NBA 2K21 has found itself in a spot of bother after adding in unskippable ads.
Microtransactions has become something of a bogeyman feature when it comes to video games for being both intrusive and an egregious way for companies to make even more money off gamers who had paid full price for a game.
NBA 2K21 had previously found itself in hot water for the inclusion of microtransactions, but now that water has gone from hot to scalding after introducing a new feature that applies unskippable ads to its loading screen.
Following several unverified reports from NBA 2K21 players, Stevivor is reporting that the basketball game now features ads that will play on the loading screens between matches and are unable to be skipped no matter how many buttons you mash.
It is reported that ads were noticed in the Oculus Quest 2 version of the game but were also spotted in the PS4, Xbox One, and PC editions as well.
Unsurprisingly, many gamers weren’t too happy about these unskippable ads after having paid full price for the basketball game.
Now this isn’t the first time the NBA 2K series has found itself in this situation as the previous instalment, NBA 2K20, also copped backlash for this exact thing.
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Unfortunately, this sort of thing – the addition of money-earning features like unskippable ads after a game’s release – is becoming increasingly common.
In September this year, Electronic Arts copped backlash for doing something similar after adding in-game advertisements to UFC 4, which were subsequently removed after overwhelming waves of criticism from gamers.
It’s worth noting that gamers who are waiting to get NBA 2K21 for the PS5 or Xbox Series X will have to pay more for the game, so there’s a bit of irony in the whole “adding in unskippable ads as a microtransaction” thing.
2K Sports has yet to comment on the addition of these unskippable ads at the time of writing.
Check out the unskippable ads in NBA 2K21:
