Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

[BA2929]

The difference is that if you don't like the service in those industries you can take your money elsewhere. But since 2k hasn't had any real competition in a while, they can get away with this kind of stuff because where else are you going to take your money? The sad truth is that these problems will likely remain unless Live or some other game really steps it up.

You could take your money and leave it in your wallet come Sept/Oct if you're that dissatisfied with this game and the direction it's heading. I mean, you don't HAVE to buy it.

I fully expect the 2k board of OS to be 100% dead come the release of 2k18 with no comments because 99% of everyone on it this year just complains about how bad 2k17 is. No way I'd buy 2k18 if I was as mad as most of you are.

Anyway, I enjoyed this video and would love to see the same sort of thing happen with the MLB The Show crew. Love seeing some behind the scenes stuff like this.

[BegBy]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

You should probably know more about the topic before writing a rant.

The NBA 2K team is one of the most experienced in the industry, with many top engineers and producers having worked at the studio for 20+ years.

This video just happens to be talking about some of the newer hires.

I wasn't aware that I wrote that they don't have experienced staff.

[Smirkin Dirk]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

All these videos do is showcase that hiring people without experience is unsurprisingly, a bad idea. Hiring people with little to no experience and as a result producing less than standard (a metric set by them) product shouldn't be shocking to anyone.

You have no idea how experienced the programmers are. As was pointed out, there are a lot of people behind the scenes who we don't know about. And by now the people are in the video are experienced.

NBA 2K17 is not a good NBA basketball simulation video game. Fundamentally it is flawed and as long as legacy issues continue to be present in new iterations it will continue to be a bad representation of simulation basketball.

That's a personal opinion. Many others can see massive advances in gameplay.

Their focus seems to be on game modes that make money which also detracts from simulation basketball.

No; you're wrong.

No series has developed their franchise mode as much as 2K has. Every game is finding ways to monetise; it's video games now. But don't pretend there is a huge amount of 2K that can be enjoyed without monetisation.

Everyone knows game development is difficult. So are thousands of other jobs. Typically people won't allow other professionals to perform as poorly as the 2K team have in recent years without some form of accountability.

If you've read this forum any time between 1 and 6 months after release of every 2K game in the last decade, you will know people can express their opinions on the game. As they can on FB and twitter.

What accountability do you suggest?

[BegBy]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

You have no idea how experienced the programmers are. As was pointed out, there are a lot of people behind the scenes who we don't know about. And by now the people are in the video are experienced.


That's a personal opinion. Many others can see massive advances in gameplay.



No; you're wrong.

No series has developed their franchise mode as much as 2K has. Every game is finding ways to monetise; it's video games now. But don't pretend there is a huge amount of 2K that can be enjoyed without monetisation.


If you've read this forum any time between 1 and 6 months after release of every 2K game in the last decade, you will know people can express their opinions on the game. As they can on FB and twitter.

What accountability do you suggest?

Of course I mentioned the guys in the video...the post is about the video. If anyone thinks I'm that dumb then they're dumber than they think I am. I truly don't feel like qualifying every single thing I write by diatribing about every single fact I know. Thanks for the heads up, guys!! I had no idea that 2K have tenured staff with a wealth of experience. Wow, I'm so surprised!

You and I have disagreed in the past about the quality of the game and I don't expect your opinion has changed. I mean for a while there you were complaining about how long it took for plays to develop due to the physicality (fouls for those of us who aren't delusional and actually know basketball and understand physics) and then you just switched your stance on the subject. I find that ridiculous, but I actually like real basketball and real physics.

MLB The Show made huge leaps this year in their career mode, so I guess if I think it's more of an advancement than 2K's that makes you wrong too?

2K is garbage if you're looking for an NBA simulation that is largely based around real world physics in my opinion. The thing is I base my opinion on facts. Everyone is entitled to like or dislike things, but don't try to tell me that 2K is realistic or that they don't focus on monetization as opposed to offline realistic gameplay.

Again, to anyone pointing out that 2K have more staff than the guys in the video and that I'm dumb for thinking I didn't know that - I know. I knew when I wrote my first post. I'll know tomorrow. Defend your beloved heap of garbage game with another argument because that one is hollow. Also realize that if I didn't know and just learned that tasty little tidbit of knowledge - it only makes my points carry more weight. The fact that guys with so much experience can't produce a game that's realistic does not bode well for them. Hell, even after all these years they can't even keep their servers stable. Some people can't even get their super awesome game to get passed the Paul George load screen. Amazing software development!

[Smirkin Dirk]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

I mean for a while there you were complaining about how long it took for plays to develop due to the physicality (fouls for those of us who aren't delusional and actually know basketball and understand physics) and then you just switched your stance on the subject. I find that ridiculous, but I actually like real basketball and real physics.

No I havent. I said large parts of the physics engine sucked at release and I havent changed in that opinion.

2K is garbage if you're looking for an NBA simulation that is largely based around real world physics in my opinion. The thing is I base my opinion on facts. Everyone is entitled to like or dislike things, but don't try to tell me that 2K is realistic or that they don't focus on monetization as opposed to offline realistic gameplay.

'Garbage' isn't really an opinion. It's an emotional exaggeration which will be ignored.

[rhein77]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

I agree with Begby's sentiment. He brings up valid points on the overall effectiveness of bringing new talent to work on a game and rightfully questions if they are given the proper resources.

I am questioning the ROI on investments in gameplay. They have actually regressed in some areas.

Last year albeit a short production cycle produced a game that fell short in people's eyes.

I hope that we can see more tangible results reflected in the overall product for future releases.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Impetuous65]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

All these videos do is showcase that hiring people without experience is unsurprisingly, a bad idea. Hiring people with little to no experience and as a result producing less than standard (a metric set by them) product shouldn't be shocking to anyone. What's shocking is consumer acceptance of their "We're trying, but it's hard" statement. Every industry is filled with new talent/apprentices/greenhorns, etc, but they are also surrounded by experience as to not detract from primary goals.

NBA 2K17 is not a good NBA basketball simulation video game. Fundamentally it is flawed and as long as legacy issues continue to be present in new iterations it will continue to be a bad representation of simulation basketball. Their focus seems to be on game modes that make money which also detracts from simulation basketball.

Everyone knows game development is difficult. So are thousands of other jobs. Typically people won't allow other professionals to perform as poorly as the 2K team have in recent years without some form of accountability. Consumer backlash is dreaded by companies for a reason. When you make a product that isn't quite at the standards people expect and do little about it, all the while working on other aspects of product development that is entirely and expressly focused on making money via an element of the aforementioned less than standard product, consumers should be upset. Most companies wouldn't live through years of that because consumers would avoid buying their crap. Why should game devs get special treatment? Who cares that you've chatted with them on the forums? People need to look at this situation objectively.

Keep the less experienced staff on. Use their passion and basketball knowledge as it's not something to balk at. However, surround them with more people who can help translate their intangibles into actual code that makes the game good again. Or be transparent with the community and admit that 2K's focus has been and will be online modes that generate cash as opposed to NBA simulation basketball.

Preach Brother, all this hand holding is nauseating.

[Thunderhorse]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

I agree with Begby's sentiment. He brings up valid points on the overall effectiveness of bringing new talent to work on a game and rightfully questions if they are given the proper resources.

I am questioning the ROI on investments in gameplay. They have actually regressed in some areas.

Last year albeit a short production cycle produced a game that fell short in people's eyes.

I hope that we can see more tangible results reflected in the overall product for future releases.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

These are my sentiments as well.

Look, the game just isn't as good this year compared to last year. Every year the title has it's own problems, but this year has been a difficult one.

The game is poorly balanced. Adding archetypes and limiting certain player's abilities only illustrated the game's issues with balance, more.

We live in a capitalist society and the measure of success for our sport games (now) is not what it can do on the court or field, but how much revenue can it produce throughout the entire year. 2K and EA have become so similar in this regard; I think it's unfortunate. EA hasn't had a reason in close to 10 years to aggressively innovate within Madden's gameplay. There is one football game on the market, and if you want to play a football video game you have to play Madden, there just is no other option. It doesn't take a genius or CEO to comprehend that the incentive that will arise from that environment will not be to improve gameplay but to creatively find new ways to produce a better bottom line by creating new forms of revenue.

The truth is, 2K is going down the same path, and the only hope any of us have is EA putting out another "Live". Even if EA puts out a supbar product, 2K still has to hold themselves accountable for their gameplay if they want to be considered the only "legitimate" game on the market. I played 16 throughout the entire year; I have not found 17 to be nearly as enjoyable and if anything the experience has been frustrating. This year's imbalance, especially in relation with the implementation of archetypes in MyCareer, has left a "sour" feeling in my mouth. I find myself gravitating towards other titles that provide a more rewarding experience.

Even though I have my gripes with EA and Video Game Football, if Madden had a teamplay aspect that was comparable with 2K's Pro-Am/Park, I probably would stop playing 2K. I did not previously feel this way because I've always felt 2K was always focused on simluation and you could see that within the product. Now I'm not so sure, and it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to play OTP on Madden again than spend comical amounts of time building up a MyPlayer that has the capacity to be both useless and a God (depending on whatever patch/Tuning update 2K has put out that day).

[keshunleon]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

You could take your money and leave it in your wallet come Sept/Oct if you're that dissatisfied with this game and the direction it's heading. I mean, you don't HAVE to buy it.

I fully expect the 2k board of OS to be 100% dead come the release of 2k18 with no comments because 99% of everyone on it this year just complains about how bad 2k17 is. No way I'd buy 2k18 if I was as mad as most of you are.

Anyway, I enjoyed this video and would love to see the same sort of thing happen with the MLB The Show crew. Love seeing some behind the scenes stuff like this.

So you're saying if the issues you're having but you didn't know this would happen for them not only get the next one. That still doesn't help them now. If there are 1200 people having the same load time issue and they don't buy the 2k17, 2K stock and revenue would drop significantly.

[nova91]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

Oh please...2K17 is a bad game, period. Y'all can sugarcoat it, soft sell and white knight it all you want. 2K17 DID NOT live up the quality that 2K has established and quite frankly it has been diminishing for a while now. Just because we don't work in gaming doesn't mean we can't recognize when a game is bad; most of us have been playing video games for decades and most of us are sports games enthusiasts, but more importantly we're NBA basketball fans and this game, at times, does not even come close to resembling an NBA game at all when it comes down to oncourt gameplay. From a gamer aspect, loading times that take seemingly forever, game modes/features not working as advertised, poor servers etc are extremely frustrating. We know it's not easy and most of us aren't saying it is, but come on, this is getting ridiculous.

[psydefx]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

i was incredibly disappointed with the overall quality of this year's game. it just seems incomplete and poorly tested. new gameplay features that were never properly implemented that ended up hurting the balance of the game, along with legacy issues like fast breaks and poor ai defense thatf for some reason went unaddressed. fundamental things like servers that don't work (i don't even play online) and ai ball handlers running out of bounds. 2k was clearly ahead of their skiis last year - i just hope they shape up and make a quality game come next year. already, a lot of people refuse to pre-order or buy on release until a fair amount of time has passed and things become clear. 2k just needs to get their **** right, and dirk needs to get a job in the promo department.

[BegBy]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

It's good to see more people express discontent. Just because they made a video that basically shout outs OS and explains that they have awesome jobs (that they find rather difficult) shouldn't excuse this year's release.

It's a bad game from a simulation standpoint. Letting them know will hopefully push them to make a better game.

We know it's possible, as they have released better iterations in the past, so I doubt they couldn't get back to the standard we expect.

Next year will be the first NBA 2K title I haven't either pre ordered or bought first day since the very first game they released. Until I get confirmation from OS reviews that legacy issues are fixed and the overly physical gameplay and complete lack of physics are also fixed, I am done giving them my money. It's sad that I don't play a basketball game, and basically haven't in 2 years, but I refuse to give them any more money. I'd like to see more people go the same route because 2K will have no choice but to change.

[NateDogPack12]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

All, this thread has generated some substantive and probative discussion, but let's keep it friendly. Tension has risen in the thread and snarky comments have been lodged. I don't want to intervene further. Thanks.

[ChaseB]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

Are you serious? If the game took 1 minute to load, I'd be very happy. I can't start this game without a minimum 10 minute wait just to get to the main menu. That is beyond ridiculous. I'm not alone, just go on the 2K Twitter support. Never mind that 2K support is an absolute joke, completely useless.

How can you seriously say that something like this is OK? NBA 2K is the ONLY game with this problem. The post by BegBy below is spot on.

And yes, I would pull engineers off others things, because if my consumers can't even get into the game in a reasonable time (again, we're not talking 1 minute here but 10, minimum) what use is there in fixing anything else. You don't construct a building with a flimsy foundation and put your best people to work on making the apartments look pretty.

Chase must have been talking about the "standard" load times when its not bugging out of like 1 min or 30 seconds. I doubt he meant the glitched load times of 10-15 minutes are acceptable....

Also, no way that is going to be allowed to happen next year lol. They would have seen the backlash no doubt and some a$$ would have been kicked about it...

Ahhhhh, sorry if I caused unneeded turmoil here. Retro, I thought you were just talking about loading into game, that is, like, from when you select your team to when you get on the court. I was saying that sort of loading can be hard to shorten etc. because of what I was describing -- what 2K has done in that department is rather dope overall. In terms of the game itself loading and bugs and all that, yeah no, it's not okay for it to take 10 minutes obviously. My fault for the confusion!

All these videos do is showcase that hiring people without experience is unsurprisingly, a bad idea. Hiring people with little to no experience and as a result producing less than standard (a metric set by them) product shouldn't be shocking to anyone. What's shocking is consumer acceptance of their "We're trying, but it's hard" statement. Every industry is filled with new talent/apprentices/greenhorns, etc, but they are also surrounded by experience as to not detract from primary goals.

...........

Keep the less experienced staff on. Use their passion and basketball knowledge as it's not something to balk at. However, surround them with more people who can help translate their intangibles into actual code that makes the game good again. Or be transparent with the community and admit that 2K's focus has been and will be online modes that generate cash as opposed to NBA simulation basketball.

You walk your own comment back within your own post, and you have in follow-up posts as well. I know others harped on it as well, but this is a confusing line of thinking as you sort of try to play both sides here in a way that doesn't work (plus you don't really have much insight into who is actually on staff etc.) You say don't hire people with no experience, then say keep them on. But then you've also said surround them with better people and that you never said there weren't experienced people there etc. in another post. In short, I'm sort of perplexed what the beef you have here is beyond saying you think the game has stagnated (fine opinion to have) as your tips on how to fix it sort of go against each other. I guess what you're trying to say is have veterans around them to keep their desire to do good in check and focused, which is fine, but you really took a weird way to get there.

Next year will be the first NBA 2K title I haven't either pre ordered or bought first day since the very first game they released. Until I get confirmation from OS reviews that legacy issues are fixed and the overly physical gameplay and complete lack of physics are also fixed, I am done giving them my money. It's sad that I don't play a basketball game, and basically haven't in 2 years, but I refuse to give them any more money. I'd like to see more people go the same route because 2K will have no choice but to change.

I don't think you should pre-order a game even if you think 100 percent it's going to be dope. It just doesn't make much sense to me. Just buy it day one if you think you're going to like it, why pre-order? But hey, I agree with the physicality and physics stuff, I wrote a lot on them for the last version and a lot of it I still think holds up, and so a different article is linked in each word below:

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[Retropyro]

Re: Operation Sports at 2K Sports Part Two: The Misconceptions About Game Development

I think I've gotten tired trying to ask 2K support about, so I obviously didn't make it clear what I meant in my first post.

Honestly, I'm just fed up with the way 2K seems to brush off this kind of thing. They know what it is, hear from so many having the problem. But when you contact support, they play dumb. It's just very frustrating.

As people have said, just vote with your wallet. Sadly I will. I've never not bought a copy of NBA 2K as at it's core, I adore the game immensely. But the support or lack of the last few years, I just can't do it anymore.

While I do understand how complicated a process it is to create a game, especially one so deep, I think there is a disconnect the other way. I think many of these developers have forgotten what it's like to be the consumer.