Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is taking a look at five devious practices in basketball video games.

I’m not one for conspiracy theories as a rule, but when it comes to devious practices in basketball video games – and gaming in general for that matter – there’s no need for wild speculation anyway. Publishers are shockingly, brazenly open about their anti-consumer practices these days, mainly because they’ve become normalised. As such, whenever you bring up a troubling issue, there’s a swarm of smug shills waiting to tell you that this how gaming is now and that it’s just business, as if you don’t understand the concept of a billion dollar corporation being concerned with making money.

As I’ve said before, I prefer to stand with my fellow gamers, rather than blindly defend companies that will happily take advantage of their customers. Yes, video game development is a business, but to that end it’s providing a product that we can evaluate in terms of quality and value for money. Good, valuable video game critique requires looking through the spin and hype to identify flaws and drawbacks, including devious practices. The problem is that some of those devious practices are dressed up as generous and beneficial features, in order to disguise their motives and deflect criticism. Even when they are useful, it’s important to recognise the deviousness.

1. Daily Login Bonuses

“Why are you complaining about free stuff? Gamers are so spoiled!” bleats the shameless shill. At least, I think that’s what they’re saying. It’s difficult to understand them with a mouth full of boot. I’ll grant them this, though. There’s far less to criticise with free bonus content compared to pushy recurrent revenue mechanics, though they tend to shill for those as well. At the same time, it’s fair to note that free rewards from systems such as Daily Login Bonuses can be quite underwhelming, which limits their appeal. I won’t say that it defeats their purpose, because this is by design. They are a devious practice after all, despite the apparent altruism in their daily giveaways.

You see, even when Daily Login Bonuses are more generous, they’re still devious. At the end of the day, they’re intended to keep you hooked on the game, coming back on a daily basis to claim a prize. Said prizes are a small taste of the larger rewards and content on offer in the mode. A small amount of VC or MT might be enough to buy an upgrade or a pack. That can lead to grinding or spending real money to keep that rush going. You don’t want to miss a daily prize, especially if collecting every bonus during the week gives you a shot at a bigger one. They can be useful, and they’re worth taking advantage of, but keep in mind that they’re taking advantage of us, too.

2. Limited Availability of Content

Live service content runs on FOMO. I touched on it above with the Daily Login Bonuses. They’re intended to get you to fire up the game every day, if only briefly, so that you don’t miss out on the daily rewards and bigger prizes at the end of the week. Making content available for a limited time is another devious trick, and an effective one. It’s why the Season approach in MyCAREER and MyTEAM is so popular, even if some – or indeed, many – of the rewards are underwhelming. If you don’t act fast, you miss out on content, and the bragging rights that go along with it. And if you have to grind hard or even pay to get it? Who cares? That’s how people know you’re elite!

Well, that’s the idea that FOMO is meant to plant in our heads, anyway. Look, I realise that it’s a cynical view of live service content. It’s optional at the end of the day, and unlocking content through playing the game is a well-established concept that can enhance the experience. I’m certainly not against it in theory. In execution however, it’s tied into so many problematic systems, from microtransactions to the reputation levels that encourage toxicity and elitism. And don’t even get me started on having limited quantities of items in the NBA Store! Limited stock for digital items for your avatar is a blatant push to sell VC, and there’s simply no two ways about that.

3. Juiced Abilities in Demos

This is a devious practice that has been acknowledged, but isn’t talked about enough. Look, it’s only natural that a publisher wants a demo to make the best impression it possibly can. There’s always a risk in letting gamers try before they buy, even going back to the heyday of demos and shareware. If it fails to impress, you’ve lost out on a sale. When shareware was king, many of us played those small samples over and over again instead of buying the full version. Nevertheless, there’s goodwill in demos, especially when they provide a small head start on career modes in basketball video games. That goodwill is undermined when the final product doesn’t reflect the demo.

Now, for the most part, demos like NBA 2K’s Preludes have been a fairly accurate representation of the final product. There may be some minor tweaks and fixes to the build that goes gold or in the day one patch, sometimes based on our feedback. This is a good thing, and something that we want to see. However, it’s been discovered that the Preludes have been tuned to make us feel more powerful, giving the impression that the full version of MyCAREER won’t be a tough slog despite the 60 Overall starting point. When that doesn’t turn out to be the case… well, there’s always the optional solution of buying VC to skip the tedious grind to competence, isn’t there?

4. MyPLAYER Build Rebalancing

“Wait, isn’t this something you wanted? Man, there’s no pleasing you entitled babies!” The shameless shill is back, opening and shutting their mouth with a sour look on their face, because boot polish doesn’t have a pleasant taste. Once again, I do have to concede that this is something that can be beneficial, and indeed, requested by the community. It doesn’t happen constantly, but there have been times where ratings thresholds for animations and the effectiveness of Badges have been adjusted in post-release patches. The changes themselves have been logical and generally fair, but they can come across as devious given the way that the MyPLAYER build system works.

Because the upgrade system in MyCAREER is more about pumping up engagement numbers and recurrent revenue – and no, Mr. Shill, this cannot be disputed – there are extremely limited re-spec options. Let’s say that a build you create at launch requires you to make sacrifices in a certain rating, missing out on animations and Badges. A patch then changes the requirements so that they’re fairer or more balanced. At that point, you’re locked in, and can’t benefit from those changes unless you start all over again, which is going to mean time and/or money. Changing the meta when gamers can’t fully re-spec is a devious approach, even if those changes do improve the game.

5. MyTEAM’s Annual Jumping of the Shark

Is there a more useless idea than position restrictions in MyTEAM? That is to say, it’s useful early on in a game’s cycle. It was pointed out that far too many online gamers were running with stacked lineups with players out of position, to the point where it was an exploit that interfered with competitive balance. The solution was to introduce position restrictions, where players in MyTEAM can only be played at the position (or positions) listed on their card. There’s some controversy to that approach, since there are versatile and multitalented players that could conceivably be plugged in just about anywhere. For the sake of fair play and competitive balance though, it’s a good idea.

Unfortunately, that all goes out the window with MyTEAM’s annual jumping of the shark. First of all, there are the Out of Position cards, which are intended to break the game in the exact way that position restrictions are supposed to prevent. In other words, once those cards come along, that measure is completely useless. Then there are the OP cards that do everything, facilitating unbeatable lineups. Well, unbeatable unless you pick up those cards as well, which generally means spending because the whales set the competitive balance. And yes, Mr. Shill, I know that the suits need their cars, yachts, and holidays, but I just don’t think games should be a GoFundMe.

What’s your take on these devious practices? What are some other devious practices in basketball video games that grind your gears? Have your say in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

The post The Friday Five: 5 Devious Practices in Basketball Games appeared first on NLSC.