The NBA 2k franchise was first launched in late 1999 on the Dreamcast, and since then, there have been over 20 games in the series. What makes these games so popular is the history of 2K with the particular sport and the time they've invested in building them. All of that plays into providing gamers with an experience that can only be described as highly realistic. With every release, the series comes closer to the real-life sport.
Whether it is animation, graphics, or gameplay, NBA 2K games have got it all, but is it enough? Players nowadays are much more up to date with content and game creation than before. This means they'll know when something is wrong and most definitely create a meme out of it.
10 That Is Realism, Not Glitch
In late 2019, Gerald Green was known to be out due to an injury, which is what makes this injury meme semi-realistic. But you cannot blame the players for enjoying the worst in a game, especially when it comes to the glitches.
These little game bugs are hilarious for various reasons, especially in sports or wrestling games. Sports games have had the funniest glitches since the release of FIFA 14 on the Ignite Engine. Shoulder popping is just the tip of the iceberg because there are glitches with entire players morphing into a ball of mesh.
9 Much Water Very Wow
It seems like the guys at 2K got overly inspired by the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas realistic-mod videos because there are uncanny similarities. These key features include shiny, bright, reflective, and unrealistically wet environments and player models.
Every year, NBA 2K comes out looking a bit more sweaty and wet in terms of visuals, to the point that gamers will be able to tell which game it is based on how soaked the players look in the game. The human body is about 60% water, but according to 2K, it is probably more.
8 The Dilemma
Almost every game has some or the other kind of issues that are later fixed with a patch. The same is true for the NBA 2K series because a lot of times, these games come out with pseudo new features, which is why chances of gameplay glitches or issues become more potent.
In such cases, many other developers would first work around the issues before anything else. However, 2K has been known to add content before fixing the problems players are primarily facing. After all, swag is more critical that servers, right?
7 Scooby-Doo Figured It Out
The Scooby-Doo gang has uncovered a lot of mysteries, but this seems like their greatest one yet. The biggest question everyone has been asking about the games is finally answered, NBA 2K20 is NBA 2K19. Humor apart, this meme hits the nail right in the coffin when it comes to facts.
Gamers have forever been complaining about the lack of innovation in sports games, and 2K sports titles have seen the worst of it. People know whether it is NBA 2K or WWE 2K or any other series, improvements will only happen when the yearly releases stop.
6 Have To Make A Living
Every YouTuber knows it is a challenging game to survive on that platform, especially with more and more people joining the forum in hopes of earning through ads revenue. So it is clear that a lot of them try to create a video on anything, stretch it up to 10 minutes and throw in a bunch of ads.
This is more true for news related channels than anyone else because these guys can take a two-word comment from a celebrity or a minor twitter update into a full-blown 10 minutes video. Truth be told, that is a talent in itself.
5 It's Coming For 2k
Even with the advancements in technology, a game developer's job has become more challenging than before. The world of the internet is interconnected, and nothing goes untouched forever.
So if there's some marketing strategy that publishers want to try out with a new release, it will surely blow in their faces. Reddit has been a prime source of connecting like-minded gamers on the internet, where these issues are genuinely discussed and talked about. This is why these dirty tricks won't work anymore.
4 The Players Have Spoken
Talking about dirty tricks, here's another 2K strategy players have noticed, and now it is on the main steam page. Steam is viral among PC gamers for providing a platform to play games and interact, giving them tools to add user-defined tags in a product.
Last year NBA 2K20 was tagged as a horror title, which was humorous, and this year, NBA 2K21 is classified as gambling. This is undoubtedly true and really odd. The nature of a sports game should be about sports more than anything else, but the top tag says something else entirely.
3 Gotta Love The Bling
A reason why 2K gets away with a lot of issues is because of their fanbase. They understand the needs of their potential customers. This motivates them to add random content over actual fixes. It can be a part of a strategy, but it certainly works.
A lot of gamers do care about these things, such as a random outfit, or gear, or something as simple as headbands. 2K makes the best use of this, and everywhere they goof up, something new is given to the players as a token of peace.
2 Memes, Memes Everywhere
Who would've thought that memes would be such a massive thing in the 2020s? But on top, who would've imagined these memes to be about a sports video game? NBA 2K originated back in 1999, and since then it has been growing steadily.
However, the majority of these NBA 2K memes started ago in 2018, and NBA 2k20 has seen the worst of these memes. This is why the meme is highly accurate, with NBA 2k16, which was pretty decent for the time, talking to NBA 2K20, a game where one can not play the story mode without the internet.
1 2K Sports: It's In The Game
The bottom line about the NBA 2K series is that these games can be so much better than they are, but something stops them. Something blocks the players from being completely immersed in a full-blown NBA experience.
Those are the bugs and issues with the game. The sad bit is, these will probably continue to be part of the game until a proper R&D time is given to the developers, and games are released in a three-year cycle, instead of every year.