 About a week ago on the channel, I uploaded a video breaking down some news that NBA 2K released about their season passes. On this courtside report, there was this screenshot here showing that the shooting sleeper gives a plus one upgrade boost to your mid-range. For some reason, I've seen it when I was reading the report, but I skipped past it when I was actually making the video. And a lot of people rightfully asked me, agent, how come you're not talking about the upgrade boost you get for cosmetic items? Because in the entire gaming industry, plenty of developers and publishers monetized their games using aesthetic stuff, but never does that aesthetic stuff actually improve your ability to play the game because that would be pay-to-win. But companies like 2K and EA push the envelope when it comes to pay-to-win all the time. So I want to break down in this video why I believe 2K just snuck in, like a very sneakily snuck in, some pay-to-win features in NBA 2K22, and they did it through the guise of free. It's free! Nobody detests free stuff. Hey, if y'all new to the channel, be sure to subscribe, scroll down, click the big red button that's satisfying the click, I think it vibrates your phone and makes your finger feel all tingly. Alright, so there's usually a company in most industries that pushes the envelope. Sometimes in exciting ways, like Tesla with self-driving cars, and other times in less exciting ways for us, like pay-to-win features in video games. But the people that do get excited about pay-to-win stuff are investors. You guys know NBA 2K20 was the best-selling NBA 2K of all time, but what you guys don't know is even though NBA 2K21 sold slightly less than 2K20, the game went from $60 to $70, so all things being equal, the game still made more money. So when sales begin to stagnate, what 2K goes to their investors and says is like, don't worry, we're finding new ways to monetize inside the game, and that's what I think this is. So for those who aren't aware, NBA 2K22 is going to have like a season pass thing and they showed all these graphics here in this courtside report detailing how with each level they're going to get some kind of bonus. Here's like a two-times XP coin for one hour. You get this call-to-ball backpack. You get these new inline skates to skate around the city. And then at level 31 you get this plus one mid-range shooting sleeve. Now if it stopped there, not much people would have a problem with it because it's free. Everybody can get it if you just grind. And you should be incentivized to want to grind to improve your player because if 2K is going down the route of RPG, that's what they should be getting people to do. What I'm worried about is that 2K isn't going to stop there because what's then stopping them from doing some kind of like Puma collab and then giving the new Puma shoes that they put into the store a plus three boost to your speed. So now the people shelling out VC to buy these products in the stores are getting plus attribute boost just as a result. So while I was like pulling up tabs and stuff to get prepared for the video, I actually pulled up a video that I didn't know was mine that I made back in 2016. And it was about the concept of park cards. I know some of you guys remember what park cards are. I believe it was the NBA 2K17 that had park cards. And I was like ringing the alarm bell. I was like, yo, 2K is already pretty pay to win. If we let them go all the way with this park card idea, 2K will 1 million percent embrace it. And the whole purpose of these cards was you get like random upgrades in the park when you activate them and you can buy them so you can buy upgrades within the park. Luckily, this idea never caught on and 2K quickly abandoned the idea. But then 2K18 happened. You guys remember in 2K18, players were livid 2K found a way to monetize just about everything and the dumbest ways possible. And Kotaku gave a good example of one here. People were furious that the haircut prices were so crazy. Not only were the haircut prices crazy in the game, but you actually can't see if you look at the screenshot here, you can't see how much this haircut is going to cost until you add it to the cart. And once you add it to the cart, not only is the haircut expensive, but you can't see what it looks like on your head till you already bought it. So you buy the haircut, then see it on your head, then realize you didn't want it and spend more on another haircut. It was one of many ways that 2K found a way to monetize just about everything. It was one of the reasons why 2K18 is the worst 2K of all time. And if it wasn't for all the players being furious, all the mainstream media outlets covering it, and athletes like JR Smith tweeting about it, I don't think anything would have changed, but things did. So when NBA 2K19 came out, people were excited because 2K was coming out saying things like this. 2K19 gives you a lot more gear than previous years, but the best changes that haircuts are no longer cost VC. You can even preview new styles and adjust hair length. So without even needing to get into all of it, because that's in reference to this game and former article here. 2K doing something very dumb and then backtracking is not like, you don't get points for like reversing dumb. Like you shouldn't have done the dumb in the first place. I'm not going to give you a round of applause. And in the words of Phantom, I'm not celebrating bare minimums here. And that's what that is. So as 2K is selling more and more in 2K19 and 2K20, 2K hasn't had a reason to want to press microtransactions and push the envelope because just off the strength of the fact that their game is selling more, they're making more money than they've made in previous years. And they're doing the yearly inflation thing where your VC means less and VC is more expensive. So year over year, like it's costing you more and more money to play the game anyway. And after 2K18, the like hype around microtransactions on 2K died down. Everyone that wasn't used to it is now used to it. And 2K wasn't doing too much to push the envelope anymore till ladies and gentlemen, and I do mean it right now. 2K, okay. So I want you to take a look at this right here. This is in June. This is like a couple of months ago. 2K did a new Puma collab 2K collection. These are the shoes, a desk. One of y'all sent it to the A&P house. So me and Davis both got them. But yeah, hold on. So 2K is claving with different like clothing companies to drop shoes and in-game products of all kinds. And they make a ton of money doing it. And it's just aesthetic stuff. So who cares? 2K is monetizing their game, how most developers and publishers monetize their game by adding skins or some kind of aesthetic. But this is 2K's way of doing it. In my opinion, not only is there nothing wrong with it, but that is the exact way they should be pushing it. But now let's say that this shoe here, when they do their new version of it in 2K22 gives you a plus two attribute boost to speed. I don't think you're gonna get too crazy over that because it's just plus two, but 2K is again just slightly pushing the envelope. Cause in a few years, I guarantee if no one says anything about it is aesthetics is gonna run it. You're gonna be able to walk in stores and buy things that will transform the way that your player plays. My team is the definition of pay to win. You can buy your way to just winning games on my team with a good team. Not saying there's no budget options, but obviously 2K incentivizes people to wanna spend VC and buy more VC. So when they drop their new quarterly report and they talk to their investors, that's what they get excited about. They get excited about the fact that they just snuck in this season past stuff and now they're like in quarter four, we're gonna include the feature where they're gonna add something to the store that's a plus two and then next year they're gonna do plus four and then next year they're gonna do, that's how they do it y'all, just to let you know. They don't like outwardly tell you like, hey guys, we're making the game pay to win. Now they just sneak it in and hope you don't realize. And they sneak it in in like creative ways because this is what the court side report said. Seasons will be a primary focus for 2K22 and all the rewards will be free and redeemable. That's great. I love hearing the word free and new content. Everybody loves that, which is why it caught me off guard. So I thought to myself, why would 2K release free new content? There's almost no incentive for them to do that. They're not doing it out of like the goodness of their heart. They must have something planned. After not about like one minute of thinking about it, I was scrolling through this court side report and thinking to myself like, they're about to make us so that you can buy stuff in stores that give you attribute boost. And again, this is just a prediction. Who knows? And again, this is just a prediction. There's not anybody from 2K who's told me they plan on doing that. I'm going off just predictions. In the history of 2K, every time they've tried to push the envelope, the only reason they were stopped in their tracks is because the player said something. A lot of the times celebrities also said something, sometimes NBA players. This was in reference to haircuts in 2K18. Just grunt till 2K players are apparent in the game's social media because of the game's negative reception. The only voices that their social media listens to generally is from NBA players. NBA players don't use their social media platform to voice their thoughts about NBA 2K18. Often everyone, the exception of J.R. Smith of the Cleveland Cavaliers. In the past week, Smith has been the unsung hero that NBA 2K community was waiting for. And in reference to these, look at these tweets here. Dear 2K, next time y'all want to patch some ish, patch the ball control, it's no way people lose the ball as much as in this damn playground. This was added at Ronnie. If I have a shoe deal, how come I still have to pay for the shoes to wear in the playground? And if you don't, they take the shoe deal. Ronnie responds, right now, you don't get all the free shoes until upper tiers of the shoe deal. We're adjusting in the next patch, they'll be free upon signing. And we all know really that if I or you or any other NBA 2K player voiced their concerns on Twitter, you're not getting a response from Ronnie, bro. And you definitely won't get them to agree to what you asked for, which is why, if you guys remember in 2K 19 and 2K 20 before the game launched, I had like a meme on the channel where I was like, it doesn't really matter what I say. So I went on sites like Cameo and I asked celebrities and NBA players and people that Ronnie would respond to to say the things that I want to done with the game because maybe then they would listen. It's kind of like net neutrality and keeping the internet free. It's just like people just try and do things. And for some reason, us as regular people on the internet have to voice our concerns to stop them from doing it. It would be a beautiful world if we just didn't have to do that. And companies just understand that there's plenty of ways to monetize games without making it pay to win. And for as much hate as Fortnite gets for being like the biggest, most mad myth of a game, Fortnite kept it a buck. They monetized their game in plenty of different ways. They had them Fortnite codes that the creator codes they push everywhere and they incentivize creators to push the codes. That's brilliant. I can't imagine how much money Epic Games made just off the strength of that. They have skins and they collab with Marvel and LeBron James like Epic Games is doing it perfectly. You might love the game or hate the game. You might have used to play the game or you always detested it but they never made their game pay to win. Once 2K moved from Skill Points to VC in NBA 2K13, it was like the beginning of the end when it came to it. 2K is by definition as it is now pay to win. I don't think that's ever gonna change because I highly doubt that'll ever change but what can change is stopping 2K from making it worse and they will 100% and I mean this without a shred of a doubt, try to. They will try to find new ways to make money and I don't mind them doing these like merged stuff. That's dope. Add new merch and collab with this company and new licensing dealer. That's all dope. Have new artists put them on the soundtrack. Maybe 2K gets paid for who knows, that's dope. And I guess they're already doing it so who really fucking cares? Cause they have the boost stand where you have to like buy stamina upgrades. There were 2Ks where it wasn't even possible for you to play Point Guard on Pro-Am without those stamina upgrades. Or like you wouldn't even load into a comp game if you were a shooter without upgrades to your shooting. So I mean 2K is already doing it. Let's not pretend like they're not. Hey, I kinda wanna get your thoughts on things. Are you guys calm or are you irate? Did you even notice it? Has it slipped under your radar? Let me know in the comments down below. Here's a video right here catching y'all up on all the latest NBA 2K news. Make sure to catch that if y'all missed it. And I'ma catch you guys in the next one. I'm out. Peace.