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oni-link

tag reference no one gets
Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,014
UK
It's such a shame seeing how far sports games have fallen

We used to get all kinds of crazy sports games, from those trying to be more realistic to those trying to be more arcadey, to over the top extreme sports games to more niche titles

Now we have a handful of huge boring copy pasted from year to year titles, almost no variation, and of late all have become glorified fruit machines
 

Militaratus

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
1,212
Seeing that Pegi 3 rating is utter disgusting. Can't we complain to Pegi for a re-rating due to actual simulated gambling present due to that slot machine and roulette table?
 

Phife Dawg

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,049
You were not joking. I am still amazed that there are so few regulations on this. Such predatory business practices.
 

Catshade

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,198
...and this is rated PEGI 3? I thought any gambling-like element (even as tame as DQ or Pokemon) means -at least- rated T or equivalent.
 

Militaratus

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
1,212
It's time to contact PEGI and complain about the game's rating:

I wrote the following:
NBA 2K20 has been rated for PEGI 3 while the game contains elements that encourage and/or teach gambling. The game uses Slot Machine and Roulette Table simulations are games of chance that are normally carried out in casinos and/or gambling halls that in real life would be played for money. Games with this sort of content are PEGI 12, PEGI 16, or PEGI 18.

Please note it is possible for players to insert real life money through indirect means into these gambling simulations to teach players to normalize monetary betting on games of chance that are normally carried out in casinos and/or gambling halls.

It's time for an independent Game's Ratings Board to be founded so this crap doesn't fly anymore.
 

woinf

Banned
Nov 19, 2017
52
Can't wait for the general NBA playerbase to still buy the game and complain about it for a whole year
 

IIFloodyII

Member
Oct 26, 2017
23,952
Holy fuck you weren't kidding. Disgusting from 2K. Also how the fuck does PEGI slap a age rating of "3" on this shit?
 

OléGunner

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,275
Airborne Aquarium
This is pure insanity.
It's almost impressive how these companies are embracing the casino aspect of mtx and just going whole hog, like fuck it.

And these are in games rated 3+ age wise lmao
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,162
But they are winning alot in the trailer. Guess its very fair and you win alot also.

They don't show the thousands of dollars of failed spins in between though. :)

Honestly, the mode would appeal to me more (though I'm not paying hundreds of dollars, but maybe I'd at least glance at the mode every once in a while) if not for those stupid contracts. Like you can't even play this mode for fun or to practice without draining some kind of currency.
 
Oct 25, 2017
10,397
They don't show the thousands of dollars of failed spins in between though. :)

Honestly, the mode would appeal to me more (though I'm not paying hundreds of dollars, but maybe I'd at least glance at the mode every once in a while) if not for those stupid contracts. Like you can't even play this mode for fun or to practice without draining some kind of currency.

I only read the first and last page so apologies if this was already explained.

So the spins and pachinko-y stuff they show in this trailer is NOT pay to play. Those are your rewards for winning X games in a MyTeam mode. So no money is being spent on this particular part of the experience.

WHAT IS a problem with this game is the many other modes of MTX like card packs for players are bought and no pack odds ever released (in MyTeam), using MTX in the myplayer mode where people who pay can basically level up their players in a pay-to-win situation, and putting ads in the freaking load screens of games (although not sure if that exists this year, but it did last year, albeit very briefly and late in the cycle)

I'll admit this trailer is a bad look with the casino associations but wanted to point out that these parts are not actually correlated with spending money on the game...
 

Wag

Member
Nov 3, 2017
11,638
This is a side of gaming I've never personally experienced, so it's pretty powerful to see how far it's developed / devolved out of sight. I don't watch sports or play sports videogames, so I had no idea all the "surprise mechanics" were as prevalent as this video makes them look.
Same here.

The thing is, I'm an occasional gamer, so when I really started getting into Assassin's Creed Odyssey I was shocked at how much grinding there was- primarily to market their "speed up" micro-transactions. So it's pretty much infiltrated every aspect of the gaming industry.
 

Violence Jack

Drive-in Mutant
Member
Oct 25, 2017
41,674
I think this is like the 2nd or 3rd year in a row that Jim has called 2K out on their microtransaction bullshit for NBA 2K when they started decreasing the amount of XP you get per game when building your created player to the point that you couldn't contribute much to your team unless you paid money. Last year they apparently lessened the grind a tad, but you were still forced to either play online and/or purchase VC just to get your player out of bench warmer levels.

I'll continue propping up NBA Live, even though EA seems all but ready to kill it off.
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,162
I only read the first and last page so apologies if this was already explained.

So the spins and pachinko-y stuff they show in this trailer is NOT pay to play. Those are your rewards for winning X games in a MyTeam mode. So no money is being spent on this particular part of the experience.

WHAT IS a problem with this game is the many other modes of MTX like card packs for players are bought and no pack odds ever released (in MyTeam), using MTX in the myplayer mode where people who pay can basically level up their players in a pay-to-win situation, and putting ads in the freaking load screens of games (although not sure if that exists this year, but it did last year, albeit very briefly and late in the cycle)

I'll admit this trailer is a bad look with the casino associations but wanted to point out that these parts are not actually correlated with spending money on the game...

Honest question, can you win enough in this game to get spins without spending money? Like I said before, I'm not even sure how to get more contracts without constantly playing and upgrading your characters, though maybe there's a grind there? And there's no way to buy more rewards directly?
 
Oct 25, 2017
10,397
Honest question, can you win enough in this game to get spins without spending money? Like I said before, I'm not even sure how to get more contracts without constantly playing and upgrading your characters, though maybe there's a grind there? And there's no way to buy more rewards directly?

So this trailer is about the MyTeam mode so i'll specify my answers are about that mode.

1) Yes, last year you got ball drops (pachinko) every time you won a game in Triple Threat (a truncated 3 on 3 mode) and packs and tokens every time you won a full game (domination)
2) Contracts can be purchased using MyTeam credits you get for every game in the auction house and can be found in previous mentioned packs
3) If you're talking reward cards, those cannot be bought directly. Nor can they be bought with the in game currency, only through playing the game can you get the tokens needed to get them.

EDIT: to clarify point 3, you can see at 0:59 in the video there's a slot machine style mechanic to win the card on the right (Cliff Hagan). You can only get spins on that if you play triple threat, you cannot pay to get to that slot machine IIRC
 

Liquidsnake

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,979
pjcpb7t41bj31.jpg
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,162
I think this is like the 2nd or 3rd year in a row that Jim has called 2K out on their microtransaction bullshit for NBA 2K when they started decreasing the amount of XP you get per game when building your created player to the point that you couldn't contribute much to your team unless you paid money. Last year they apparently lessened the grind a tad, but you were still forced to either play online and/or purchase VC just to get your player out of bench warmer levels.

I'll continue propping up NBA Live, even though EA seems all but ready to kill it off.

I will say that while it is a grind, you can play myplayer without paying money, you just have to play a lot of games and not expect to be all star caliber right away (though still sooner than is realistic).
 

Militaratus

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
1,212
Fun fact: They had to remove the Game Corner from Pokémon because it caused PEGI to slap it with an instant 12 for "gambling".

Yet this is rated 3.
Holy fuck you weren't kidding. Disgusting from 2K. Also how the fuck does PEGI slap a age rating of "3" on this shit?
This is pure insanity.
It's almost impressive how these companies are embracing the casino aspect of mtx and just going whole hog, like fuck it.

And these are in games rated 3+ age wise lmao
I wonder if I would get a response back from PEGI why this is rated 3+. It would be funny if they said if these gambling simulations weren't included in the 30m+ footage sent to them to determine the game's rating. It wouldn't be the first time critical information was omitted to enlarge the fishing pool.

Or more sinisterly, PEGI could have been bribed by the greasing department to just hand them the PEGI 3+ rating. Hopefully this isn't the case, but I think this is cause for an investigation to be launched to figure out why a slot machine, pachinko, and roulette are considered child friendly by PEGI standards.
 

Miles Davis

Alt account
Banned
Jun 22, 2019
802
The irl game itself is improving and becoming more exciting to watch but these video games are getting shitter
Ahh yeah they are definitely capitalizing and fleecing because of the popularity. I'm a 90s guy at heart or even late 80s for basketball. This upcoming season should be amazing. But dear god these games are just out to FLEECE.
 

RecRoulette

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,044
This shit has to be a parody, I refuse to believe it's real

That Lebron reveal was a top notch lootbox/gacha animation though.
 

Roy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,471
Video has over 8,000 likes and fewer than 500 dislikes 🤦🏽‍♀️

These games still get high reviews too and I remember one year The 6th Axis gave it a 3/10 and 2k tried to bully them into raising the score. The next year the score was 5/10.
 

Mr. Pointy

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,141
I have this idea for a fun way to get cards in MyTeam NBA 2K21, so I want to get some feedback.

So what should happen is that the minigame to roll to get better cards is, imagine, a 5x3 grid of symbols. And you spend a few VC Points to roll certain symbol combos in a line. They could be, for example, 9-10-J-Q-K-A, flaming basketballs, T2 logos, Michael Jordan sad faces, etc. There could even be a wild symbol using, say, the cover star of 2K21 that substitutes for all combos.

The cool thing is that you win back more VC Points to buy the cards you want, so there's no randomness in the actual core gameplay. You buy the cards you want. You increase the number of line combos by spending more VC Points per roll, and you can up the spend multiplier 2x, 3x, 5x, etc. But you're upping the chance for better rewards.

You'd get opportunities for lots of free VC Points by getting sets of free spins if you get 3 Golden Lebron James heads. The big goal would be getting the 2K Link minigame, because that would give you the best prizes. If you get 6 NBA logos with VC Point totals in them, you get this minigame where you try to spin up to 15 NBA logos. If you don't get 15, you still get a prize made up of your VC Point totals. But if you get 15, you get the Grand Jackpot which is a lot of VC Points that increases the more people play MyTeam.

The game could put on limited time themes with cool graphics in the minigame, like a Chinese theme for a Yao Ming card pack, or a cowboy theme for the 90s Bulls, for example.

So what do you think? If you we're a T2 shareholder or board member, or a big NBA 2K player, would you play it?
 

TheZynster

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,285
I wish my team mode in other games would simulate diamond dynasty.
Honestly MLB The Show has by far the most relaxed system for any my team mode in any sport game