NBA 2K has recently made one of the weekly events known, and… well, it is what it is. The official account mentioned “Wear & Earn Wednesday” on Twitter and asked the players to visit The City popup shops, collect the short shorts, and gain double reputation points, or 2XREP. This seems like a nice little boost for the ones who are up to the task of leveling up their MyPLAYER, but if you take a look at the comments, the overall mood is definitely not positive. It is a mix of the rep grind thrill, game state disappointment, and perhaps some typical 2K community sarcasm. Let’s take a closer look at it.

The announcement is very clear from the start. It is a short-lived event, where players are required to purchase certain clothing items, in this case, short shorts, at pop-up shops located in the game’s open-world ‘City’ area. During the event, they can wear the items and get a multiplier for the REP they earn. REP is the currency that players use to upgrade their seasonal levels and receive rewards. For the players heavily into grinding, 2XREP event is a big deal. It can bring the time to the next tier down by a few hours. One of the players, Glitchy đŸȘ„ even made a joke, ‘2XREP on short shorts? Gotta equip those ASAP and dominate The City. Wonder if they boost agility too…’ That’s the kind of response that is hopeful and engaged, and you would expect to see it.

But then, if you go about three replies down, the tone changes completely.hard It’s as if the tweet had given a, at that moment, already hot complaints about NBA 2K26 a chance to come up. One player named Eddy did not even bring up the event, rather he started talking about his request for a refund on PS5 because of cheaters ‘greening 6 reds in a row.’ Another player, Que Carothers, just stated, ‘Fix your servers.’ And Smurfy was even more straightforward, ‘stop this lameass wear and earn shit and actually give us a game worth playing.’ Ouch! That’s not an event comment; it’s a complete critique of the whole product. It reveals one of the constant problems with live-service games: when customers are disgruntled about the basic service or the game’s reliability, cosmetics or events for level-up might come across as distractions instead of rewards.

The replies do even more than just critique when the players are talking about the kind of 2XREP event. Main debates are about the 2XREP event with the communication gap between the open-world and the more structured pro-am mode filled mainly with debates. That is where the complaint is directed as in the voice of a player called OBE TRACKSZ who said basically that there is not enough done for ‘the Rec.’ Another player, DrecoBets, was saying that ‘2x rec I can easily have a 30-40% weekend vs these lil weak events,’ suggesting the City events don’t give as much REP. Then a user named we suck 🃏 chimed in to clarify that a 2XREP event for the Rec is actually set for January 2nd, sharing a screenshot as proof. This back-and-forth is indicative of how divided the player community can be—Park players, Rec players, Theater players—all wanting their favorite mode to get the recognition and the best rewards.

An additional source of gamers’ dissatisfaction is the traditional skepticism concerning 2K microtransactions. One reply from qybii was imploring, ‘don’t make them 28k ffs,’ referring to the price of in-game Virtual Currency. Another one, BigO, was even more sarcastic, ‘Earn the right to play against Zens and Titans if you buy 50k VC shorts.’ This underlines a major concern of the players: what is the point of hard work to gain the rewards if they only place you among those using external devices like Zen controllers for an upper hand? djdmoney11 asked for wearables: ‘They need to bring back jerseys no kizzzzy,’ which again signifies a desire for a more serious, perhaps less silly, customization that is not perceived as a repetitive cash cow. Nitya De La Rosa mirrored this when she tweeted, ‘Let’s goooooo the same shorts from the last 8 2ks,’ referring to the lack of new content.

So, what can one take away from all the static noise of a whole society? NBA 2K’s Wear & Earn Wednesday is nothing but a classic live-service trick to boost engagement and probably VC sales. The dedicated grinder will perceive it as a helpful tool. However, the extremely negative reaction in the quote tweets reveals a community that is wrestling with bigger problems. Server stability, competitive integrity, the distribution of rewards among game modes, and the NE