Monday Tip-Off: The Annual Honeymoon Phase for NBA 2K
We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on the annual honeymoon phase that accompanies the release of every NBA 2K game.
NBA 2K25 will be out this Friday – or Wednesday, if you’ve pre-ordered for the Early Tip-Off – which means it won’t be long before we get our hands on this year’s release. It’s always an exciting time, as the community prepares for another year of basketball gaming. All of those offseason moves that created intriguing new lineups? We’ll get to see how they fare on the virtual hardwood! Although they’re the cause of the New Game Blues, the fresh start and clean slate in MyTEAM and MyCAREER can also be enticing, especially with the prospect of more content to come.
And of course, we’re eager to see whether all of the improvements that were hyped up during the preview season are as good as advertised. We shouldn’t expect perfection; beyond being an impossible standard in general, any Triple-A game that’s developed in the space of a year is going to have a bug or two. Even with all the pre-release QA testing, there are going to be glitches or gameplay quirks that aren’t discovered until a game is in the hands of the masses. It’s important to remember that, but at the same time, we shouldn’t ever pretend that everything’s perfect, and refuse to criticise a new game. Too many people forget this during the annual honeymoon phase for NBA 2K.
If you’re a veteran of NBA 2K – and especially if you also remember NBA Live at its peak – then you’ll be quite familiar with the annual honeymoon phase. For the first two weeks or so after a new game is released, there’ll be a ton of positivity. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, nor unwarranted. The best basketball games have generally impressed us from Day 1, with our enthusiasm and enjoyment lasting long beyond the honeymoon phase. Even then though, our excitement has a way of masking some of the problems and annoyances, which are definitely still there. The result is that while a game is still new, the community is prone to pushing back on any valid criticisms.
I’m pointing this out because quite often, gamers who are staunch defenders (and yes, sometimes the developers themselves) will claim the opposite is true; that “everyone hates the new game at launch“. Certainly, there are knee-jerk reactions from people who don’t want to give anything new a chance and write off different as bad, but that isn’t everyone who dares to criticise a game during the first two weeks that it’s out. More to the point, historically speaking, you’re far more likely to see gushing praise for a title when it’s newly-released. Go back and look at the initial reactions to the best NBA 2Ks – and some of the divisive ones, too – and you’ll see plenty of positivity.
Furthermore, if you go back and look at those reactions around the launch of a game, you’ll see criticisms being shouted down; criticisms that are later acknowledged as being fair and accurate. Even more frustratingly, developer blogs during the preview season for the next release will admit to problems that were vehemently denied by gamers (and again, sometimes developers), further vindicating those critical opinions. Of course, as I said in my video discussing the lies of developer blogs, this will never be acknowledged by those who tried to shut down and silence negative critique and feedback. They’ll just keep crying “hater”, and pretend that new is always better.
If that sounds familiar, it should. It’s basically what modern basketball discourse has become; what modern online discourse about anything has become, really! Still, that doesn’t mean we have to indulge fanboys and shills with a performative debate. For that matter, those who are haters and negative just for the clicks needn’t be heeded, either. While I’m standing up for criticism here, it’s fair to say that the first two weeks after a new NBA 2K is released – that honeymoon phase – is where you’ll find the most reactionary and passionately questionable takes. Everyone’s racing to be the first to post their impressions and reviews, and that simply isn’t conducive to accuracy.
Again, the honeymoon phase for a new NBA 2K usually lasts for a couple of weeks or so. While some issues are blatantly obvious, others won’t present themselves until you’ve spent more than a weekend with the game. With the meta-gaming that takes place in the online scene, issues with balance and exploitable mechanics might not be obvious until the community has had a chance to level up, work out which builds and animations are OP, and master the controls. A day or two with the game is certainly enough for some initial impressions, but the full picture isn’t available until everyone’s on the game making progress, and finding the most reliable/exploitable ways to win.
This is why I believe there’s value in following up on our first impressions, and even full reviews, after those first couple of weeks. I’m not saying that those opinions will all be proven to be inaccurate and untrustworthy, as that’s a false absolute. The annual honeymoon phase is when we’ll see the most takes that are prone to changing, though. If nothing else, we want to give the new game a chance. We want to justify spending the money, not to mention getting our hopes up during the preview season. In trying to avoid a knee-jerk negative reaction, we can end up jumping to positive conclusions. And, to be fair, there is merit in looking on the bright side and seeking the positives.
However, even fantastic games have their flaws, and we should acknowledge them along with their strengths. It’s OK to say “I like this and that, but these things could be better”. Unfortunately, for the shills, apologists, and anyone who’s just understandably caught up in the honeymoon phase after a new NBA 2K is released, that isn’t positive enough. Anything less than glowing praise across the board is written off as “hating” from people who need to “get good” or “play something else”. That’s the really toxic part of the honeymoon phase. Even if an issue presents itself from launch, even if an opinion is still mostly positive, criticism is still frowned upon during this period.
Obviously, it doesn’t help that it’s all too easy to make the things that we enjoy too much of our personality, to the point where we perceive criticism of them – no matter how accurate or justified – as a personal attack. Our confirmation bias tells us that our complaints and criticisms are righteous and true, whereas everyone else is “whining”. As I’ve discussed before, there’s an unfortunate trend towards zero-sum thinking in gaming communities, leading to a belief that satisfaction must come at the expense of someone else’s dissatisfaction. It’s what leads to bizarre objections to solutions that could be mutually beneficial, because then no one will end up losing or missing out.
These issues with discourse and tribalism go beyond basketball gaming, and I don’t expect that one person yelling “hey, stop that” into the wind will change the world. Nevertheless, it’s still worth saying, and it’d really benefit us as gamers to keep the honeymoon phase for NBA 2K in mind. Even if it’s an inevitable storm that we have to weather, then we know to bunker down and bide our time until toxic positivity has stopped raining down on the conversation. Of course, in saying that, the answer isn’t to engage in toxic negativity, either. The point is to be constructive and honest in our appraisal of the new game, once the floor is open to a more nuanced conversation.
That means everyone needs to slow down on the “best game ever” or “worst game ever” declarations, or at the very least re-evaluate that stance once the honeymoon phase is over. First impressions don’t always last, but it’s when we’ll offer up our strongest compliments and critiques, driven by our initial delight or disappointment. That’s not to say we should wait a couple of weeks to say anything about a new game. Obviously, whether you’re a content creator, reviewer, or a member of the basketball gaming community, you’ll want to have your say. It’s just that what we say during the honeymoon phase for any given NBA 2K isn’t necessarily our final word on the game.
We’d do well to remember this for NBA 2K25 and beyond. Whenever someone tries to shout down an opinion by saying that everyone hated a game or conversely loved it at launch, that’s when we need to probe deeper; pull out the receipts, as it were. Did a patch or post-release tuning update resolve problems, or alternatively ruin what was originally a popular game? Was a new feature frustrating until we got the hang of it, or did we tire of something we initially liked? Did cheesers find a way to dominate the online scene, or was the live service content underwhelming? What were we all actually saying during the game’s life cycle? Did we indeed change our minds?
Another factor that we must always remember is that our mode of choice will lead to different experiences, and thus different views of the same game. A MyTEAM gamer who enjoys the content and gameplay throughout the year will have a different take than a MyCAREER/Park/Pro-Am/Rec gamer that had a worse grind, and an on-court experience that was ruined by an unbalanced meta. Mechanics that are suitable for online play but tend to spoil games against the CPU – or vice versa – will be received differently depending on the mode that we all prefer. Our impressions are likely to evolve throughout the year if patches and tuning updates make significant changes.
The bottom line is that for the next two weeks, there are going to be some hot takes and pushback on criticism. That’s probably always going to be the case, but as long as we’re aware of the annual honeymoon phase for NBA 2K, we know that the discourse will be (somewhat) less contentious after a couple of weeks or so. By all means speak your mind from Day 1, but if you get shouted down, don’t get discouraged. It won’t be too long before the community is more open-minded about discussing the good, the bad, and the ugly of NBA 2K25. With that being said, I’m still hoping for the best. After all, even when they honeymoon is over, you want the good times to continue!
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