 Ladies and gentlemen the CEO of take two was asking questions in an interview regarding micro transactions And you know in my last video I told you guys how I predicted my official prediction was the NBA 2k 19 was gonna see even more micro transactions Then we seen an 18 and 18 obviously had more than we seen in 17 The trend goes on and on and on time and time again 2k has proved to us priority number one is making money Priority number two is making a good game. So as long as their priorities are set like that It doesn't make sense for them to go out of the way to spend money to make a good game if it doesn't help them make money You definitely don't have to go far if you type in NBA 18 Metacritic and you just look at the Metacritic scores without a doubt 1.7 the game is not a 1.7 without a shadow of a doubt really no game is that bad But if you scroll through the reviews of people giving it zeroes They did it in protest of obviously micro transactions. Wow another money trap grow up everyone stop buying this crap They shove VC down your throat. It's a great game That was simply ruined by pay-to-win method whether it's boost on the program or on the park or on the my career Whether we're talking about you have you could buy your way to a 85 overall off jump You have to buy your way to 85 pretty much every single player unless you want to start from a 60 Who wants to play with a 60 that doesn't even include my team pack openings, which we can all agree is gambling Light they're making so much money with this method in each year the reporting numbers They made more money than last year. They made more micro transactions in last year the game sold more than last year And so why would they mess with that formula if they go to their investors and they're like, yo Listen, we're thinking about changing up the formula to make a good game. The investors are gonna freak out with What do you mean the stock price are hey our stock price doubled in the last year What do you mean? You're gonna switch something up And so everybody's gonna start to freak out because the guys that are just focused on making money can't see the They can't see the picture see we see the picture because we played a game And we know there's no future in a game that consistently begins to defraud What's the word I'm looking for any company that treats their customers like a fool will eventually be the fool That was a f***ing Instagram quote. Hey, someone tweet me that Don't actually that's my tweet. Don't tweet that. That's mine. Okay, so let's get to the article I'm a gaming former. I don't know how they got a hold of him. I wish I could do an interview like this I would love to sit down and just ask questions So this is how it starts last year take two in 2k sports face some backlash some backlash with NBA 2k 18s virtual currency plans It said furthermore accusations of pay-to-win mechanics dog the game as a structure allowed players to level up to 85 by just paying Which has been in the game for like four or five years now and destroying early game competitive balance in the process Yep Forcing literally everybody to have to do the same thing if they want to compete day one After numerous complaints the publisher ended up pulling back on a lot of the VC price tags on cosmetics But the game's reputation for taking advantage of its virtual currency was set You guys remember at the start of the year where haircuts were so expensive and you couldn't even see what they looked like on you or shoes Were mad expensive and literally J.R. Smith had to put out a tweet saying yo What's good with the prices my guy and then finally why 2k and 2k took action and they reduced the prices of these Cosmetics but in this in this article they're almost making it seem like that's a W Like that's that just touches the surface. It's not even remotely a W There's still so much more to go, but let's see where this article takes us So this is what the CEO said unquestionably we pay attention to consumer response Mm-hmm because we're so focused on engaging and captivating and entertaining the and entertaining the consumer Zelnik said anytime we get feedback that is anything less than 1,000 percent positive We stop and say what should we do differently? I think there's a small sliver of the consumer base that basically wants everything for free We can't really help those people. I think most consumers just want a fair deal and we Okay, he talked about a 1000% positive review, so let's look at the reviews So just so you know mostly negative is about the worst score you can get on steam I literally have never seen a game get mostly negative reviews on steam 2k. Hey buy our game We're the best me all right since you're the only ones me loses against some dude who bought VC 2k If you want to win by VC is just double the price of the game Me buys VC double the price of the game me loses against a rich kid who bought more VC Me uninstalling the game 2k. Hey 2k 19 is coming out this of temper and you're a nice dude We'll give you a 10% discount because he's Hey, this is not no scrub on steam they tell you how much hours he played the dude played over a hundred hours on a V2k 18 and this is on the PC version So this guy's a trooper PC version has a lot of hackers and 2k really doesn't do it about the hackers on PC I bought the game for offline But I still have to admit 2k is probably the only company that is greeted in EA Like these are all less than 1,000% in fact you could even say that these are 1% reviews damn everyone hates it I guess evidently. I'm a boring gamer I just play my league against AI and nothing else and think the game is absolutely awesome Well when the only thing you're playing is in my league against the AI you have you have somehow by the way Very luckily dodged all of the What's the word? There's a word for it for sure. I'm trying to get the word You have dodged all of the less than 1,000% positive things about the game. Alright, let's continue to see what he said I think most consumers just want a fair deal and we do think that part of a fair deal is you know When you get to check at the end of a meal, it's not enough that the food tastes it good It had to be a fair deal for what you got So we're very focused on it being more than a fair deal You want to give consumers much more than they paid for playing the same game as these guys I know my team youtubers who has spent 5,000 plus This year alone on the game What are the odds they got? $5,000 worth of enjoyment from the game for tonight was free I may have got $5,000 worth of enjoyment from fortnight that game is free Okay, so just think about this for a second Let's say I'm a CEO and I know what we're doing is ridiculous for sure And somebody's asked me questions saying like yo people are wondering about this one issue. It's the biggest issue This is exactly what I would say this guy is a wordsmith of massive proportions So what happens time and time again when you speak to take two or when there's interviews with people from take two They talk about GTA 5 success GTA 5 online and how they were able to build this massive big open world And because of the recurring micro transactions that they get from that game Which by the way are almost as bad as it is on 2k They talk about how if GTA is so successful why can't all our games run that same exact formula and be just as successful We do learn every time and we have to balance monetization with experience zelnik emphasize in our case We sort of all regrouped and said wait Let's remind ourselves what we're in the business of creating the best entertainment on earth across all types of All the stuff is gibberish. Okay, so this is where it gets interesting We're focused on engaging and captivating consumers if we do that right And that's our entire focus then revenues and profits will probably take care of themselves So let's not overemphasize those first of all let's be clear That is exactly what everybody has been saying to take to but also let's be clear That is the opposite of what they're doing if they wanted the game to come first then they would remove boosts from the game Why is there a 5% tax on on games you play on the ante up? What what could possibly be the reason for that? Why is there so much limitations on the auction house on my team? Why is there such a lack of new content if entertainment is the main goal and that's why you're in the game? Then what's happening right now? We're missing the point. It's like you just they're just fluffing you up, man I hope to interview with its back He didn't it ended fantastic Ladies and gentlemen, I am not convinced they came out with an article Maybe giving the impression that they're willing to scale back on micro transactions But I refuse to believe that the model that's been working so well this money-making machine That's been doing so fantastic is gonna change. I don't think it will why would they change it? If I was an investor and I didn't care about 2k, I'd be pissed I'd be like yo make as much money as you can now because that's what my interests are as an investor or as a Shareholder of the company my prediction stands ladies and gentlemen some people got optimistic and the replies to me on Twitter like agent You see this bro. They said they can scale back on like we're gonna have to look back at this video in the game launches And I hope I'm wrong brah. I'm praying I'm wrong But so many years in a row I held the hope that they were gonna scale back eventually and every single year has gotten worse This interview what is these questions and these answers aren't enough to convince me that that trend is gonna change It's a sad reality really cuz GTA 5 was such a Fantastic product but in so many ways it incentivize the entire gaming industry to go down this route of egregious Microtransactions and some got away with it some most definitely didn't get away with it But regardless is not good for any game I'm a whole 2k to their word if it's all about value then I expect to see value in NBA 2k 18 I expect to see a good product that's polished that doesn't have massive bugs at launch I expect to see if there are bugs that are addressed quickly and I expect to see new content throughout the year that's supported by the recording micro transactions that people are spending on the game I expect to see that they're responding on Twitter the way Ronnie 2k has been doing the last couple months I expect to see that they look for the community to get feedback not just youtubers look at the casual guys Look at the hardcore guys. Look at the guys in the middle There's so many examples of devs and publishers just like killing the game doing everything Perfectly in the gaming industry just take some notes and along the way you make a ton of money Everybody's happy. Well at everybody's not gonna be happy I'm gonna leave it on that note. Let me know what you guys think about the article I'm a little bit hopeful the way. I'm hopeful NBA live 19 is gonna be fantastic But in no way am I optimistic that they're gonna somehow scale back and be all about value for those of you Who play MLB the show you've seen what value looks like that's a company who is willing to scale back on micro Transactions to make a better product that has more value a lot of the times those types of games aren't truly appreciated So we'll leave it on that if you enjoyed the video drop a like subscribe now There's two videos on the screen if you haven't watched one of them click it right now Man if you haven't clicked it, we're gonna send Good it's great