The official NBA 2K account announced the introduction of “Wear & Earn Wednesday,” a new event where players would receive double reputation points for using the rubber ducky floaties that they had purchased at the in-game pop-up shops. “Wear & Earn” is aimed at online mode, The City, attracting users to spend their virtual currency and even join the already existing community of basketball lovers talking about it. Nonetheless, the community has been extremely vocal about it and has expressed mostly unfavorable opinions.
It was a move entirely by 2K, right? The day was to come eventually when you would be a part of the Wear & Earn Wednesday event. How about that? It sounds a bit like a fun challenge, I guess. You can easily visualize going to “the City,” the pop-up shops, purchasing the rubber ducky floaties for your character to wear, and then getting double REP. For the ones who don’t live in the 2K world, REP is online level, and street cred basically. More REP means unlocking more stuff, looking cooler, and all that. On paper, double points sound great. But there is a catch… first, you have to buy the floaties. And that is the moment the entire thing just turned over.
The replies to the tweet are nothing but an outpour of gamer annoyance that is very raw and unfiltered. The ludicrousness of the floaties is not even considered a problem, but rather the created system is viewed as a pay-to-progress trap. One of the gamers, EastsidazLBC, has been very upfront: “10K VC for these stupid floaties. They want you to pay for double rep 🤡”. Allow me to explain VC; it stands for Virtual Currency, which you can either earn through long grinding sessions or buy with real money. So, the promotion is to put it simply, spend money to get fake points a little faster. Another user, luckycharms, pointed out the irony: “Grinding for fake currency to buy fake clothes to flex on strangers. Peak irony.” It sounds pretty wild when we say so clearly.
And it’s not just the price. The gamers are also of the opinion that even the reward is no longer worth anything. Jesse Willard jokingly commented: “Yeah let’s have everybody running with floaties on just to get .1 rep anyway 🤦♂️”. This brings up a more extensive issue – the REP gains in 2K are so small that even doubling them does not feel like a real reward at all. The reward is a covering over a broken system. The rest of the comments simply cast contempt on the cosmetic itself. “I ain’t payin 15k for a plastic duck belt,” says Chaka Rah. And getright was even harsher: “Man the thing says wear rubber ducky floaties it’s a joke.”
This promo creates a huge gap between what 2K thinks is a player’s need and what they actually want. 2K is offering a paid, silly accessory for a tiny point increment, and the feedback is that people want real fixes and classic content. One player, Troy D 2nd®, is reminiscing about the good old days: “Mycareer was great when we had to do the combine, team interviews, get drafted… now it’s all too much.” Another, Kris-T, is asking for the addition of city edition jerseys as a simple augmentation rather than just hats. And then there’s the player, AP, whose whole builds just disappeared and is crying out for help from support. It’s crazy in those replies, dude. Complete craziness.
It’s a classic case of a developer trying to create FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out – by means of an attractive time-limited offer. But the players are just… not interested. They have seen right through the tactic. Uchi provided an excellent analogy: “This is like paying to be hired for a job you applied for.” You’re already playing the game, putting in the effort, and now they want you to pay extra for it to count for more? It doesn’t sit well with people. Furthermore, in a very blunt way, Laugh Out Loud has told people to stop wasting real money on this stuff, referring to it as “wack”.
The gamers’ reaction to NBA 2K’s floaties promo is a loud and clear signal from a community that is gradually becoming less and less tolerant of either predatory or simply mismatched to their expectations monetization methods. Players are not against fun events or nice rewards gaining, but they demand that their time and money be recognized through good value and respect. When a promotion backfires so dramatically with the vast majority of responses being negative and sarcastic, it means the developers should start listening more closely to their fans, who, according to these comments, want better gameplay, meaningful content, and fixes for existing issues on their PlayStation and Xbox platforms.
