The recent announcement of WNBA fully making its way to NBA 2K20 was celebrated by many but things quickly went down south when WNBA players and 2K developers became targets of trolls who have since been relentlessly attacking them on social media channels.
Facebook, forums like Reddit, personal Twitter handles, YouTube, and even 2K’s own blog hasn’t been spared but the developer has told Kotaku that it’s proud of its decision to include women in the upcoming title.
Welcoming the WNBA to #NBA2K20 Get an inside look at gameplay and hear what it means to @Candace_Parker & @BreannaStewart to officially be in the game
WNBA Gameplay Blog https://t.co/E0uJdMb27t pic.twitter.com/IyIOP71kaC
— NBA 2K20 (@NBA2K) August 8, 2019
“Our franchise has always been rooted in capturing the true essence of basketball – it doesn’t matter who is playing – if you love the game, you love the game,” said a spokesperson. “As true lovers of basketball, we take great pride in bringing the women’s game to the millions of NBA 2K fans around the globe.”
Such was the community’s response that even Reddit moderators struggled to handle the situation at first.
“As soon as the news dropped, there was a vocal portion of the community who was strongly against it,” a lead moderator for the NBA 2K subreddit told Kotaku. “Some had reasons like how this was an unneeded feature that took time away from development of ‘more important’ things. Some went for sexist comments/jokes/memes making fun of women and WNBA players.”
The moderator claimed that he had to remove dozens of sexist posts in a matter of hours.
On Twitter, players like Breanna Stewart and Candace Parker continued to face harassment over the weekend. However, the duo haven’t responded to the situation yet.
NBA 2K20 will release on September 6, 2019.
[Source: Kotaku]
