 I feel like a lot of people don't really understand what it's like to be a sports gaming fan. People that aren't in the space just don't even know the space exists and those in the space usually don't really try much of anything else. Does that make sense? But man, is it tough to be an NBA 2K fan? There's been the years like 2K16, 2K19 where while I was in it I knew like bro this game was incredible. And then they followed up with like just a straight up turd. One of the most frustrating parts about playing the game of NBA 2K is that even when changes are made, few and far between, we don't know what those changes ever are. This actually started back in NBA 2K17. So if y'all are back in the community early NBA 2K17, y'all remember, they introduced a lot of new gameplay related features. There was the grand badge in the game. The gameplay felt entirely different than NBA 2K16 did and so everyone spent the first couple weeks of the game just learning what was. And as people learned the game, just like I did, we found things that were very overpowered. For example, if you used the right stick to shoot the boost they gave you for shooting correctly with the right stick was insane. So what I do man, I made a video teaching people how to break down the economics of shooting NBA 2K17. A lot of that stuff got patched. But what began then and what I'm realizing now is the common theme is 2K just stopped communicating. So what would happen was they would make some changes to the gameplay, they would take some animations out or nerf something specifically, but they wouldn't ever reference it in the patch notes. There was a period in NBA 2K history, I believe it was like in 2K18 where they just didn't even bother dropping patch notes. They gave you an update that was 20 gigabytes on your PlayStation, but they didn't tell you what was in it. And even once they started telling you what was in it, it was all generic things like gameplay improvements or performance updates and it would be like generic stuff they would never specify. I remember a few years ago, there was one moment where there was a patch made and then usually there's like different sections to the patches and updates in NBA 2K, right? There's the gameplay section, then there's the park section, and there's the my GMI League section. In the overall section one time, they left in the patch notes saying that they patched Michael Jordan's tongue to make it more lifelike. And after that moment, the community lit them up. Like why are we focusing on Michael Jordan's tongue? I swear bro, ever since that day, 2K has stopped being specific in the patch notes. It's like they gave up in their mind and it was like it wasn't worth just communicating because even when we did, people just trolled about it. So then 2K just stopped. They gave up trying to communicate, but in 2K19, things changed again. If y'all remember, 2K19 was a very interesting year in the whole life cycle of NBA 2K. I don't know what happened between like late 2K18 and throughout 2K19 update after sliders. They were playing discotech with the sliders left and right. Some changes were being made. And every time Mike Wang was on Twitter letting you know like we just tuned back contested shots for players over seven foot like a day sliders are being changed basically every third day. It was a it was a miserable disaster trying to get balance in NBA 2K19 and they never actually ever figured it out as great as NBA 2K19 wasn't as fun as the gameplay was. And was it good? They never figured out how to balance shot contests. I sat there, if y'all remember in 2K19, I literally dropped my first documentary walking through a blizzard in Toronto just explaining some of the flaws in the game and how just a few minuscule changes were made. It could be one of the greatest if not the greatest 2K of all time. I was correct. But what Mike Wang and the developers realized in the NBA 2K19 year was they didn't want to make too many changes to the game. Like they wanted the game to drop correct and so that the few tweaks they did have to be made those were 100% to be necessary. They didn't want to just do disco tech for the sake of making changes for the sake of changing the sliders. They wanted each change to be intentional. And as that happened like there were like six months at a time or we just wouldn't hear anything from developer because there weren't that many changes being made to the game. If there was a patch to be made it likely happened within the first two to three months of the game's launch but aside from that it was just aesthetic updates and roster updates that was it. When I get it like a majority of the community was pretty frustrated that like every time they booted up the game it played differently like your player was hitting every shot one day they were hitting whites the next day missing everything the next day and it was just a disaster to get used to. It was difficult to develop any kind of real consistency and everyone was telling 2K damn just get it right. But the reality is the community is split like one side of the community was telling them to buff this dribble move and the other one was telling them to take it out the game it was impossible to listen to everybody without frustrating somebody. I kind of understand it to a certain extent even with like the videos we drop on A&P like after missing enough Mondays it's like do we even have to update y'all we missed another Monday y'all just can get frustrated another Monday was missed and it's like I get it developing is complicated there's probably plenty of good reasons for why there are errors in the game they're just never ever communicated to us and I want to show you guys something very very interesting. I play plenty of other different games between Rainbow Six and Valorant and Apex Legends and Warzone like I have a pretty diverse amount of games that I like to play I notice as I say that I just named a whole bunch of shooters trust me guys real diverse guy over here I want y'all to take a look at the patch notes Ubisoft dropped last month for an update they made to their game the update lets you know all the different sizes for all the different platforms that the game is available on it lets you know specific changes made to specific operators within the game reduced to 416C magazine capacity to 25 plus one from 30 plus one they get really specific and they don't leave any details out every operator from Tachanka to Yeager to Jackal to Thermite is mentioned once they're done mentioning the specific operator type updates they talk about tweaks and improvements between the game balancing player comfort game health bug fixes level design operators user experience I want to give you guys another example just a game I've been playing the most in the last year I am in love with it shout out to Riot Games you have made a true masterpiece of a video game Valorant patch notes for 2.09 just take a look real quick between the agent updates they give you map updates they drop the new map competitive updates game system updates social updates updates to bugs game system updates weapon updates this it keeps going there is no detail left out because they realize you're down you're spending your time downloading something and you should know everything that is in the download that you're about to download that seems like a simple concept in and of itself and then compare that to the patch notes we've been recently getting from NBA 2k 21 there's the general updates where they say new seasonal decorations in the 2k beach they don't tell you what kind where what you could expect is their optimization issues you might need to look out for another set of player likeness improvements for current NBA players don't bother specifying which players saw those improvements keep an eye out for new events coming to the 2k beach can you be any more vague so to be fair like they do make some effort here is not like they dur as vague as possible but it's like Jesus do you see the difference in the sad realities is Valorant is a free game guys a free game is seeing this level of detail and commitment from developers so when a game like 2k drops for full price you think to yourself why aren't we seeing that same level of commitment from 2k is as if they've pulled back and they feel like there's no value in just properly communicating what's going on with the game one month into the launch of NBA 2k 21 next gen everyone went ghost we didn't hear a tweet from a developer there was no updates letting us know what was going on all we knew was the game was in a horrible state it was barely playable I would argue it was completely unplayable especially on the neighborhood the least you could do is let us know what's going on but here's and this is the kicker the whole point of the video is a lot of the time when you're being incompetent it makes it impossible for you to communicate the reality is is the previous patch notes I was showing you from those other games those developers actually care they put in some serious effort into the video games and it shows when you actually play NBA 2k 21 felt like a throwaway so if 2k is not trying with the product or it's clear that their priorities are just to make money it's difficult to just be specific with it because most of the updates they're making have nothing to do with actually improving the game it only has to do with making more money and I know I know what some people are gonna think like the reality is if you look back at the original tweets when fortnight launched and gained all its popularity it was receiving nothing but love from the people that played the game all the people just flooding over and join themselves playing this brand new battle royale that blew up this already massive genre but if you look at the fortnight replies on Twitter now it's a lot of people criticizing the game for changes that they've made the reality is when something is new people kind of overlook it it's almost as if the gamers have a honeymoon phase where even if there's something wrong with the game you don't mind not seeing it for what it is because you're having fun with this brand new toy of yours on this new video game 2k is seasoned man most of us like we've been here for a minute now I don't know how long you've been here but it's been a minute for me so any honeymoon phase you had you probably passed by now and when the game is being treated as poorly as NBA 2k 21 next gen has is difficult to not be frustrated with the result and when 2k is combining your frustration with their not willing to even try is what it feels like if you play the city you you're looking at NBA 2k 21 next-gen like they barely made an attempt and you could see why they don't ever bother communicating because it's nothing to communicate patch note here there's nothing aside from seasonal decorations to the 2k beach and this is current gen I let me pull up the next gen one actually this is the most recent update patch notes for NBA 2k 21 next-gen and although I'll give them credit for specifying which players receive likeness updates on these patch notes there is just general patch notes and then that's it guys after you scroll through the names address some issues with downloading custom team designs and resolve the rare hang in my WNBA that is it they have given up on the city and how could you not be frustrated if you fought to get this new console because they weren't easy to get and then you spent more money on the video game and this is the result the reality is is when 2k is vague or they just don't bother to communicate people won't really notice like if 2k says something on these patch notes they they're bringing things to people's attention a lot of the times they don't even want to bother bringing up an error to your attention especially if you didn't know it existed and unlike these previous patch notes from these games I've showed which are perfectly comfortable sitting in their own reality comfortable knowing that they're actually making attempts at improving their game so they can get specific 2k is not doing that in that kind of frustrating to you man I want to play next-gen so bad but it's difficult because obviously the the the lion share of people are playing this game on current gen for plenty of different reasons I discussed in a previous video so even though next-gen is the future it don't feel like the future to me I don't feel like a game worth playing I can get on and from time to time I'll have fun playing on the city are the perk events cool yeah they got some perk events in there but man it's just the overall dry experience all I can do is sit back and think man I hope they're spending this exact time they're not working on 2k 21 next-gen to make 2k 22 next-gen an actually good fun product and I kind of straight away from like making these videos criticizing 2k for a while because it almost feels like they're pointless at this point like nothing I say is gonna be taken seriously anyway so what's the point of even making an attempt but I genuinely believe you're not done you know it's a video game there's gonna be issues I don't know if you've ever played a perfect video game I've been playing my whole life I haven't figured one out we get there's gonna be some bugs in the video game 2k we understand we're just asking the game is playable which is a very low standard by the way and fun it's playable and fun the reality is I've seen good games get made even when the priority was making money like I think GTA 5 is a good example I know rock stars like spending their time trying to make sure they get GTA 6 right I know they the same thing with GTA 5 I mean rock stars under the same umbrella as 2k they're owned by the same parent company but when GTA 4 and GTA 5 drop they were phenomenal products that were a lot of fun to play and even though it was clear that they spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to monetize the game and make money that's business we get it you got to make money from your game somehow do you have to gouge us at every given moment I personally don't think so I think you need to lay back some mm-hmm but it's like we understand you're running a business and your business has to make money but man I'm telling you but when I play a video game where it's clear that they're making attempts at improving the game it's fun and some of these games is free to play I feel like I'm stealing when I'm not actually spending money on the game I'm having so much fun playing this game for free I feel like this is grand theft right now so I did buy some skins or some random perks just so I can say that I supported the game that I'm spending so much time playing and I'm having fun on all of that to say this 2k I feel like I'm not asking for a lot when I'm saying can we just get specific with what's going on can let us know what's going on but I feel like going ghost is a horrible answer it almost is like taking the whole community for granted and it's a community that stuck with the series through thick and thin by the way because there was the 2k 18s and the 2k 21 next jens and people are still here can you believe that after the year that job muffled that people are still interested in even playing this game to the point where they went back to old titles let's not take that for granted man at the end of the day it's not really the developer's job to communicate there's community managers whose job it is to communicate with us about things that are going on is it nice when we hear from the actual developers cuz they know really in they know in depth with the changes that were made and what's going on with this this and this yeah it's pleasant I mean I got most of the developers on notifications on Twitter every time there's a tweet I know what's going on but I'm telling you my phone doesn't ring with those notifications too often and they don't really gotta blow my phone let me know every small thing they're thinking about but from time to time getting feedback from the community about changes that you want to make or just letting us know about a change that was already made how could that what world are we living in where that's not worth doing hey that's what I was angry about today man hope y'all enjoyed the video if you did drop a like I've made a video a documentary actually kind of discussed which 2k was the greatest all time if you guys didn't watch it go ahead catch that otherwise I'm gonna catch you guys in the next one I'm out peace