Lately there has been a particularly egregious breach of ethics that’s been spotted from 2K, more specifically the developer of the NBA 2K series, and certain youtube channels. 2K Sports sent out a special kit to people who’ve been playing their game on youtube. They have been doing this openly and nobody, not the supposedly “ethical” or “drum beating” gaming journalists nor the youtube channels involved, seems to have an issue with it. It is the duty of a journalist to point this out.
To celebrate the ten year anniversary of PlayStation trophies, let's look at the five most ridiculous platinum trophies of all time.
Fortnite is just an absurd grind not necessarily that difficult, but the hardest platinum trophies are from games like Super Meatboy and even moreso, Crypt of the Necrodancer.
Super Meat boy!
I intended to platinum it, but I never went to see the complete list of trophies until not too long ago. I said to myself back then : "the hardest one must be getting a+ every stages", but no. They had to include a "complete all worlds without dying once" for each world, including the dark world versions! How crazy is that ?!?!?!
Still never seen any harder than Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
Be #1 on the Leaderboards
Overwatch's and Final Fantasy X for me
Other multiplayer games these days or if they have an online part of the game
Final Fantasy IX...those 200 jumps...urgh
Final Fantasy IX 1000 jump rope is total bullshit. Luckily you can use an auto clicker script with PS Remote Play
I got to 680, lost focus for one second and failed. I couldn't believe it... decided to collect all the cards instead haha
DC heroes such as Deadpool, Harley Quinn and Quicksilver lol Damn, I do not take this list seriously.
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Games that cheat are the worst, and not for the reasons you think.
Super Mario Kart.
Good lord, the struggle...
Mario Kart 64 was almost as bad, but not quite.
Tiger woods pga tour golf. No matter how good you played, the other players scores were close at end of round. I had to take extra strokes, then play my game the last round to prevent this.
The comment on the site seems to have shut down this claim. I'll copy and paste it here.
"YouTubers don't have an obligation to report it unless it is being used to pay for coverage. I've not seen journalists receiving them, it's primarily youtube folks (who are free to make videos about LOOK AT THIS COOL THING 2K SENT ME! as that's inherently disclosing that 2K sent it to them) and influencers like Spike Lee (who posted about it on social media, which probably alone justified the entire cost of the campaign). To boot, all the tweets and youtube videos in this article make it very clear that this was something sent to them from 2K.
"highlights the anti-consumer practices that run rampant throughout the industry."
Welcome to marketing. There is nothing anti-consumer about this, it's simply pro-influencer/celebrity.
"2K has also been very unkind to the international fans of the series by releasing the best cards in the game for free in a limited supply on twitter. The problem is that they’re only giving North American players the best times to grab these and never any reasonable times for the rest of the world."
Legal reasons. It's a hassle to legally do giveaways in Europe due to there being multiple countries involved, so they'd have to limit it to a few countries, pissing off those not able to participate. It's simply easier to limit it to NA if that's their primary market (which, for a NBA game it is).
"2K is actively bribing youtubers for coverage and attention for their game franchise, while also engaging in anti-consumer practices."
They're bribing in the same way that any company that makes a product "bribes" influencers by giving them their products to use/show off. This is a longstanding practice that targets non-journalists (influencers, celebrities, etc.) and is not a problem.
This seems like a giant, ignorant whine over nothing."
What a lame, whiny article this is. Promo items are sent out all the time, it's a perk for reviewers that goes with the territory. Whining about this promo really makes no sense at all, this smacks of a cheap shot article designed for clicks.
"Story quality?" WTF?
"Like this website?" No.
Nothing to see here people, just down vote this article and website, and move on. The writer is probably salty that he didn't get a promo kit, lol.
Promotional swag is given out to whoever a company thinks could influence someone else into purchasing something. If you attend a conference, you get vendor swag. This is just more targeted toward YouTubers instead of retailers (which was the way they did this in the 90s when everyone rented games and actual mom-and-pop stores existed). Maybe we're all bought and sold, then, but it's not unique to 2K.
Is it ethical for that guy to advertise that 2K gave him a boombox promo? I think it's more ethical than not disclosing it, and the rest of the delivery of that disclosure, like the tone, has to do with what his fans would enjoy the most. This is NBA 2K, not Papers, Please. Fans will be fine with that.
Well, this isn't the first nor last time you will see swag marketing in action. (which this pretty much is, on a limited basis) It's happened with EVERY major studio and console manufacturer.
What the article doesn't mention is that 2K has also flown some of these dedicated YouTubers out to their studios to play game in advance. You know why? To make sure that the game IMPROVES each year. In fact, one was even given a JOB to help improve how plays are run and how specific teams utilize those plays.
IMO, this is more of an endorsement of the YouTubers and THEIR hard work in covering the 2K game year in and year out and the dedication that takes. It's not like there is really any competition for basketball (with NBA Live still re-tooling) for 2K to need to bribe these people. In fact, I would bet you would hear more complaints from these guys than in ALL of the reviews that you read. Most of these guys don't care about the game, or publisher, they want the BEST or closest simulation of the sport.