You could argue that there’s never been a bigger disconnect between game developers and publishers and their user base, the gamers, than there is right now. Yes, there are some companies that are driven to be “customer-friendly” and do their best to make a full product that works at launch, and then, there are those who rush things out just to make profits, and clearly don’t put enough effort into things. For something like NBA 2K26, you kind of expect things to “not be as good as they could be,” because it’s a sports game that releases every year. However, 2K Sports has drawn the ire of many gamers by its practices both with microtransactions and just what’s in the games themselves, and they’ve had enough.
For example, Ronnie2K, who has had his own kind of firestorm brewing around him due to a recent announcement he made, revealed in a post on Twitter that a new line of in-game clothing would be released in NBA 2K26, focusing on the WNBA and its athletes. You can see the post below:
While it sounds nice that he’s using words like “gender equity” and “representation,” fans weren’t fooled by the effort, using the hashtag #PlayersOverProfits to make it clear that they want the game to be better, not be a cash cow for 2K while gamers suffer. Some of their replies to this post did not beat around the bush at all:
“why don’t you start with trying to create representation for the player base? Start cultivating an environment of communication & honesty with your player base. I know you see the hostility, it’s VERY real and present.”
“You can’t be about equity and equality and treat your users like crap!”
“How about having female characters playing in the city. now that’s empowerment”
“The only thing you are empowering is children into gambling addiction.”
Yeah, that’s pretty hardcore, and yet, when you see what 2K Sports has done both in its basketball games and its other sports titles, you can see why gamers are upset. One person even made a checklist of all the things that should be improved in the My Team section, including making the rewards more worthwhile and memorable.
Whether things improve is up for debate. Some publishers, like 2K, EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and others, are so set in their ways that they’d rather blame the fanbase than blame themselves. But, if you keep making your voices heard, you never know what might happen…
