NBA 2KInsider has been hit right hard by the latest occasions on the Wear & Earn Wednesday event. Now, the event setup is pretty easy: Wear a throwback jersey from the pop-up shops scattered all throughout The City, and you get double the amount of REP. Sounds cool on paper, except the community has refused to accept it.
First things first, about the jerseys. Players have been pointing out how these classic jerseys go for ridiculous price tags. One player, CruzControl2k, outrightly called out the price of the Iverson jersey, which was set at 35k VC. That virtual currency is either taking forever to grind for, or you went ahead and paid for it with real money. Then, another player, trypresident, said, “5k 10k 20k for 2x rep is crazy for one day lmao š couldnāt b me,” which pretty much captures my feeling; spending that kind of money for a one-day bonus is sheer robbery.
But hold on: this keeps getting better. Or worse, depending on your standpoint. Actually, many have pointed out that free throwback jerseys ARE indeed available. StillBumpy posted, “Everyone gets the Vince Carter Raptors jersey for free just by playing MyCareer games.” Then, FreakyEeEE chimed in, “We already got raptors carter and melo nuggets,” so there is basically a free route to wear the jerseys and get the bonus. However, 2K seems to have bungled the communication around it because, in the replies, a large number of people were simply clueless about the free option and are only thinking of the expensive ones.
Half the other comments are getting on with it resignedly, whereas the other sweep goes off into great length about the broken game. So many complaints about bugs and glitches: dovilfc pleaded, “maybe drop the patch for the ‘A problem has been encountered..’ error getting kicked every game…” Wpj07152023 also stated: “Bra we donāt care fix the game half of the community getting kicked out the game before its ending no matter what game mode.” It’s getting huge. You can’t even enjoy double rep if you can’t finish a game without being kicked.
TehPWL merely asked, “What about fixing the bug so that we can play?” which really is a fair question with the producers pushing an event in-game. sammyc4477 chimed in, “Iāve been trying to play Proving Grounds and Theater for 2 hours and canāt find a game. Fix it please.” So matchmaking issues are touching the event itself as well. It’s bloody messy.
Others want those modes to have double rep, too. TaeGuwop13 said, “Give starting 5 and proving grounds x2 rep show them love to” and asked “Y not every game mode,” a question worth asking. To have a triple bonus for just one singular activity when multiple facets of the game are in desperate need of that population boost does seem like a missed opportunity.
Then they want cross-play. RobMulah simply said, “@NBA2K Fix cross play you cowards,” and he’s been saying that forever. The community wants to play with their friends on other platforms, and yet, it still isn’t a thing.
AceOfTradesIII issued quite the reasonable proposal, however: “For future, please allow players to pick one free item for Wear & Earn Wednesdays as it will incentivize more casuals to play often without having to spend VC every Wednesday šš½.” It just makes sense: offer people one free cosmetic item a week for being involved in said events rather than making said events completely reliant on VC spending.
With all the negative comments about price and bugs aside, Marianolaplata1 went on a long tirade about sliders not working inside this game: “This game is completely broken, the sliders donāt work, the CPU scores 16 in the first quarter and then drops 38 points in 7 minutes in the second with 11 threes, when I have the CPU sliders set to 29! This game is a total disaster.” So even besides online modes, that’ll be another layer of brokenness going through the core gameplay mechanics.
It’s guessable that whilst NBA 2K is attempting to hold these weekly events to keep players engaged, the priority for the community are elsewhere. Fix the game first; then add the bonus events. The backlash in the comments is overwhelmingly about stability and functioning rather than cosmetic promotions. They just want to be able to play the game without constant crashing; without getting kicked out; without facing pricing imposed upon them; without cross-play, which has been asked for years. In theory, the Wear & Earn Wednesday concept is good, but with all that moving ground, the promotions just end up highlighting these roadblocks instead of distracting from them as previously intended. So it should very well be a top priority for 2K to fix their core outmoded experience before piling on yet another complex system.
