If last year in gaming could be summoned up in a couple of phrases, one of those phrases would be “too much microtransactions”. Numerous companies pushed the limits of what AAA titles should have in terms of microtransactions, and as a result, gamers paid the ultimate price. Mainly, a high one just to get through certain games. One game that pushed the limits to far was NBA 2K18. To be fair, the game sold really well, but the gamers noticed the microtransactions were too extreme, and developer Take-Two heard their words.
In an interview with Game Informer, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had this to say about the NBA 2K18 situation.
“Unquestionably we pay attention to consumer response because we’re so focused on engaging and captivating and entertaining the consumer. Any time 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 do think that part of a fair deal is, you know when you get the check at the end of the meal, it’s not enough that the food tasted good, it has to be a fair deal for what you got. So we’re very focused on it being more than a fair deal; we want to give consumers much more than they paid for.”
He admits that Take-Two has to reprioritize what they think they are when it comes to their games:
“We’re an entertainment company and when we get that right, everything else flows from it.”
So it looks like the failures of NBA 2K18 will hopefully positively influence NBA 2K19. But how much? We’ll have to wait and see.
