“2K is a piece of shit, just a clown.” This game is rubbish. “I want an explanation. Why is my ability value not 99? This is ridiculous!”.In September 2022, NBA stars such as Klay Thompson, Austin Rivers and Kevin Durant successively became angry about their “too low” ability score in the “New Year’s Day” competitive sports game NBA 2K23.
Every year before the release of NBA 2K, fans and players will wave their flags and clamour to prove the strength of their idols. Many players are also very concerned about their ability scores. However, since everyone has their evaluation criteria for evaluating players’ abilities, this often leads to “NBA 2K” becoming a “tucao conference” for all parties before its release every year.
As if watching the excitement is not a big deal, the president of NBA 2K publisher 2K Ronnie Singer recently “stimulated” Durant: “I am submitting a petition to our team asking them to remove Jordan from the cover. , let you go. You are the real 99-year-old man.”
Understandably, the stars put too much emphasis on their ability score. After all, Buddha strives for a stick of incense, and everyone strives for a sigh of relief. From the perspective of the NBA 2K production team, it is: You may not lose money if you say hello, but my sales will always make money! No, with the traffic blessing of the quarrel, on the Steam sales list in the new week (9.5-9.11), the sales of NBA 2K23, which was only released for two days, ranked fifth.
Player: If the score is low, he will be ridiculed by his teammates
Player ratings in NBA 2K will never please all players.
Generally speaking, if NBA 2K gives a player a score of 90 or more, it can be considered that the player’s performance in the past season belongs to the league’s TOP15 level. However, when NBA 2K18 was launched in the fall of 2017, John Wall, the “master” of the Wizards at the time, had an overall rating of 90 points, but he still tweeted @2K and wrote: “You are a joke.”
The following fall, the Thunder’s second-in-command, Paul George, was even testier when judging his NBA 2K Player ratings. He said his 89 points in NBA 2K19: “Some cats and dogs have an overall rating of more than 90 points.”
In NBA 2K22, the number one star of the Celtics, Jayson Tatum, first expressed his dissatisfaction through social media. He said he “only” scored 90 without defamation: “My 2K value last year Is it 91? I scored 50 points twice in the playoffs. I scored 50+ in four games and tied the record of Larry Bird (a famous NBA star). I think it should be at least up to 92.”
Bradley Beal, the head of the Wizards who ranked second in scoring in the previous season, was disappointed when he learned that his score was “only” 89. He posted a helpless emoji covering his face and shaking his head on social media. But this is not over yet, and then, Bill’s wife expressed support for her husband on social media. She wrote: “The 2K rating is a big joke!” 2K company quickly replied: “The wife also expresses her dissatisfaction.
This is true love. I appreciate you very much!”. But obviously, Bill’s wife was not joking, and she immediately replied: “Stop flattering, your ratings are a joke, and everyone else thinks the same, and your games are rubbish!”.
So much so that even the Lakers star LeBron James, an evergreen tree in NBA 2K (19 years in his career and 17 years with a score of at least 96 points), has questioned the fairness of the game’s ratings. He said: “(Including me) Curry and Durant should be 99 ability value.”
But some people are sad, and some are happy. The Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, who missed the entire 2021-2022 season due to injury, ranks in the top eight in league with 95 points after not playing for a year before it). If 2K is based on the previous season’s performance as the scoring basis for the new game, it would not be easy to convince the audience with a score of 95 this time.
In addition to the player ratings of “mature men”, the ratings of “fresh meat” also made people shout, “I don’t understand, but I am shocked”.
Every year, 2K will set a certain value for the rookies who are about to enter the NBA hall. However, the rookies’ ability values often have relatively large deviations due to the need for more data for horizontal comparison with league players.
For example, in NBA 2K23, the No. 1 pick of the Magic, Paul Banqueiro, and Jabari Smith, the No. 1 pick of the Rockets, tied for first place with 78, while Chet Holmgren, the No. 2 pick of the Thunder, ranked 77. Third, in NBA 2K22, the top pick of the Pistons, Cade Cunningham, ranked first with 80 points, the second place of the Rockets, Jaylen Green, ranked second with 79 points. And the third pick of the Cavaliers, Evan Mobley, ranked third with 78 points. However, a longitudinal comparison of the rookie abilities of famous stars rated by 2K in history inevitably makes people suspect that the rookie ratings in recent years are too “water-injected”. For example, LeBron James’ rookie season has an ability value of 78, Kevin Durant’s 80 points, John Wall and Kyrie Irving’s with the highest 2K scores among rookies with 81 points.
Of course, we can’t assert that the rookies in recent years must not be able to reach the heights of their predecessors. It’s just that compared with those stars who were once favoured and are still the face of the league, are the current rookies worthy of such a high score? Not to mention the rookie ability values that are arranged using arithmetic progressions.
As a result, in the face of rookie teammate Jaylen Green who had 79 points before he played a game in the NBA, Rockets player Kevin Porter Jr. (scored 77) is also very embarrassed: “77 points? You made me score lower than a rookie? Can you give me a reason?”
Walking in the rivers and lakes, the most fearful thing is to compare the superior. Players value ratings more than their status in the arena. “If my grades are low, my teammates will come and laugh at me.” Pacers player Myles Turner said. The logic behind this set of “I want to score higher than you” is that flowers are popular in many ways, but I am different from you, and giving me a low score is to look down on others.
Production team: business is business
On the battlefield of Shanghai, the terrible thing is not failure, but no one discusses it. Therefore, black and red are also red, and red can drive new prosperity.
In recent years, due to the dominance of the competitive basketball game market and the lack of competition, “NBA 2K” has repeatedly complained about “changing the soup without changing the medicine”. Poor networks, many bugs, and forced krypton have become constant reasons for negative reviews every year.
In contrast, in the first half of 2022, the latest financial report released by 2K parent company Take-Two Interactive (R Star’s old club) shows that in the fourth quarter, digital delivery revenue reached US$833 million, a year-on-year increase of 9%, with the largest contribution The ultimate title is NBA 2K22, which has sold more than 10 million copies since September 9, 2021. According to Take-Two Interactive’s financial report for the second quarter of the 2021-2022 fiscal year released last year, the global sales of the “NBA 2K” series exceeded 118 million copies, making it the best-selling basketball game in the United States.
Therefore, to maintain the cash cow of NBA 2K, how to keep the game with high traffic has become the focus of 2K’s thinking.
From this perspective, letting players talk about their ability value has become anti-customer-oriented marketing. After all, why not let these multi-millionaires speak for themselves for free? However, 2K also cannot completely chill the hearts of these stars.
Ironically, on July 30, 2017, a wedding held in Rhode Island, USA, turned into a “condemnation meeting” for the players about their abilities.
Mavericks (now renamed Mavericks) player Harrison Barnes tied the knot with his girlfriend, who has been in love for many years and invited many NBA players to participate, including the then 2K Sports Marketing Director Ronnie Singer. It was supposed to be a good and auspicious day for the newcomers to tie the knot with Qin Jin, but it turned into a discussion about Mavericks player Wesley Matthews (83 in NBA 2K18) and even many players present.
In an interview, Ronnie Singer said: “I was thinking ‘Barnes is still having a wedding’, and his wife might be like ‘, After the wedding banquet, I’m going to kill Bernie’ Hahaha, they are all very nice people, a very suitable couple, but I keep thinking that it is inappropriate to do this kind of thing in this kind of place!”
We cannot know whether Harrison Barnes’s wife had blackface at the time. Still, on the happiest day, listening to a group of elders talking about their abilities, it is reasonable to speculate that the bride’s complexion may not be perfect. Nice. Ronnie Singer, of course, knows this well. “I guess Barnes’ wife killed my heart,” he said, not forgetting to “explain to 40 NBA players at the wedding how we set stats for each of them.”
It is worth mentioning that sometimes too low a player’s ability value is okay. In 2016, Hassan Whiteside, playing for the Heat then, said: “The reason I play so hard is to hope that my 2K score can be higher.” Could you not say it, Hassan Whiteside? It worked. When he first appeared in NBA 2K12, his score was only 49 points, so much so that he called it “mascot level”. But with his unremitting efforts, Hassan Whiteside’s score rose to 81 points in NBA 2K16, and in NBA 2K19, his score reached a career-high 87 points.
“Young players grew up playing 2K, so they value this thing (the score of “NBA 2K”) very much. This thing will be the talk of the circle.” Ronnie Singer said. “It’s different with those older players. Most don’t care what their stats are in the game.”
“The players are very concerned about this (NBA 2K Player Raing),” Anthony Davis, a Lakers player who is very keen on video games, once said in an interview: “It means a lot to them.”
Core: 2K ratings cannot quantify the real level of players
According to the data given by NBA 2K23, the star of the Bucks, Antetokounmpo, this year’s 97 points beat the pack.
Looking at the entire history of the NBA 2K series, only Kevin Garnett (4 times), Tim Duncan (2 times), Kobe Bryant (2 times), LeBron James ( 2 times), Chris Paul (1 time) and Shaquille O’Neal (1 time) have scored 99. It is worth mentioning that in “NBA 2K2”, O’Neal became the only 100-point scorer in the history of the “NBA 2K” series.
How did this ability score that people love and hate come from?
“We have about 50 player personal attributes to set the overall ability value of the player,” said 2K engineer Mike Stover. Include some advanced data. “There are too many values we need to deal with. There are several types of shooting ability, such as close-range, mid-range and three-pointers. We also have data on fixed-point shooting and running catch-and-shoot. Another example is passing. We have different Passing stats like passing vision, passing accuracy, and passing IQ,” explained Mike Stover.
So, can 2K’s player rating quantify a player’s strength? The answer is naturally no. The ability value setting of the game does not rely entirely on computer programs, and the influence of subjective factors exists. “Grading players is not an exact science, and there is an inherent degree of subjectivity,” said NBA 2K12 producer Eric Bernisch.
In the general direction, 2K naturally strives to use the player’s strength to determine the NBA 2K player’s rating. But on the basketball court, there are always some things that cannot be quantified, so the scoring of NBA 2K naturally has its unscientific aspects.
For example, it is difficult to quantify the value of shooting IQ into the score. Therefore, in reality, many “brain haemorrhage” shots like Westbrook of the Lakers are difficult to simulate and restore in the game fully. Dion Waiters, who once played for the Thunder, has been criticized for his shot selection. Mike Stover mentioned in 2015 that his shooting IQ value was 64. Stover explained: “There are some numbers, like shooting IQ, that we generally don’t turn down. “
In addition, like some players who have made great achievements before retiring, the numerical planners will not hesitate to give high scores. For example, Kobe Bryant’s ability value in NBA 2K15 was 89, but he suffered a serious Achilles tendon injury and a knee injury at the time, and his state was not as good as before; In the middle of the season adjustment (NBA 2K will increase the player’s score in the game based on the performance of the player in the season) from 79 points to 81 points. Therefore, although there are always young and rising players complaining that their ratings are too low, in a sense, NBA 2K is a game of “working years”-the longer you play in reality, the more game engineers you will get of favour.
In basketball, statistics cannot reflect the true role of a player. How can some players with strong leadership ability, independent positioning, and the ability to inspire teammates and catalyze these illusory ratings measure team chemistry?
Therefore, for players, “NBA 2K” ‘s setting of player ability score is naturally only a part of driving the game. Whether the game is fun or not, the key lies in whether the player can gain the fun of getting started.
