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It appears that NBA 2K21 has added ads during pre-game loading screens that cannot be skipped, despite being a full-price game.
The popular basketball simulator now forces players to watch commercials during a pre-game video called “MyTEAM Season 2, Episode 7”. The ad, captured by Stevivor, is on the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game for $ 59.99 / £ 49.99 / AU $ 99.95, and it promotes the new Oculus Quest 2.
While the experience is certainly more akin to watching basketball on television, arguably the worst part, including video ads in anything other than a free game is controversial. Most would concede that paying full price for a game is the norm, but sitting around watching ads is simply not an acceptable part of the deal.
When you consider that NBA 2K21 has also come under fire for its excessive reliance on microtransactions, the decision to add ads seems even more egregious.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen this sort of thing happen, sadly, as EA added (and subsequently removed) in-game ads to UFC 4 that ran during replays after fans expressed their anger.
“It’s very clear from your feedback that integrating ads into the play and overlay experience is not welcome,” EA said at the time. “The team has disabled the ads and we apologize for any disruption to the game that players may have experienced.”
We have enough ad
It will be interesting to see how long these ads stay in-game in NBA 2K21 once players find them, and if they are removed, the question arises as to why 2K Games even added them in the first place. However, the answer is probably pretty obvious.
With NBA 2K21 costing $ 70 on PS5 and Xbox Series X, the idea of watching ads during a game just won’t wash away, and we hope this nasty trend of adding ads after a game is released will now end.
We reached out to 2K Games for comment and will update this article accordingly.
