Gamers across the internet are up in arms again because of Take-Two being greedy and completely out of touch. The same company that pressured gamers to argue on their behalf so that they could keep loot boxes in games, and has also said loot boxes are not gambling, is now forcing people to watch ads on loading screens between games in NBA 2K19.
This comes just days after Take Two Interactive CEO, Strauss Zelnick has said he doesn’t see unionization as possible in the games industry.
Players can criticize 2K and Take-Two Interactive for a lot of things, and it seems like nearly all of the most common complaints are centered around greedy and irritating monetization practices. As someone who quit playing WWE 2K18 due to excessive monetization and poor loading times on console, this would only have made me quit playing even faster if unskippable ads were shown in the excess of loading screens, so 2K is pretty off-base by putting this into NBA 2K19.
The ads in question are for a TV show called Snowfall, and it isn’t even the first time 2K has done this. The sports games from the company have also shoved in ads for shoe brands and other stuff that most people don’t care about. And for a $60 AAA title to include these ads, it’s just plain insulting. The utter contempt Take-Two has shown towards consumers is just disgusting, And it’s purely because of the monopoly that the published paid billions of dollars for that anyone even buys these games in the first place.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for the hundreds of people who would lose their jobs, I would wish for Take-Two to disappear. And let’s be honest Take-Two will likely pull an Activision at some point and fire people despite huge revenue anyway. It genuinely seems like the worst of the AAA industry are in a giant competition to see who can make the most people miserable while making obscene amounts of money. It’s almost like they’ve turned the worst aspects of Capitalism into a race.
NBA 2K19 is available now on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, but you should not buy another Take-Two game again if this kind of thing makes you angry.
