gonna get your investment on this, but when you make the 21st edition of a basketball game that's selling more and more every year that's the safest bet you could imaginably make. So the bets that they do take risks on is stuff like this. These are the risks that they take because they know it's gonna sell and it's gonna keep selling. But how do we get more on micro transactions? If you look at if you just go into their financial reports that they have to drop publicly because they're a publicly traded company you'll quickly realize they like to brag a lot about the sales that they make on micro transactions. It's a big part of why 2K was valued so high and why if it begins to stagnate and they don't find new ways to get micro transactions from people regardless of how egregious it is that their stock price is gonna drop. This is take two stock price and if we look also carefully around like 2008-2009 the company was actually about to go bankrupt. So with this coming from a game or I understand why games I mean publishers have to make money telltale games incredibly talented developers they made The Walking Dead series a whole bunch of games fantastic unfortunately out of business they couldn't find a way to monetize what they had. Take two made a change and the reason their stock price began to skyrocket is because they just found creative ways to make money outside of the initial $60 game. It's something EA has been doing for a while too but they don't see video games as like a product no more they see it as a service. PlayStation made that change when they started charging people for PlayStation plus if they wanted to play online with their friends and back in the PlayStation 3 days remember they didn't used to do that but they need that recurring income because first of all people don't cancel recurring payments some of y'all is paying for Netflix subscriptions that you haven't used in six months or gym memberships that you haven't used in two years. So these companies are smart if they want to see this continue to rise they have to find new ways this is 2k's attempt to find new ways and push the envelope to a certain extent I understand when 2k does like micro transactions is it a lot with my team yes $50 for every player is that way too much shouldn't be way lower yes because they're also making it off of like the store in the game like the aesthetic stuff that really doesn't play into the game that doesn't make the game anymore play to win than it already is but at the same time there should be limits to it if you monetizing a part of the game interferes with my ability to enjoy it then you need to stop because the whole point of your product or you want to consider a service now is to enjoy it 2k and right now 2k the fact that I can't just minimize the background so I have a higher performance so the frames aren't dropping and it's not skipping and lagging in the playground is affecting my performance so that's why it frustrates me and to me that's way more egregious the fact that there is a solve there is a fix to an ongoing performance issue in the playground is one we've all experienced over the past however long you've been playing 2k but that doesn't get fixed that doesn't get addressed that doesn't even warrant like the fact that they know it's a problem we don't even think it's an issue right now but having to add before you play the game is an issue because polygons said so so what I'm starting to realize is that these companies these industry companies these guys that are plugged out of their minds think about it for a moment they have so much influence over the way that game developers make games for example let me show you guys something I'm a huge you know I'm saying PlayStation guy I've been playing PlayStation since I was a little boy when I was four years old and I had a PlayStation one now I do this content creating stuff I have a good audience here it shouldn't be hard for me to reach out to PlayStation and get like an early copy it shouldn't be hard for me to reach out to Microsoft but it is hard you know I'm gonna get a copy of one of these consoles early guys it's gonna have to be from a company that I actively work with you know I'm saying I work with the wrappers uprising NBA 2k league they might have some copies and I know for a fact they're gonna be plugged up so it's almost like even if you're in like the content creating world or you have it doesn't matter what kind of influence you have anywhere on the planet if you don't have industry connects or like if you're not an industry person then it really doesn't matter what you have to say if a reddit post that has 15,000 upvotes wasn't enough to get an apology but Polygon's article was what are we talking about right now it's so unprecedented for 2k to actually drop a statement apologizing that is so unprecedented in the last time I remember seeing it happen was in 2k 18 with the haircut stuff I think jerry smith put out a tweet asking why the haircut price was so crazy and then people started to pick it up and I bet articles would drop hold on let me find out of course of course I don't like it I don't even these are just they're not predictions no more I just be knowing if you look carefully kataku dropped the article another video game I don't know what you consider these guys a publisher they do reviews and news and stuff NBA 2k is very sorry about charging players for their haircuts so we just have to have industry get involved when we need something change you know what I'm saying so this is a message to industry out there you talk to 2k about adding proximity chat I guarantee you is going to be a simple thing to add and it will drastically change how the game is played in infinitely more fun ways can we start taking a like a hard look on why it's impossible for 2k to fix their performance issues in their online game modes because the game be feeling smooth when you play offline you hop online boom different story can we talk about how we don't have like many more level design like when we play 3v3 prime I need to be able to play in Venice and then a Philly Park in the in the city and then a New York rooftop and then Beijing like it needs to be everywhere guys and the last thing I want to say is I already knew this to be the fact but I didn't really understand to which degree if you guys remember and you've been part of this you've been following 2k for years now there was years up until recently where 2k instead of releasing their own news like they're doing on their website now or on their Facebook they'll give it to Forbes and an article will drop on Forbes with all the news and they'll get like the exclusive first upload about some real dramatic news about the game think about how crazy that is for a moment instead of uploading it to their own website or giving it to like who's the biggest content creator in 2k space Troy Dan probably giving it to Troy Dan Troy Dan make a video or one of the most trusted people Chris move give it to Chris move they gave it to Forbes because they knew that's what people were watching or I don't know if that's I don't know what the analytics are behind those I don't know what the views are on those articles all I do know is 2k really really cares about their opinion so I think that's fascinating uh I just been I've been thinking about it ever since I've seen the apology a few hours ago hey I'm curious what y'all think about the situation drop your opinion I really asked but I'm genuinely curious in the comments down below if y'all new to the channel and you haven't already be sure to subscribe uh we drop these videos whenever I feel like it at this point hey I'm saying so don't miss out I'm gonna catch you guys in the next one I'm out peace