2/10K games Edit: I have recently been contacted by a 2K representative, and have decided of my own free will that this score was unreflective of how deep and truly inspiring all 2K games are, and therefore am changing my score to 2018/10. This is my own decision, and has nothing to do with the threat of a lawsuit and death via 2K firing squad. Preorder NBA 2019 now to receive 5,000 VC free, as well as 2-day early access
We're concerned about the score you gave our company, is everything alright at home, are you getting enough sleep, are you eating your greens, are you being forced to record a ransom video under threat of beheading?
LOL- I'm gonna have to start using that all the time - 2/10 k games is fantastic :) They do publish some great stuff that they manage to NOT screw up - like xcom 2 but overall they are pretty terrible and WOULD score 2 / 10 as a publisher lol.
It's a 60 dollar game, review it as if you only have 60 dollars to spend on it. If it's shit without paying microtransactions then it's a shit 60 dollar game.
I live in Canada and games here are now upwards of $80, fuck them, I'm not buying your shite games. I'll buy a used copy if I really want to play something, I'm not shelling out that kind of money anymore
paid DLC and microtransactions are actively deterring ppl from playing games . . . I can't tell you how many games I have not bought because I know I'll have to deal with buying more content later just to keep playing multiplayer with everyone and get the "rest" of the story . . . I knw I'll have tons of little coins to collect and that buying anything will be impossible unless I give 5-10 bucks to get a reasonable amount of coins. It's pathetic.
keggerous i love the age of empires series. But i tell ya i aint hyped for the 4th one that was announced recently. Because im almost *certain* theyre gonna fuck it up
keggerous I agree. I have passed on so many games because of their DLC model (mostly Paradox games). Everytime I have tried to buy one of their games I just see the $200+ worth of DLC and I just pass.
keggerous man this comment perfectly discribed my feelings towards destiny 2 to have little to no interest in a game despite people telling me that it's a good sequel I as a college student can't afford to pay 100$ (games cost about 100$ in Canada) only to be required to pay 150$ in future dlc to keep playing the game
keggerous Good Paid DLC is very welcomed. If a game can give me another Shivering Isles while not screwing with normal gameplay, I'll happily open my wallet.
BOY, that sure is a lot of PAID ADVERTISING from GIANT MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS in this game that apparently NEEDS huge fee-to-play microtransactions. Funny that.
It's an old comment but i have to answer that. You're wrong. Because these Companies paid Money to an Association that they show them in a Real Game, they don't pay the Developer. The Developer have to pay the Sport Associations so that they can use Names, Logos and even Advertisement. Because they sold more copies if the Games have these in it for an realistic Atmosphere. Just for you to know, but you're right with fck microtransactions.
Retrogaming: no dlc, no updates, no online toxicity, low prices (depending on the seller), all the reviews, walkthroughs and guides you could ever need online, local multiplayer, etc.
Have you seen this video where Jonathan Blow talks about how the businessmodel change the gamedesign? Well more people ought to see it! th-cam.com/video/AxFzf6yIfcc/w-d-xo.html
Kick me some kickbacks, 2K, and I promise I might not mention how goofy all the big manly athletes look doing their little dances and their jock facial expressions and gestures and so forth. Well, I still might, though. Also, Bethesda: I'm a little bit concerned that maybe you haven't understood the whole process of "reviewing" and "telling the truth". So I just wanted to tell you guys I think your business practices are highly suspect, I feel you might be in the wrong here and you should change your mind, that's with all the love in the world of course, but change your mind publicly, please, mm? Just in case you didn't think of that yourselves, I mean. Cool! =D
Reviews of games are no longer just of the game itself. Its not like in the 80s/90s you buy a game and that's it, all in. You are buying into a 'package' which is multifaceted of which one part is the game and very often spread over time. Single player, MP, transactions, lootboxes, DLC, season pass..... If you as a developer wanna surround a good game with (sometimes gamebreakingly-required) microBS P2W elements you get a 1,2,3/10. seems an accurate reflection of what you deem a good value package to us as consumers.
Except all the big review sites DO just review the game itself and brush all the ugly shit under the rug. Because if they don't, the companies might withhold review code. It's an ugly, ugly feedback loop and makes me very grateful for independents - developer and reviewer alike - who can step outside this BS cycle.
Even in the old days we used to do Gameplay: 4/5 Graphics:3/5 Audio:2/5 replayability etc. So all we need to do is add a customer-oriented: 0/5 to bump down all the averages reflectively if they are wallet-fucking?
Yeah, big name sites like IGN are getting money/favors/review codes from publishers so no one with half a brain can trust them to be impartial when they review those publisher's games. Independents like Jim and TB are free to speak their mind, including pointing out bullshit, because what are the publishers going to do? Tell their mothers?
I predict they're going to start shipping games without microtransactions so they don't effect the review scores only to them "patch" them in a couple days later after everyone has bought it.
Then the critics should "patch" their reviews, and demand that Metacritic update their score accordingly if they're big enough to have their score on there.
Killa-King Kong no... in Battlefield you don't pay money to buy crates. You buy crates with currency you earn in game that you can't purchase with money
This makes me want to adopt the attitude of, "the friendly commentor". Go on every review and be like 'are you OK jim, are you eating well. Because it's just you only gave this game a 7/10 and I'm concerned for your well being".
It's like that show 'The Good Place' - SPOILER- The main character who is thought to be a friendly character who is an aid of God is actually a demon trying to actively torture all of the characters in hell. We know what they're doing they're just trying to manipulate the reviewers through manipulation and guess what it worked because the review went down for even a second.
King Bradberry nope, that title will always go to the Dead or Alive series, because it has sports, and it looks so good, I can jerk off to it for some reason.
I find the idea that any publisher would reach out to try to influence a score to be a scandal. I do not understand why this is not mentioned every time it happens as an addendum to the review to call them out. Honestly though, thinking about it, there are not many reviewers that I respect. Jim is an example of someone who I can count on to be giving me his honest opinion, and justifying it with some logic and explanation, I can agree or disagree, but I come away informed and entertained. Any mainstream website these days I assume the reviews are all tainted, and full of the reviewer picking something that is clearly personal preference as the lynchpin of their review.
Cody West it's either personal preference or bribes/threats at mainstream websites (I could be getting this mixed up with a newspaper but I swear an IGN reviewer either got a bonus or got demoted because he either wrote the review how the publisher wanted them to review it or he wrote his own thoughts and got punished). Fuck mainstream reviewers I stick to individual youtubers
The best thing is now he is independent he does exactly that! :P And you would think with over 500k subscribers that leaves a bit of a string at least!
Definitely sickening, not even remotely surprising though. It's as if, at some unseen (by us) signal all pretence at being at least slightly ethical has been dropped, and they have all just chosen to point and laugh at us while they get their exploit on.
It’s honestly like a 5 or 6/10 without micro transactions, the game is completely unfinished. Even if you didn’t have to spend 25 dollars to become a mediocre player, you’d still have to wait 20-30 minutes to get into a pro am game with your friends. The all star team up game mode had literally 0 time put into it, they updated the game with 17 new historic teams with legends people wanted for years yet they still didn’t update the rosters in all star team up with those players in it. The cutscenes and story in MyCareer and MyGM are terrible, unfunny, uninteresting, yet required to watch. I’ve played 2K for 5 years and I’ve never played such a piece of trash in those 5 years.
I find it pretty revolting to see this trash has a general critic rating of 80-90 despite the fact the micros basically ruin the game. I studied journalism in college, but shit like this makes me so depressed. How you sleep at night as a journalist knowing you have such little intergity?
They probably don't have a journalism degree, maybe an English Degree but really I doubt a lot are actual journalists. Maybe I have too much respect for journalists to think they would work for sites that bow down to publishers.
Well, if you are presented with having integrity on one hand, and having a job on the other, and you are forced by your bussines to choose one or the other, I would assume most people would choose having a job. Don't blame the journalist. Blame the system that allowed almost 100% of the benefits of the reviewing page to come from THE ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO IS MAKING THE PRODUCT. That is corruption at its finest, and yet, nobody seems to care about that.
I understand that, but a lot of the writers nowadays don't seem to be journalists, they seem to be just ..writers. The Publisher power is so ingrained in the industry I think most people assume good coverage is influenced by advertising. I don't hear accusations of "you're a shill" thrown about in other news areas as quickly as it is in games news.
Well, given the "habits" of actual journalists i dont think they feel that bad. I mean take a look at any big news site and tell me these video game reviewers are worse.
They gave it a 8.4 while commenting on how the microtransactions are really quite invasive. What? They docked it 0.5 points for it or something? Really really odd.
Every time one of your videos comes up in my feed, I watch it because I know 100% it's going to be good. Your arguments are rock solid and you never hesitate to speak the truth. Bless you for being independent. Keep doing what you do, Jim!
This is the kind of mindset that needs to take over the gaming industry. It's way past due time for this kinda shit to come to an end, I mean seriously how long they think this was gonna last before people finally got smart and said fuck em.
*Sigh* The more i hear about this, the more my hope for Borderlands 3 goes down the toilet. Fuck 2K. If it doesn't end up with Microtransactions for Weapons or Loot Boxes of Weapons, it'll be a fucking miracle.
All of this just really worries me for Borderlands 3 (if we ever get that). I hate 2K and Gearbox with a burning passion but I've always loved the Borderlands series. If they shove microtransactions in for easy ways to get guns or even worse lootboxes into the game I will be incredibly disappointed and upset. But honestly I see it happening at this rate.
Oh god I forgot that Borderlands was under them. Well if it's anything like the pre sequel I won't be getting it anyways. They better not shove their micro transactions dick into that game.
The Signess The worst part of this very likely possibility is that Borderlands' gameplay is a fucking PERFECT match for microtransaction bullshittery. The gun mechanics, what with the stats, collection aspects etc. that Borderlands did so much better than other similar games reeked of lootbox even before they were a normal thing. Fuck this industry.
A lot of this is on us, the gamers. If we didn't pre-order games, if we waited until after release to buy them, if we waited for reviews on the games in the state they're in on release, then reviewers wouldn't feel pressured to "get in good" with publishers or developers so that they could get pre-release copies. And then publishers and developers would have one less avenue with which to pressure reviewers into giving falsely complimentary reviews.
Annalee H You are a games critic, every gamer is a games critic and it's about time the Proletariat gamers rose up and smashed the bourgeois corporations. LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION
Commies are vile and disgusting and nobody but my close friends give a shit about my critiques. The publishers are actually not the problem, they simply look for what they can get away with. It's our fault for being tolerant of their bad business practices.
Thing that confuses me the most about that is the fucking Communist part. Where'd that even come from? Every country on the planet has had a revolution. The Americans had a REVOLUTIONARY WAR, for Christs sake. A revolution does not equate to Communism '-' I'm sorry, that just genuinely threw me off.
Doc Holliday over the long term people catch up. In app purchases piss me off and so does in-game purchases. Nba games are like iPhones. What's the real difference year to year?
Your story about Bethesda contacting you with a "nice tone" made me imagine - what if you had an opportunity to do something evil, but didn't do it. You go home, and go to bed. In the middle of the night you feel a presence. You look at a dark corner of your bedroom and there is this 7 foot tall demon. You can tell it's a demon cuz it has bat wings, long sharp teeth, horns and black drool dripping from it's shaking mouth. BUT, it is dressed in a bright pink suit - very dapper. He asks, very politely, why you didn't do the evil thing? He is very soft and warm in tone - but do you still take him as a non threat? He's talking very proper, asking you why you didn't do the things he'd rather you do... at the same time physically blocking your escape. He never actually threatens you... but who wouldn't feel threatened???
Well, I know that some sports games, especially football ones, and also football ones tend to be marketed heavily towards the 'dude-bro' group. The ones that talk, think, and smell sports 24/7 pretty much, but to speak just for myself... I used to play the Tiger Woods series of golf games (made by EA, I know, I was young and naive back then) and I personally found them to be extremely relaxing to play. No big explosions, none of that. Just a nice, quiet time with me and the game. I'd play a couple rounds, and then move on. There were 'career' modes and all that, sure, but it wasn't necessary. You could enjoy the game how you wanted, when you wanted. Sure a new one game out every year I don't deny, but at least it was a nice experience.
I'm not shocked that they're using a 'friendliness' factor here. Of course they would. So then if the reviewer they were obviously trying to pressure blows up, or even doesn't blow up by otherwise says or does something, then they can use that as an excuse to 'out' the 'meanie head reviewer', who cruelly 'attacked' them even though they were just trying to be 'nice' to them and so on. They are just playing innocent, so they can look like the 'attacked' party, and trick people into siding with them because the 'bad reviewer' did something to them, and they'll also 'happen' to point out that they 'also' gave their game a bad score, so people dismiss it as well and so on. No pressure from the publisher? Hardly. If anything this is WORSE because once that's started, the bad press it could generate for the reviewer could easily snowball to other websites and become a huge thing, and what could've turned into a bad thing for the publisher now turns into a VERY BIG, and bad thing for the reviewer instead. And all because a publisher asked in a 'friendly' way why their game got a bad score.
It's not a matter of why, it's a matter of 'Why not?' These people (if you can call them people) be it 2kgames, Activision, EA, Konami, Bandai Namco...pretty much everybody, has been seeing just how far they can push the customer to pay more and more for less and less. Sadly it seems a lot of people have bought into it quite heavily for their own reasons and this is sadly, another step of that. I hate it, don't get me wrong, and I'm not going to be one of those 'it's going to happen so just fucking let it' because fuck that. I've pretty much given up on buying new games with minimal exceptions, I've had this habit years before and more and more, I'm just wondering how far these 'people' are going to go at it until there is an gaming crash. And while some may welcome it, a chief concern of mine is if people will even LEARN from this, and what's stopping publishers from somehow going even worse than what they're doing now? This is why we need people like Jim FUCKING Sterling Son. No doubt ther'es people who will tell him to get off it, but being silent about it is a surefire way for it to keep going and going, and and going. And at a bigger risk of coming off as pretentious and even a crakpot, sometimes I keep thinking back to that 'First they came poem' in this specific case, if people don't speak up, if they don't take actual action, this will get worse. Only reason why Xbone failed with it's BS was because the backlash was big enough. Only reason why Bioware was able to do anything about Mass Effect 3 being fucked by EA was because of it (although a lot of shit was hurled at Bioware and while they may not be entirely innocent, it was remiss to fucking ignore or downplay Electronic Arts. It's like going for the assassin who killed somebody important to you, but not the person or people who actually ordered the fucking hit to begin with). And of course people will scream 'Buyer beware' and while I may agree to SOME extent, it can't be ignored that there are people within the industry who go out of their way to find ways to make shit seem appealing to anyone gullable enough to fall for it. It's not just a matter of a consumer looking out for themselves, there's people who's fucking job it is to more or less find a way to trick or pressure people into it, without them realizing it. AND THEY KNOW THIS. 2K's CEO more or less stated just that a while ago, and shortly before the whole mod clusterfuck with GTA 5 (And thanks to that, I'm not going to bother with a GTA game outside getting it 2nd hand or on an extreme discount, thanks 2k and fuck you). ... It's a lot of things, and I'd keep rambling but who has time for that? Plus I'm sure there's still holes in everything I've just said, but whatever. I also my sincere apologies for swearing, I mean I'm not stranger but I didn't mean to get so heated up but, this really gets under my skin. That's pretty much it.
honestly. if someone wrote me an email regarding the score i gave for their game, i would write this: "i correct my score in regards to the following mail sent to me by the publisher: the score is now 3 apple/10 apples"
i wonder what kind of pressure Valve was under for the whole review bomb trend, this game got everything it needs for micro'nickle'and'dime to die, steam now has a graph HAHAHAHAHAHA.
well it will show when customers are pissed, if 2k actually decides to remove the microtransactions from the game watch how review scores will go up and jump up in positive rating
CatheteriZedEYE let this game rot, for good riddance. But let me tell you this stupid basketball game will still sell a plenty because many simply don't care.
Jim I'm happy and proud to announce I'm your 4,223(nd) patron. I've watched your videos for maybe just under a year now and I finally thought it's time for me to give back. As a former journalism student it means a lot to me that people like you can give your honest opinion about how you really feel about games. I love games, but your right the industry has become tarnished. However you have chosen to stay true to what you believe in no matter what the cost (and if blacklisting is the worst they can do then "fuck em")and I respect that
Reviewers should bring up any issue that hurts the enjoyability or playability of the game, and lower the score depending of the severity of the issue, I don't know why anyone would think that micro transactions should be exempt from this rule
In the older days, magazines used to get threats of ad removal when bad previews or reviews were revealed. EGM dealt with this, with Dan Hsu, the editor in chief, calling the corporations out in his editorial notes.
Caleb Harch my thoughts exactly!!! Look at FIFA for example, another garbage game rehashed every year and swamped with shitty penny pinching practices.
Loved your unbiased honesty when it comes to ANY video game! Which, for me, was solidified by the following statement, "I just sort of...be fat and talk about videogames." LMAO
Those $99.99 VC things are even worse when you look at the 'buy 250k and get 200k free', it wants you not only to pay $99.99, but to also pay at least $49.99 more so you can get 400k free VC. This isn't going to end well with children and their parent's credit cards
in the short-term Microtransactions are good for a company, in the long-term, they're the death of that company's goodwill and reputation which will see them lose customers
I bet they did some calculation and discovered they'd likely make more off whales than they will lose from customers like us deciding their games are shit and not buying them anymore. Unfortunately the same companies pull the same shit over and over again and their games are still a success most of the time. In fact they are making record profits, so I highly doubt that they will ever have a financial incentive to not do push mtx as hard as they can. I wish more people would just decide "No I won't buy this game purely because of MTX to send a message" but it's just not happening, and there needs to be some sort of regulation to remove the financial incentive for these companies to push it in order for us to get rid of it.
Hey Jim there's no sign of the review on meta critic. All the reviews are 9/10s and whatnot not even mentioning this system. I think 2k got this review taken off metacritic.
Micro-transactions ABSOLUTELY must be part of reviews - and yes, they should invariably be negative influences on the score. They want to cram this shit into games, then they will live with the consequences.
It baffles me how publishers load their games with microtransactions that clearly impact the base gameplay, then expect nobody to comment on them, as if they know how much consumers hate them and might reconsider purchasing their product, YET THEY STILL DECIDE TO PUT THEM IN.
Let's call it for what it is: censorship. And that reminds me of that time I gave The Evil Within a generous 6,5. Guess what? Bethesda's PR contacted me saying he won't send DLCs codes for that shitty game. Or when Ubisoft blacklisted me for giving The Division a 7,3. Goddammit these fuckin' suits.
Good for them for having the balls to score a game that low. If other websites weren't in bed with the publishers to such a degree, we wouldn't be in this shitty situation where they are utterly unable to ever give a sponsored game less than a 7 (to the extent that certain gamers consider an 8/10 to be a dogshit game unworthy of even picking up when on sale).
pretty much all the major review sites have been doing this for a long time, especially ign of all places i don't read or care for sites like that, too much dick sucking to even trust anything that they say at all.
Microtransactions are a part of the game are they not? Therefore taking them into account for a review score sounds like something that not only can be done, but should be done. I'm much less against microtransactions than you are, Jim, but when a shitty economy like the one 2k made directly affects how the game itself is played, then there is a problem that needs to be mentioned in the review. I just read a comment about someone who said he spent 40 bucks on VC and only made it to the 80s and was still up against 90s. He didn't directly say it, but he implied that he only even spent the money, because he felt like he had to to compete, not because he wanted to. Keeping that in mind, it is important to note things like that in reviews.
The thing is Jim, it's not about the review copies, it's the interviews. Review sites want to be able to take part and speak to companies about upcoming projects and get information and interviews on events and games and the industry. That requires the comppany to be willing to speak with them specifically. Those sorts of things can make a site get a LOT more traffic, but if denied and other sites get them, then the other sites will get that traffic.
Oh I wish that "people are understandably miffed about it". I made the mistake of searching for this game on youtube to see if this is true and all I found was ... endless videos of guys with hundreds of thousands of subscribers doing streams where they grind literally for days to upgrade players and others buying and openings hundreds of lootboxes that contain mostly duplicates of stuff they already have and comment sections full of what seems like mostly young boys gushing over how awesome the streamer and their ability to grind and open boxes is. I know you're supposed to step outside of your bubble once in a while but whenever I leave the comfort of Jimquisitions and the like all I find are vlloggers and "reactors" with gazillions of subscribers/views and comment sections on AAA-trailers where people brag about how they already preordered the deluxe special season pass diamond edition ... I don't wanna live in this world anymore.
The pack openers are dreadful, but don't see the problem in people playing the game to get better. Is Destiny's whole fanbase bad for watching others perpetually grind?
The funny bit about review copy’s is that they are given early and the game isn’t even in a playable state. In this day and age publishers like WB are more focused on dlc, preorder bonuses, microtransaction and etc before even having the main build done. Leaving those reviewers who have been blacklisted to get it later on and in a funny way getting a better version of the game than those who got it early due to the popular “day one” patch
It's absolutely feasible to play this game without spending money at all: you just have to grind those usual (edit: IRL) 6 months with a 7'3'' center who cannot possibly get bad team grades even if he's as good at basket and as fun to play as a giant potato, and then you'll have enough "Virtual Currency" to actually build the player of your dream. Really, I don't see what you're bitching about! I mean, of course the game has the same annoying problems since at least 6 or 7 years ago (didn't play versions earlier than NBA2K11, so I don't know), such as: - inconsistent connection between the players' attributes and what they actually can or cannot do on the court, - the defense keeping on leaving players open for shooting 3s in the corner independently by what you tell it to do, - blocks and faults being seemingly random in their evaluation, - the game momento boosts being stupidly volatile, - CPU teams cheating you each and every time your player is set on the bench by the coach, - passes going the wrong way even when you're already forced to use the select player buttons instead of the simple direction, - and... many many other stupidly easy to correct problems like those. But what do you expect? If 2K ever corrected those annoying problems what could they ever write in the (falsely advertised) "improvements" section of the next year game selling commercial? You just need to grow up and learn by professionals how it's done: this game is the best basketball game ever published, inferior only to the next year one. Just give it 9.99 and that's it (9.999 for NBA2K19, 9.9999 for NBA2K20 and so on). Thanks for your videos! P.S. For those who don't get it, it's sarcasm. Except for the "Thanks for your videos!" part.
Now, I know I wrote this at the very end where it's easy to miss, but I'm so kind I'll quote it here again so you can see it better, Victor Alkaiser: "P.S. For those who don't get it, it's sarcasm. Except for the "Thanks for your videos!" part." Maybe it's the "6 months" part that creates confusion: I meant IRL (In Real Life) time, not in the game's season progression time. Thanks for your answers 2017 National champs and Victor Alkaiser.
So the game would be better without micro-transactions. critic scores are absolutely useless to me now for any game that has any form of micro-transactions. If you read the IGN review of the game, it suggests spending $150 on the game and "it feels like we’re being steered toward spending money to avoid an insane amount of hours spent grinding for points" The average metacritic user score is about 2.57 across all 4 platforms, IGN gave it a 8.4, average metacritic is 84.8, No joke.
U actualy just blew my mind i never thought about using a center before, cause its such a boring play vs shooting all day long but u may have saved my wallet today
Jim's story reminds me of a story from Gus of RoosterTeeth. He told a story how initially they wanted to do scored reviews, but when they rated one game very poorly, the developer contacted them and gave them the story of "we worked so hard why would you rail on it like that?" and the RT guys gave in to the pressure
We are in age now where business supersedes everything. At the end of the day, they know people will buy their game whether its shit or not. Why put money and effort into something that will practically sell itself. Until the day gaming publishers such as 2k EA, Activision and such literally see a 0 in sales nothing will be done. A vast majority of games that have been made are not worth the $60 they are valued at but the simple fact that they know hundreds of thousands of people will buy the game regardless, why bother actually enhancing the game other than graphics? You think that avid 12 year old kid who loves to play basketball can pick out all the flaws/bullshit mechanics and know it is a poorly made game? No, he just wants to play as KD or Lebron. That is the sad part about the whole gaming economy now. There has and never been morals when it comes to selling/publishing a game. As long as those 12 year old kids write "NBA 2k18" on their birthday or Christmas lists, that is all a gaming publisher cares about. Once the game is sold, you really think they care about your experience with the game?
Jordan exactly. I don't understand how people are saying this game is 8+/10 in terms of gameplay.. like what. It's so unbalanced and random lol. Glad to see someone actually talking about gameplay mechanics.
I hope you keep on about micro transactions in full priced games jim im not sick of hearing about it at all what im sick of is greedy developers double dipping and screwing there loyal fan base out of hard earned money. They dont deserve your money they dont deserve your loyalty when they stop acting like greedy pretentious pricks and and actually get back to focusing on their games and doing right by there fans then they can have peoples respect in the meantime there are so many great indie developers and smaller company's out there doing right by the player and these are the people that will get my money. I know its hard when a lot of these games have such a following among the gaming community but the only way these overpaid parasites will listen is if we stop putting money and time into there games dont stand for show some backbone and dont purchase their products its the only way things are going to change otherwise look forward to more of the same.
The majority of reviewers only ever use scores of 8-10, due to pressure to keep satisfying the companies they review. THERE ARE OTHER NUMBERS ON THE SCALE, YA KNOW. In my eyes, anything about a four is playable, anything above a six is enjoyable, 7 or 8 is a great game, 9 is a masterpiece, and 10 is an effectively-unobtainable score that exists as a placeholder until The Perfect Game is created. And it won't be.
I wonder how developers and publishers would react if they got emails and phonecalls from reviewers and critics, asking them to change certain aspects of game play or monetization, because it can't possibly be right. Because as they said in this or that press release... etc. etc.
It isn't just the use of micro transactions that brings this game down it is the fact that said micro transactions make various modes of the game unplayable. The "My Career" mode is garbage unless you either grind forever, or pay to make you player good enough to make half of their open layups. I'll never buy another NBA2K game as a result of this mess.
I don't see how publishers can expect micro transactions to not be considered part of the merits of a game. Any thing that is in the game are part of the criticism, so how can the mechanic that controls the progression not be included.
"finally" ah yes, nothing bad with gaming jounalism was happening when reviewers were friends with game devs and participating in a smear campaign against gamers.
Now that I have a reply from both ends of the discourse you must fight to the death, you have one week to choose your weapon, Nathan was first so they can counterpick the arena, good luck!
About this pressure. Reminds me about the developer of a game called "Ballistic Overkill" which I gave a 6/10 on a steam review, which I also put to "negative", due to the fact I felt fooled by "overwhelmingly positive" steam reviews. They did basically the exact same. "You said so much positive things but not a even a seven?, is a six not POSITIVE review?" , trying to guilt trip me. The developer then asked what they could do to improve the game and I gave a lot of feedback which they said they'd be looking into, which I am not sure if they actually took into consideration. But it honestly felt like they wanted to seem like they were doing so much for me and it deserved a higher score.
If a developer contacts a reviewer because of their score without asking that reviewer how can we fix this? I'm no longer supporting or buying products from the developer.
The best thing to take away from this is as Jim said, publishers obviously DO care if people kick up a fuss about microtransactions. They're vulnerable on this issue: if we keep the pressure on, they might start to crack...
10:42 I've been thinking about that for a while, about the whole free review copies system specifically when Bethesda announced their new policy (that is inherently anti-consumer). After my initial outrage, i thought about maybe some potential benefits, the chief being that without that carrot of a free early copy of the game to dangle in companies faces (whether it's because they're a small outfit that can't afford to buy each game outright or a large company that thrives on being among the first reviews out), it frees those companies up to be more brutally honest with that companies games, as there's no longer any fear of being "late to the party" because they blacklisted you. Even if you're forced to pay for them out of pocket it's a tax write-off as a business expense. I think the only way to eliminate that sway the current review copy system gives publishers is to make it all one way or the other, either review copies have to be made available to the press (for purchase, but a tax write off) 1 week before general release, which would require legislation, or no review copies for anyone and caveat emptor for the first week or so (which sucks for the early adopters, but most people that buy launch day don't care about reviews anyway).
Seems like independent is the way to go, both in games journalism AND games development. Thing is though, with a game like NBA, the folks buying it will be sports fans/"casual" gamers (hate those labels but fuck it) and won't be invested in games industry coverage like this or 6th axis (or whatever they're called), and will probably fall for the micro-transaction economy regardless. I remember a few years back I always thought fondly of 2k, but I guess I was being very naive at the time. And for what it's worth, Rage was a very unremarkable game, 6 / 7 ish is about right. Hydrophobia was a disappointment, because I "got" what they were trying to do, I always liked SOS: The Final Escape on ps2, and this seemed to have a similar vibe, but with a more physics-based approach (in theory) but it just didn't pay off in the end.
one thing i do observe is that some companies still do not understand _The Streisand Effect,_ 2K should have left that alone to their fanboys to rage on...
At least Shadow of War wasn't flaunting Microtransactions like 2K. I got through the story without spending a dime on it. 2K18 is a different story seems like
I remember reviewing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD (the remake) and gave it a 7. My editor got an email from PR and they weren't happy that I pointed out the poor physics and lack of offline multiplayer!
There's also an active lawsuit over this series of games (started in 2016, w.r.t. NBA 2k16, since extended to 2k17 and 2k18) regarding unlicensed use of images of player tattoos. The dispute is over whether or not licensing the rights to use a person's likeness includes the rights to images tattooed on that person - which has no definitive legal precedent yet, and has awkward consequences if decided in either direction. 2K Games might need that sweet microtransaction money to cover the settlement costs for their massive and ongoing copyright infringement.
If AAA publishers/devs want to make micro-transactions part of the gameplay then micro-transactions should be part of the review score. Period.
...and, personally I think $60 AAA games that are filled with micro-transactions should get automatic 1's because: 12:04
He doesn't need to. The score is back up...
Absolutely. It would be irresponsible to review a game and ignore features.
Wait till you see the next trick: microtransactions in the day 0 patch...
Well said, lord.
Micro transactions are making games fucking awful.
2/10K games
Edit: I have recently been contacted by a 2K representative, and have decided of my own free will that this score was unreflective of how deep and truly inspiring all 2K games are, and therefore am changing my score to 2018/10. This is my own decision, and has nothing to do with the threat of a lawsuit and death via 2K firing squad.
Preorder NBA 2019 now to receive 5,000 VC free, as well as 2-day early access
This has the capacity to be a fresh new meme
that's a really low non-zero score...
We're concerned about the score you gave our company, is everything alright at home, are you getting enough sleep, are you eating your greens, are you being forced to record a ransom video under threat of beheading?
I realy hope this catches on.
LOL- I'm gonna have to start using that all the time - 2/10 k games is fantastic :) They do publish some great stuff that they manage to NOT screw up - like xcom 2 but overall they are pretty terrible and WOULD score 2 / 10 as a publisher lol.
It's a 60 dollar game, review it as if you only have 60 dollars to spend on it. If it's shit without paying microtransactions then it's a shit 60 dollar game.
I live in Canada and games here are now upwards of $80, fuck them, I'm not buying your shite games. I'll buy a used copy if I really want to play something, I'm not shelling out that kind of money anymore
paid DLC and microtransactions are actively deterring ppl from playing games . . . I can't tell you how many games I have not bought because I know I'll have to deal with buying more content later just to keep playing multiplayer with everyone and get the "rest" of the story . . . I knw I'll have tons of little coins to collect and that buying anything will be impossible unless I give 5-10 bucks to get a reasonable amount of coins. It's pathetic.
keggerous i love the age of empires series. But i tell ya i aint hyped for the 4th one that was announced recently. Because im almost *certain* theyre gonna fuck it up
keggerous I agree. I have passed on so many games because of their DLC model (mostly Paradox games).
Everytime I have tried to buy one of their games I just see the $200+ worth of DLC and I just pass.
keggerous man this comment perfectly discribed my feelings towards destiny 2 to have little to no interest in a game despite people telling me that it's a good sequel I as a college student can't afford to pay 100$ (games cost about 100$ in Canada) only to be required to pay 150$ in future dlc to keep playing the game
Not games for me. They make me appreciate older gems. I will not buy new games with DLC though. Ever.
keggerous Good Paid DLC is very welcomed. If a game can give me another Shivering Isles while not screwing with normal gameplay, I'll happily open my wallet.
BOY, that sure is a lot of PAID ADVERTISING from GIANT MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS in this game that apparently NEEDS huge fee-to-play microtransactions. Funny that.
Quite this comment everywhere, people. Make sure everybody understands how ridiculous this "we need the money" premise is.
Its cause they made like half a billion in 2k17, so they just want more money.
In a sports game, the genre with a shelf life maximum of one year, the same sports game with the absolutely fucking opulent $150 "Gold" edition.
It's an old comment but i have to answer that. You're wrong. Because these Companies paid Money to an Association that they show them in a Real Game, they don't pay the Developer. The Developer have to pay the Sport Associations so that they can use Names, Logos and even Advertisement. Because they sold more copies if the Games have these in it for an realistic Atmosphere. Just for you to know, but you're right with fck microtransactions.
@@Blacksky0003 I think the original commenter was referring to the Reeses advertisement...
Microtransactions is the cancer of gaming!! It is the number 1 reason why I suddenly stopped gaming and focused on other things to occupy my time.
Friendly advice: get some highly rated indies, maybe on sale. They preserved good game development.
Well, that and Platinum Games.
I stopped supporting "AAA" games after SC5. Other people need to learn their lessons as well!
StarButterfly98 Shovel Knight is a perfect example of DLC done right. The game has continued to be supported since 2014 and has come with free DLC.
Retrogaming: no dlc, no updates, no online toxicity, low prices (depending on the seller), all the reviews, walkthroughs and guides you could ever need online, local multiplayer, etc.
Finally! Someone realizing that in-game micro-transactions actually AFFECT THE GAME THEY'RE PLAYING.
Have you seen this video where Jonathan Blow talks about how the businessmodel change the gamedesign? Well more people ought to see it!
th-cam.com/video/AxFzf6yIfcc/w-d-xo.html
I think its fair to give 2K Games props for finding some way to shove micro-transactions into a fucking basketball game.
Patrick Sikhrangkur not even ea has been able yet
kakyoin MILF HUNTER Yes they have. Damn near everyone I know wastes about £100 per year on "Fifa points".
Truly revolutionary. Just wish they had revolutionized the game itself instead of the money-grabbing.
kakyoin MILF HUNTER 250 bullshit currency for a proper basketball, deflates after 30 days
Patrick Sikhrangkur EA Ultimate Team is the starter of this crap
Hell, I give NBA2K18 a 1/10 for their insulting practices. Pressure me, 2K Games. I'll take crisp bills.
you look tough as shit bro don't hurt me
Kick me some kickbacks, 2K, and I promise I might not mention how goofy all the big manly athletes look doing their little dances and their jock facial expressions and gestures and so forth. Well, I still might, though.
Also, Bethesda: I'm a little bit concerned that maybe you haven't understood the whole process of "reviewing" and "telling the truth". So I just wanted to tell you guys I think your business practices are highly suspect, I feel you might be in the wrong here and you should change your mind, that's with all the love in the world of course, but change your mind publicly, please, mm? Just in case you didn't think of that yourselves, I mean. Cool! =D
Reviews of games are no longer just of the game itself. Its not like in the 80s/90s you buy a game and that's it, all in. You are buying into a 'package' which is multifaceted of which one part is the game and very often spread over time. Single player, MP, transactions, lootboxes, DLC, season pass..... If you as a developer wanna surround a good game with (sometimes gamebreakingly-required) microBS P2W elements you get a 1,2,3/10. seems an accurate reflection of what you deem a good value package to us as consumers.
Except all the big review sites DO just review the game itself and brush all the ugly shit under the rug. Because if they don't, the companies might withhold review code. It's an ugly, ugly feedback loop and makes me very grateful for independents - developer and reviewer alike - who can step outside this BS cycle.
But then the big companies whine, complain it's not fair and say people are trolling, lol... it's funny.
Even in the old days we used to do Gameplay: 4/5 Graphics:3/5 Audio:2/5 replayability etc. So all we need to do is add a customer-oriented: 0/5 to bump down all the averages reflectively if they are wallet-fucking?
+tazp123
Gameplay: 4/5
Audio: 3/5
Graphics: 4/5
Money Grubbing: 5/5
Penny pinching: 5/5
Microtransactions: 5/5
Obvious lack of respect for customer base: 5/5
Overall: Fuck 2k, don't buy this game.
Yeah, big name sites like IGN are getting money/favors/review codes from publishers so no one with half a brain can trust them to be impartial when they review those publisher's games. Independents like Jim and TB are free to speak their mind, including pointing out bullshit, because what are the publishers going to do? Tell their mothers?
I predict they're going to start shipping games without microtransactions so they don't effect the review scores only to them "patch" them in a couple days later after everyone has bought it.
Pseudo Memes they're freaking out now. They don't fare. This way they'll get your money.
Then the critics should "patch" their reviews, and demand that Metacritic update their score accordingly if they're big enough to have their score on there.
Khashmonet no that would be EXTREMELY shady and pretty much suicide if they did that.
Games already do that. Battlefield 1 for example, released without any microtransactions and later patched them in.
Killa-King Kong no... in Battlefield you don't pay money to buy crates. You buy crates with currency you earn in game that you can't purchase with money
This makes me want to adopt the attitude of, "the friendly commentor". Go on every review and be like 'are you OK jim, are you eating well. Because it's just you only gave this game a 7/10 and I'm concerned for your well being".
It's like that show 'The Good Place' - SPOILER- The main character who is thought to be a friendly character who is an aid of God is actually a demon trying to actively torture all of the characters in hell.
We know what they're doing they're just trying to manipulate the reviewers through manipulation and guess what it worked because the review went down for even a second.
And to think valve banned the micro transactions tag from steam store I wonder if they were pressured by game publishers
I don't wonder.
the people in this game look so lifeless. Probally a reflection on the game
kevin kapela deep.
kevin kapela Maybe it's because they know their fate is to eventually watch the Warriors win the title
It's still the best looking sports game
King Bradberry nope, that title will always go to the Dead or Alive series, because it has sports, and it looks so good, I can jerk off to it for some reason.
2017 National champs: +1 for unrealatable sports refrences that I laughed to because I know it's a diss.
I find the idea that any publisher would reach out to try to influence a score to be a scandal. I do not understand why this is not mentioned every time it happens as an addendum to the review to call them out. Honestly though, thinking about it, there are not many reviewers that I respect. Jim is an example of someone who I can count on to be giving me his honest opinion, and justifying it with some logic and explanation, I can agree or disagree, but I come away informed and entertained. Any mainstream website these days I assume the reviews are all tainted, and full of the reviewer picking something that is clearly personal preference as the lynchpin of their review.
Cody West it's either personal preference or bribes/threats at mainstream websites (I could be getting this mixed up with a newspaper but I swear an IGN reviewer either got a bonus or got demoted because he either wrote the review how the publisher wanted them to review it or he wrote his own thoughts and got punished). Fuck mainstream reviewers I stick to individual youtubers
You should hire him to replace his review on the Jimquisition, if thats possible, Jim. This game is a fucking joke, 2K's so frustrating.
Dammit Bobbeh The gameplay is good and smooth for the most part BUT yes 2k is a joke
Kinda like what he did to the man who exposed Paul Ryan (Not That One)?
He doesn't have to... The review is back up. Listening comprehension, guys.
Hey comprehension is hard. Now what are we talking about?
Who else would love to hear more about Jims dealings with game companies?
What you're describing about being contacted about your review scores is honestly sickening to hear.
Welcome to the cynical world of private enterprises.
Oh I'm well aware it isn't news to me, but it still bugs me everytime I hear of things like this.
The best thing is now he is independent he does exactly that! :P And you would think with over 500k subscribers that leaves a bit of a string at least!
Definitely sickening, not even remotely surprising though. It's as if, at some unseen (by us) signal all pretence at being at least slightly ethical has been dropped, and they have all just chosen to point and laugh at us while they get their exploit on.
2K would be a 3/10 even without microtransactions, lol.
Um no nerd. The reason this is so infuriating is 2k makes the best basketball game in the industry and they're fucking it up.
Lmao no. Its fun when your player is decent
It’s honestly like a 5 or 6/10 without micro transactions, the game is completely unfinished. Even if you didn’t have to spend 25 dollars to become a mediocre player, you’d still have to wait 20-30 minutes to get into a pro am game with your friends. The all star team up game mode had literally 0 time put into it, they updated the game with 17 new historic teams with legends people wanted for years yet they still didn’t update the rosters in all star team up with those players in it. The cutscenes and story in MyCareer and MyGM are terrible, unfunny, uninteresting, yet required to watch. I’ve played 2K for 5 years and I’ve never played such a piece of trash in those 5 years.
amen fuck 2k
*No.*
I find it pretty revolting to see this trash has a general critic rating of 80-90 despite the fact the micros basically ruin the game.
I studied journalism in college, but shit like this makes me so depressed. How you sleep at night as a journalist knowing you have such little intergity?
They probably don't have a journalism degree, maybe an English Degree but really I doubt a lot are actual journalists. Maybe I have too much respect for journalists to think they would work for sites that bow down to publishers.
Well, if you are presented with having integrity on one hand, and having a job on the other, and you are forced by your bussines to choose one or the other, I would assume most people would choose having a job.
Don't blame the journalist. Blame the system that allowed almost 100% of the benefits of the reviewing page to come from THE ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO IS MAKING THE PRODUCT.
That is corruption at its finest, and yet, nobody seems to care about that.
Constanze Amalie von Braunschbank Albrechtsberger Can you imagine your former coursemates becoming these people?
I understand that, but a lot of the writers nowadays don't seem to be journalists, they seem to be just ..writers.
The Publisher power is so ingrained in the industry I think most people assume good coverage is influenced by advertising. I don't hear accusations of "you're a shill" thrown about in other news areas as quickly as it is in games news.
Well, given the "habits" of actual journalists i dont think they feel that bad.
I mean take a look at any big news site and tell me these video game reviewers are worse.
if 2K played their own games then they would know how annoying they are
It shouldn't even be 3/10.
It should be around 1-2 based solely on the microtransaction practice.
Keep fighting the good fight jim.
TragicGear I'm in good spirits, and what I drop is consistent.
ign give it an 8.4/10. shill alert.
Canaan Banana
8.4. Lol. Now I get why people down vote IGN videos. Crooks.
I think IGN uses special keyboards that don't have any numbers below 7 when they review AAA games lol.
Integrity? Gee, No
Lord Kuraba I'm pretty sure they gave Alien: Isolation like a 5 or something. I was surprised they had the balls to do that.
They gave it a 8.4 while commenting on how the microtransactions are really quite invasive. What? They docked it 0.5 points for it or something? Really really odd.
Every time one of your videos comes up in my feed, I watch it because I know 100% it's going to be good. Your arguments are rock solid and you never hesitate to speak the truth. Bless you for being independent. Keep doing what you do, Jim!
Any full price game with these micro transaction economies should be deducted five points from their score, since publishers only care about score.
This is the kind of mindset that needs to take over the gaming industry. It's way past due time for this kinda shit to come to an end, I mean seriously how long they think this was gonna last before people finally got smart and said fuck em.
*Sigh* The more i hear about this, the more my hope for Borderlands 3 goes down the toilet. Fuck 2K. If it doesn't end up with Microtransactions for Weapons or Loot Boxes of Weapons, it'll be a fucking miracle.
I reckon loot boxes are a given at this point
I'm thinking of some words, begins with F and rhymes with Ducking Bell
We should start mailing turds to developers that put micro-transactions into "proper" games
Dynamics Fuck Drake Bell? WTF did he do to you?
Well, you could say that 2K Games can take 2 games and shove it up their asses.
Jim you are a hero we need but don't deserve.
All of this just really worries me for Borderlands 3 (if we ever get that). I hate 2K and Gearbox with a burning passion but I've always loved the Borderlands series. If they shove microtransactions in for easy ways to get guns or even worse lootboxes into the game I will be incredibly disappointed and upset. But honestly I see it happening at this rate.
The Signess Dandy Randy will find a way, to ruin the way you play, he's done it before ,made games quite a bore, might as well go and play on a Tandy
...Ooooh noooooo...
Oh god I forgot that Borderlands was under them. Well if it's anything like the pre sequel I won't be getting it anyways. They better not shove their micro transactions dick into that game.
The Signess if they do that shit I'm gonna pull out the AK in their office
The Signess The worst part of this very likely possibility is that Borderlands' gameplay is a fucking PERFECT match for microtransaction bullshittery. The gun mechanics, what with the stats, collection aspects etc. that Borderlands did so much better than other similar games reeked of lootbox even before they were a normal thing.
Fuck this industry.
Holy shit. I thought I was the only person alive who remembers 'Stop It and Tidy Up'!
Great video by the way Jim.
Arnold Taylor you’re not the only one, just rewatching and only just spotted it! :D
7/10 for Rage is quite reasonable when you factor that it really was cut short in story length and had technical issues on PC.
It was also boring as hell, IMO. The only memorable thing to me is that John Goodman was in it.
John Cummings yeah seems totally fair to me too. I liked the beginning of it but later on the enemies became way too bullet sponge-y
6/10 for me. I found it pretty boring and the whole "open-world" stuff felt forced, with bunch of generic missions to boot.
A lot of this is on us, the gamers. If we didn't pre-order games, if we waited until after release to buy them, if we waited for reviews on the games in the state they're in on release, then reviewers wouldn't feel pressured to "get in good" with publishers or developers so that they could get pre-release copies. And then publishers and developers would have one less avenue with which to pressure reviewers into giving falsely complimentary reviews.
If I were a games critic, I'd give every single with these mobile phone style microtransaction systems an automatic 1.
Annalee H You are a games critic, every gamer is a games critic and it's about time the Proletariat gamers rose up and smashed the bourgeois corporations. LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION
Commies are vile and disgusting and nobody but my close friends give a shit about my critiques. The publishers are actually not the problem, they simply look for what they can get away with. It's our fault for being tolerant of their bad business practices.
1/10 is too nice; it should be -100/10 at best.
If only review scores could go into the negatives, with 0 being neutral and -1+ being actually bad.
Thing that confuses me the most about that is the fucking Communist part. Where'd that even come from?
Every country on the planet has had a revolution. The Americans had a REVOLUTIONARY WAR, for Christs sake. A revolution does not equate to Communism '-'
I'm sorry, that just genuinely threw me off.
2k has been like this for years. Are people really just catching on now?
Doc Holliday over the long term people catch up. In app purchases piss me off and so does in-game purchases. Nba games are like iPhones. What's the real difference year to year?
EXACTLY!!!! finally someone says it!
Been like this ever since it hit next gen consoles.. 13 was the last of the great 2k
I knew about 2K Games thanks to these videos, never heard of them before
I have 2k11 and 13. 16 was way more better than 18.
2K games, I give your shitty, mafia style, business practices and paper thin skin, 1 star rating
i stopped supporting these guys ages ago, they don't give a fuck
super generous score
2K: "REEEEEEEEEEEE TAKE IT BACK FILTHY PROTESTER!!!"
Your story about Bethesda contacting you with a "nice tone" made me imagine - what if you had an opportunity to do something evil, but didn't do it. You go home, and go to bed. In the middle of the night you feel a presence. You look at a dark corner of your bedroom and there is this 7 foot tall demon. You can tell it's a demon cuz it has bat wings, long sharp teeth, horns and black drool dripping from it's shaking mouth. BUT, it is dressed in a bright pink suit - very dapper. He asks, very politely, why you didn't do the evil thing? He is very soft and warm in tone - but do you still take him as a non threat? He's talking very proper, asking you why you didn't do the things he'd rather you do... at the same time physically blocking your escape. He never actually threatens you... but who wouldn't feel threatened???
Bruce B i don't think I'm going to sleep tonight
What the fuck
I mean, if he's polite, you might as well have tea with him.
Bruce B Bitch, I spent a night in southern Atlanta. I'd be surprised if a 7-foot black dude WASN'T lurking in my bedroom as I slept.
Take away the black drool and horns, I think Jim did this to me one night. It was a very dapper pink suit indeed.
Sports games are very simple. The newer ones get worse while the older ones remain better.
sports games in general are horrible dont get why theyre so popular
Aleph Null I enjoyed them when I was younger, but I haven't got a new one since 2009
Well, I know that some sports games, especially football ones, and also football ones tend to be marketed heavily towards the 'dude-bro' group. The ones that talk, think, and smell sports 24/7 pretty much, but to speak just for myself...
I used to play the Tiger Woods series of golf games (made by EA, I know, I was young and naive back then) and I personally found them to be extremely relaxing to play. No big explosions, none of that. Just a nice, quiet time with me and the game. I'd play a couple rounds, and then move on. There were 'career' modes and all that, sure, but it wasn't necessary. You could enjoy the game how you wanted, when you wanted. Sure a new one game out every year I don't deny, but at least it was a nice experience.
I'm not shocked that they're using a 'friendliness' factor here. Of course they would. So then if the reviewer they were obviously trying to pressure blows up, or even doesn't blow up by otherwise says or does something, then they can use that as an excuse to 'out' the 'meanie head reviewer', who cruelly 'attacked' them even though they were just trying to be 'nice' to them and so on.
They are just playing innocent, so they can look like the 'attacked' party, and trick people into siding with them because the 'bad reviewer' did something to them, and they'll also 'happen' to point out that they 'also' gave their game a bad score, so people dismiss it as well and so on.
No pressure from the publisher? Hardly. If anything this is WORSE because once that's started, the bad press it could generate for the reviewer could easily snowball to other websites and become a huge thing, and what could've turned into a bad thing for the publisher now turns into a VERY BIG, and bad thing for the reviewer instead.
And all because a publisher asked in a 'friendly' way why their game got a bad score.
Why even charge 60 dollars if your just gonna slap on microtransactions
rjtheripper931 Simple. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
*insert image of greedy orc rubbing hands together here*
rjtheripper931 There's actually a €150 version of the game.
It's not a matter of why, it's a matter of 'Why not?'
These people (if you can call them people) be it 2kgames, Activision, EA, Konami, Bandai Namco...pretty much everybody, has been seeing just how far they can push the customer to pay more and more for less and less.
Sadly it seems a lot of people have bought into it quite heavily for their own reasons and this is sadly, another step of that.
I hate it, don't get me wrong, and I'm not going to be one of those 'it's going to happen so just fucking let it' because fuck that.
I've pretty much given up on buying new games with minimal exceptions, I've had this habit years before and more and more, I'm just wondering how far these 'people' are going to go at it until there is an gaming crash.
And while some may welcome it, a chief concern of mine is if people will even LEARN from this, and what's stopping publishers from somehow going even worse than what they're doing now?
This is why we need people like Jim FUCKING Sterling Son.
No doubt ther'es people who will tell him to get off it, but being silent about it is a surefire way for it to keep going and going, and and going.
And at a bigger risk of coming off as pretentious and even a crakpot, sometimes I keep thinking back to that 'First they came poem' in this specific case, if people don't speak up, if they don't take actual action, this will get worse.
Only reason why Xbone failed with it's BS was because the backlash was big enough. Only reason why Bioware was able to do anything about Mass Effect 3 being fucked by EA was because of it (although a lot of shit was hurled at Bioware and while they may not be entirely innocent, it was remiss to fucking ignore or downplay Electronic Arts. It's like going for the assassin who killed somebody important to you, but not the person or people who actually ordered the fucking hit to begin with).
And of course people will scream 'Buyer beware' and while I may agree to SOME extent, it can't be ignored that there are people within the industry who go out of their way to find ways to make shit seem appealing to anyone gullable enough to fall for it.
It's not just a matter of a consumer looking out for themselves, there's people who's fucking job it is to more or less find a way to trick or pressure people into it, without them realizing it.
AND THEY KNOW THIS. 2K's CEO more or less stated just that a while ago, and shortly before the whole mod clusterfuck with GTA 5 (And thanks to that, I'm not going to bother with a GTA game outside getting it 2nd hand or on an extreme discount, thanks 2k and fuck you). ...
It's a lot of things, and I'd keep rambling but who has time for that? Plus I'm sure there's still holes in everything I've just said, but whatever.
I also my sincere apologies for swearing, I mean I'm not stranger but I didn't mean to get so heated up but, this really gets under my skin.
That's pretty much it.
MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEEEY. MOOOONEEEEEYYYYY!!!
honestly.
if someone wrote me an email regarding the score i gave for their game, i would write this:
"i correct my score in regards to the following mail sent to me by the publisher:
the score is now 3 apple/10 apples"
Fuck 2k. Thank god for you.
They have ruined so many long-running game series which used to be great. They invest more time in profiteering than developing the games.
Thank god for Jim
All hail the independent state of Jim-fucking-sterling-son!
Or Jim-dependent, if you will. :)
+When The Music's Over u all thanked your gods for Jim
i wonder what kind of pressure Valve was under for the whole review bomb trend, this game got everything it needs for micro'nickle'and'dime to die, steam now has a graph HAHAHAHAHAHA.
well it will show when customers are pissed, if 2k actually decides to remove the microtransactions from the game watch how review scores will go up and jump up in positive rating
CatheteriZedEYE let this game rot, for good riddance. But let me tell you this stupid basketball game will still sell a plenty because many simply don't care.
Jim I'm happy and proud to announce I'm your 4,223(nd) patron. I've watched your videos for maybe just under a year now and I finally thought it's time for me to give back. As a former journalism student it means a lot to me that people like you can give your honest opinion about how you really feel about games. I love games, but your right the industry has become tarnished. However you have chosen to stay true to what you believe in no matter what the cost (and if blacklisting is the worst they can do then "fuck em")and I respect that
I guess you could say they want every gamer to pay 2k to play this game.
That is a very good pun indeed
Ultgamer cw HA HA HA HA HAHA
Reviewers should bring up any issue that hurts the enjoyability or playability of the game, and lower the score depending of the severity of the issue, I don't know why anyone would think that micro transactions should be exempt from this rule
In the older days, magazines used to get threats of ad removal when bad previews or reviews were revealed. EGM dealt with this, with Dan Hsu, the editor in chief, calling the corporations out in his editorial notes.
2k made this so much worse by taking action, if they had done nothing, no one would care. (more than they did before)
Caleb Harch That's called the Streisand Effect, where attempts at censorship inadvertently raise even more awareness.
Caleb Harch my thoughts exactly!!! Look at FIFA for example, another garbage game rehashed every year and swamped with shitty penny pinching practices.
Loved your unbiased honesty when it comes to ANY video game! Which, for me, was solidified by the following statement, "I just sort of...be fat and talk about videogames." LMAO
Those $99.99 VC things are even worse when you look at the 'buy 250k and get 200k free', it wants you not only to pay $99.99, but to also pay at least $49.99 more so you can get 400k free VC. This isn't going to end well with children and their parent's credit cards
yes, it's worrying. i can imagine all the kids trying to drain their parent's accounts.
in the short-term Microtransactions are good for a company, in the long-term, they're the death of that company's goodwill and reputation which will see them lose customers
Deus Ex mankind divided suffered because of the MT...sold 1/3 so far of what it needed to break even(1 million sold, 3 million to break even).
I bet they did some calculation and discovered they'd likely make more off whales than they will lose from customers like us deciding their games are shit and not buying them anymore. Unfortunately the same companies pull the same shit over and over again and their games are still a success most of the time. In fact they are making record profits, so I highly doubt that they will ever have a financial incentive to not do push mtx as hard as they can. I wish more people would just decide "No I won't buy this game purely because of MTX to send a message" but it's just not happening, and there needs to be some sort of regulation to remove the financial incentive for these companies to push it in order for us to get rid of it.
Hey Jim there's no sign of the review on meta critic. All the reviews are 9/10s and whatnot not even mentioning this system. I think 2k got this review taken off metacritic.
Gizmomaster SIXCUGHHBOHBOYOUHYAKITORITTCFIXINGFOCIDICHOBIGGIEHUBBYHYGIENICBLIGHTYHUBBUBGRAFFITIFIFTHBUNCHEDGOTCHUHUBBYGUFF i'm genuinly displeased
Update the review is now back up on metacritic. It took its score of 87 and dropped it down to 83. 2k18 is sitting at an 83 on PS4 metacritic.
Micro-transactions ABSOLUTELY must be part of reviews - and yes, they should invariably be negative influences on the score. They want to cram this shit into games, then they will live with the consequences.
Not only has this video not shown up in my subscription feed, I also did not get a notification. WTF TH-cam?
2K is probably paying TH-cam staff $2k to block the video lmao
Pro tip: We don't care about your subscription feed.
If a game *looks* like shit, and *smells* like shit, then *SHOCKER* it *must be shit....*
It baffles me how publishers load their games with microtransactions that clearly impact the base gameplay, then expect nobody to comment on them, as if they know how much consumers hate them and might reconsider purchasing their product, YET THEY STILL DECIDE TO PUT THEM IN.
"We ArE a BiT cOnCeRnEd AbOuT yOuR rEvIeW"
Let's call it for what it is: censorship. And that reminds me of that time I gave The Evil Within a generous 6,5. Guess what? Bethesda's PR contacted me saying he won't send DLCs codes for that shitty game. Or when Ubisoft blacklisted me for giving The Division a 7,3. Goddammit these fuckin' suits.
God it's annoying how misused the word "censorship" has become
Lol almost facepalmed at "censorship"
Nerdescent That's not censorship. It's not justifiable, but they're not impeding your free speech.
So you don't get Free games from a company after you trash their product? Shocker.
6.5 for the evil within is more than generous! I'd have given it 2 because i thought it was shite.
I think 2K should take their name down for a bit and reconsider it. 2.017K is a far better name I reason.
Great video Jim, one of your best in recent memory. Not even just about NBA but the whole issue in general. Well thought out and explained 👍😁
Good for them for having the balls to score a game that low. If other websites weren't in bed with the publishers to such a degree, we wouldn't be in this shitty situation where they are utterly unable to ever give a sponsored game less than a 7 (to the extent that certain gamers consider an 8/10 to be a dogshit game unworthy of even picking up when on sale).
pretty much all the major review sites have been doing this for a long time, especially ign of all places i don't read or care for sites like that, too much dick sucking to even trust anything that they say at all.
From a consumer's perspective, only blacklisted or otherwise non-bribed reviewers can be trusted.
Microtransactions are a part of the game are they not? Therefore taking them into account for a review score sounds like something that not only can be done, but should be done. I'm much less against microtransactions than you are, Jim, but when a shitty economy like the one 2k made directly affects how the game itself is played, then there is a problem that needs to be mentioned in the review.
I just read a comment about someone who said he spent 40 bucks on VC and only made it to the 80s and was still up against 90s. He didn't directly say it, but he implied that he only even spent the money, because he felt like he had to to compete, not because he wanted to. Keeping that in mind, it is important to note things like that in reviews.
The thing is Jim, it's not about the review copies, it's the interviews.
Review sites want to be able to take part and speak to companies about upcoming projects and get information and interviews on events and games and the industry. That requires the comppany to be willing to speak with them specifically.
Those sorts of things can make a site get a LOT more traffic, but if denied and other sites get them, then the other sites will get that traffic.
Oh I wish that "people are understandably miffed about it".
I made the mistake of searching for this game on youtube to see if this is true and all I found was ... endless videos of guys with hundreds of thousands of subscribers doing streams where they grind literally for days to upgrade players and others buying and openings hundreds of lootboxes that contain mostly duplicates of stuff they already have and comment sections full of what seems like mostly young boys gushing over how awesome the streamer and their ability to grind and open boxes is.
I know you're supposed to step outside of your bubble once in a while but whenever I leave the comfort of Jimquisitions and the like all I find are vlloggers and "reactors" with gazillions of subscribers/views and comment sections on AAA-trailers where people brag about how they already preordered the deluxe special season pass diamond edition ...
I don't wanna live in this world anymore.
It will get to the point where you won't be able to live in this world anymore unless you have bought a season pass.
The pack openers are dreadful, but don't see the problem in people playing the game to get better. Is Destiny's whole fanbase bad for watching others perpetually grind?
Just wanted to say what a treat to see Stop it and tidy up footage Jim. Cheers.
Let's *REVIEW BOMB* NBA 2k18
- on Steam
- on Metacritic
The funny bit about review copy’s is that they are given early and the game isn’t even in a playable state. In this day and age publishers like WB are more focused on dlc, preorder bonuses, microtransaction and etc before even having the main build done. Leaving those reviewers who have been blacklisted to get it later on and in a funny way getting a better version of the game than those who got it early due to the popular “day one” patch
It's absolutely feasible to play this game without spending money at all: you just have to grind those usual (edit: IRL) 6 months with a 7'3'' center who cannot possibly get bad team grades even if he's as good at basket and as fun to play as a giant potato, and then you'll have enough "Virtual Currency" to actually build the player of your dream.
Really, I don't see what you're bitching about!
I mean, of course the game has the same annoying problems since at least 6 or 7 years ago (didn't play versions earlier than NBA2K11, so I don't know), such as:
- inconsistent connection between the players' attributes and what they actually can or cannot do on the court,
- the defense keeping on leaving players open for shooting 3s in the corner independently by what you tell it to do,
- blocks and faults being seemingly random in their evaluation,
- the game momento boosts being stupidly volatile,
- CPU teams cheating you each and every time your player is set on the bench by the coach,
- passes going the wrong way even when you're already forced to use the select player buttons instead of the simple direction,
- and... many many other stupidly easy to correct problems like those.
But what do you expect? If 2K ever corrected those annoying problems what could they ever write in the (falsely advertised) "improvements" section of the next year game selling commercial?
You just need to grow up and learn by professionals how it's done: this game is the best basketball game ever published, inferior only to the next year one. Just give it 9.99 and that's it (9.999 for NBA2K19, 9.9999 for NBA2K20 and so on).
Thanks for your videos!
P.S.
For those who don't get it, it's sarcasm. Except for the "Thanks for your videos!" part.
Pedone Rosso Preach!
Now, I know I wrote this at the very end where it's easy to miss, but I'm so kind I'll quote it here again so you can see it better, Victor Alkaiser:
"P.S. For those who don't get it, it's sarcasm. Except for the "Thanks for your videos!" part."
Maybe it's the "6 months" part that creates confusion: I meant IRL (In Real Life) time, not in the game's season progression time.
Thanks for your answers 2017 National champs and Victor Alkaiser.
ah, disregard then
So the game would be better without micro-transactions. critic scores are absolutely useless to me now for any game that has any form of micro-transactions.
If you read the IGN review of the game, it suggests spending $150 on the game and "it feels like we’re being steered toward spending money to avoid an insane amount of hours spent grinding for points"
The average metacritic user score is about 2.57 across all 4 platforms, IGN gave it a 8.4, average metacritic is 84.8, No joke.
U actualy just blew my mind i never thought about using a center before, cause its such a boring play vs shooting all day long but u may have saved my wallet today
Jim's story reminds me of a story from Gus of RoosterTeeth. He told a story how initially they wanted to do scored reviews, but when they rated one game very poorly, the developer contacted them and gave them the story of "we worked so hard why would you rail on it like that?" and the RT guys gave in to the pressure
We are in age now where business supersedes everything. At the end of the day, they know people will buy their game whether its shit or not. Why put money and effort into something that will practically sell itself. Until the day gaming publishers such as 2k EA, Activision and such literally see a 0 in sales nothing will be done. A vast majority of games that have been made are not worth the $60 they are valued at but the simple fact that they know hundreds of thousands of people will buy the game regardless, why bother actually enhancing the game other than graphics? You think that avid 12 year old kid who loves to play basketball can pick out all the flaws/bullshit mechanics and know it is a poorly made game? No, he just wants to play as KD or Lebron. That is the sad part about the whole gaming economy now. There has and never been morals when it comes to selling/publishing a game. As long as those 12 year old kids write "NBA 2k18" on their birthday or Christmas lists, that is all a gaming publisher cares about. Once the game is sold, you really think they care about your experience with the game?
Jordan exactly. I don't understand how people are saying this game is 8+/10 in terms of gameplay.. like what. It's so unbalanced and random lol. Glad to see someone actually talking about gameplay mechanics.
I hope you keep on about micro transactions in full priced games jim im not sick of hearing about it at all what im sick of is greedy developers double dipping and screwing there loyal fan base out of hard earned money.
They dont deserve your money they dont deserve your loyalty when they stop acting like greedy pretentious pricks and and actually get back to focusing on their games and doing right by there fans then they can have peoples respect in the meantime there are so many great indie developers and smaller company's out there doing right by the player and these are the people that will get my money.
I know its hard when a lot of these games have such a following among the gaming community but the only way these overpaid parasites will listen is if we stop putting money and time into there games dont stand for show some backbone and dont purchase their products its the only way things are going to change otherwise look forward to more of the same.
The majority of reviewers only ever use scores of 8-10, due to pressure to keep satisfying the companies they review. THERE ARE OTHER NUMBERS ON THE SCALE, YA KNOW. In my eyes, anything about a four is playable, anything above a six is enjoyable, 7 or 8 is a great game, 9 is a masterpiece, and 10 is an effectively-unobtainable score that exists as a placeholder until The Perfect Game is created. And it won't be.
10/10 games already exist.
10/10 games already exist.
I wonder how developers and publishers would react if they got emails and phonecalls from reviewers and critics, asking them to change certain aspects of game play or monetization, because it can't possibly be right. Because as they said in this or that press release... etc. etc.
It isn't just the use of micro transactions that brings this game down it is the fact that said micro transactions make various modes of the game unplayable. The "My Career" mode is garbage unless you either grind forever, or pay to make you player good enough to make half of their open layups. I'll never buy another NBA2K game as a result of this mess.
Yes the open layups and open shots are a piss off but the free throws are the slap in the face
I don't see how publishers can expect micro transactions to not be considered part of the merits of a game. Any thing that is in the game are part of the criticism, so how can the mechanic that controls the progression not be included.
Update: the review is back on PS4 metacritic. 2k18 was at 87 it's now at 83.
Love it. Thanks for this one. It's good to know, and I'm glad that some reviewers are actually taking a stand.
It took 3 years but it's finally about ethics in games journalism
Shukterhouse Jive no thanks to gators
"finally" ah yes, nothing bad with gaming jounalism was happening when reviewers were friends with game devs and participating in a smear campaign against gamers.
Now that I have a reply from both ends of the discourse you must fight to the death, you have one week to choose your weapon, Nathan was first so they can counterpick the arena, good luck!
Thank you for bringing this to light. You made a fan. Subscribed.
Jim, you *should* wander around America helping people. Like David Carradine in Kung Fu, only with more autoerotic asphyxiation.
I rarely "lol" at comments...but LOL!
well played
Loving the amount of videos this week Jim! Nice one!
Jim this video isn't showing up in my sub feed. anyone else having this issue?
Ryan Gradel me too. Not showing in the subscriptions but I can see it on the start page.
About this pressure. Reminds me about the developer of a game called "Ballistic Overkill" which I gave a 6/10 on a steam review, which I also put to "negative", due to the fact I felt fooled by "overwhelmingly positive" steam reviews. They did basically the exact same.
"You said so much positive things but not a even a seven?, is a six not POSITIVE review?" , trying to guilt trip me.
The developer then asked what they could do to improve the game and I gave a lot of feedback which they said they'd be looking into, which I am not sure if they actually took into consideration.
But it honestly felt like they wanted to seem like they were doing so much for me and it deserved a higher score.
Otherwise the devs were cool, being entirely honest, but just that little thing felt slightly scummy.
pause at 5:52 and tell me if that does not look like a freaking mobile game.
alcidiow with in-app purchases
If a developer contacts a reviewer because of their score without asking that reviewer how can we fix this? I'm no longer supporting or buying products from the developer.
Jim, please review this game and give it a 1/10. I desperately need to see what happens when that gets on Metacritic.
Ohh yes!! They shall do xD I hope jim get the lawyer from DigiHom for them too!
The best thing to take away from this is as Jim said, publishers obviously DO care if people kick up a fuss about microtransactions. They're vulnerable on this issue: if we keep the pressure on, they might start to crack...
A $60 free to play game? Ill go back to nba 2008 leats you get an actural game
10:42 I've been thinking about that for a while, about the whole free review copies system specifically when Bethesda announced their new policy (that is inherently anti-consumer). After my initial outrage, i thought about maybe some potential benefits, the chief being that without that carrot of a free early copy of the game to dangle in companies faces (whether it's because they're a small outfit that can't afford to buy each game outright or a large company that thrives on being among the first reviews out), it frees those companies up to be more brutally honest with that companies games, as there's no longer any fear of being "late to the party" because they blacklisted you. Even if you're forced to pay for them out of pocket it's a tax write-off as a business expense. I think the only way to eliminate that sway the current review copy system gives publishers is to make it all one way or the other, either review copies have to be made available to the press (for purchase, but a tax write off) 1 week before general release, which would require legislation, or no review copies for anyone and caveat emptor for the first week or so (which sucks for the early adopters, but most people that buy launch day don't care about reviews anyway).
Seems like independent is the way to go, both in games journalism AND games development. Thing is though, with a game like NBA, the folks buying it will be sports fans/"casual" gamers (hate those labels but fuck it) and won't be invested in games industry coverage like this or 6th axis (or whatever they're called), and will probably fall for the micro-transaction economy regardless.
I remember a few years back I always thought fondly of 2k, but I guess I was being very naive at the time.
And for what it's worth, Rage was a very unremarkable game, 6 / 7 ish is about right. Hydrophobia was a disappointment, because I "got" what they were trying to do, I always liked SOS: The Final Escape on ps2, and this seemed to have a similar vibe, but with a more physics-based approach (in theory) but it just didn't pay off in the end.
Our Old House you weren't wrong to think of 2K in a good light. They got overly greedy. The new EA
one thing i do observe is that some companies still do not understand _The Streisand Effect,_ 2K should have left that alone to their fanboys to rage on...
RAGE came out in 2011, that's SIX years ago Jim NOT TWO!
Times flies lol.
Such a good video released on my birthday?You sir got yourself a new subscriber!
Shadow of War shit storm brews on the horizon. . .
At least Shadow of War wasn't flaunting Microtransactions like 2K. I got through the story without spending a dime on it. 2K18 is a different story seems like
I remember reviewing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD (the remake) and gave it a 7. My editor got an email from PR and they weren't happy that I pointed out the poor physics and lack of offline multiplayer!
Alternative title: 2K/10
There's also an active lawsuit over this series of games (started in 2016, w.r.t. NBA 2k16, since extended to 2k17 and 2k18) regarding unlicensed use of images of player tattoos. The dispute is over whether or not licensing the rights to use a person's likeness includes the rights to images tattooed on that person - which has no definitive legal precedent yet, and has awkward consequences if decided in either direction. 2K Games might need that sweet microtransaction money to cover the settlement costs for their massive and ongoing copyright infringement.
Odd, this video doesn't show up in my subscription box
Yeah, I noticed that too. Well done, TH-cam.
Probably because you don't have enough VC
Same to me.
2K is a clandestine Google subsidiary confirmed