While Electronic Arts is still getting heat over the loot box “surprise mechanics” debacle, 2K has taken a few blows of its own. Over the weekend, NBA 2K19 players noticed newly added, seemingly unskippable advertisements within the game. This appears to be common practice for 2K Sports titles; however, disgruntled fans are noting that the rate of such ads has noticeably increased.
A Reddit post on the matter has received the bulk of the attention so far. Many fans within the thread are lamenting the ads, sharing disdain at having paid $60 for the title. One Redditor in the thread, xPray4Deathx, posted a video of how long the game takes to load now, explaining,
Tested this out with a video, Sadly OP is right. Takes about 1:07 to load to tip off with ads. Takes 1:07 to load game (to tip off) with skipping when can. (Can’t skip ad, load is in bottom right, about 15 seconds of ad with game loaded.) Testing the advertisement during load of game. Once game load is complete, you HAVE TO WATCH the rest of the ad and can not skip. Pathetic, choice by 2K to include ads in a 60$ [sic] game.
Check out the video in question below:
A r/NBA2K moderator, yyy2k, suggested “turn[ing] 2KTV off in the main menu settings.” Others in the thread have said the problem with ads persists even if 2KTV is off. At the time of writing, it appears as though 2K has yet to respond to the issue. Eurogamer reportedly reached out to the publisher for a statement, but a reply has not come through.
Speculation among fans suggested the new wave of advertisements could be due to NBA 2K19 recently going on sale for $3 across various platforms. The ads would, then, be a response to the heavy loss in revenue. Whether or not this indeed explains the issue remains to be seen.
