In no way is this piece defending the recent advertisement practice that 2K and Visual Concepts have implemented in NBA 2K19, but this piece is to highlight the egregious act in itself given the intention behind the move. According to a mod from Reddit’s r/NBA2K19, the unskippable ads can be turned off, but it’s turned on by default.
We reported on June 22nd, 2019, that the 2018 sports game by said publisher and developer, meant for this year, now has unskippable ads during load times.
The news quickly became a thing of negativity, as it should, accompanying other controversial things in the AAA game coupled with things like aggressive microtransactions.
As it stands now, some people are against the whole notion and implementation of the ads like Blerds Online:
No way…yall lyin…
— MendingMercy (@MendingMercy) June 22, 2019
Wow…I vowed to never by 2k after 2K17, but How could you resist $3 bucks. I even bought one for the homie. As much as I love those games. I will never but full price. Would have to be $3 again. Servers are still trash and are trash every year.
— MendingMercy (@MendingMercy) June 22, 2019
Other people aren’t upset about the unskippable ads, but more concerned about an “E” rated game sporting ads showing a TV show about drug-related content:
https://twitter.com/NBA2KonReddit/status/1142946274297229316
Despite all of that stuff though, folks can get around the unskippable ad by turning it off in an options menu. The togglable switch is detailed by an r/NBA2K19 mod name yyy2k:
“Hi everyone, I am not in range of consistent internet and just came online to this chaos. It’s been a hell of a week..
I cannot confirm myself; can others confirm that this ad is truly unskippable? Meaning, if the game is done loading it still makes you finish the ad? If so, I’ll reach out to 2K to at least confirm this isn’t a bug. If it’s not a bug, I doubt I have any power over things being changed.
In the meantime, turn 2KTV off in the main menu settings. 2KTV is over for the season anyways and if you want to watch it for the VC you can always go directly to it’s section in the game.”
Reddit user subsamuel01 says the same as yyy2k that the ads can be turned off:
“I feel like the load screens are intentionally longer as well to show them, luckily they can be disabled but I doubt the casual gamer who only plays sports games bother to do this.”
Once skeptical but then joining the others on disabling the ad, user Darth_Vaper883 chimed in saying:
“I didn’t see anything about disabling them but if that is the case, that’s good to know and they should a bit more open and clear about it.
I was thinking how EA ended up in the UK parliament cz of loot boxes and their possible gambling mechanics. Loot boxes are scummy but this kind of seems worse cz correct if I am wrong there is no law against pushing ads in paid games, right? Unless fans don’t react negatively to this, there is nothing the GOVT can do to stop this?
Edit: yes, they can disabled but of course, 2K hasn’t said anything. It was Reddit that discovered this.”
Except, the ad still shows up every now and again, meaning your mileage may vary in this case according to TheSolomonGrundy:
“You can disable it in the settings FYI.
It’s still a bit scummy seeing as you bought the game. It’s a very shady tactic for sure.
Edit:YMMV on disabling it.”
Lastly, the ad is reported to come back even when turning off the 2KTV thing, but it does get rid of it at times for some people… so there’s that. However, it’s scummy that 2K and crew shipped this and did not offer workarounds to this greedy issue.
