Wayback Wednesday: NBA 2K17 All-Time College DLC Revisited
This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking another look back at the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17.
It’s funny what will prompt you to revisit certain games, and then keep playing them. Content creation is undoubtedly a factor. Revisiting NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 on a whim led to a retrospective of MyCAREER, and in turn an ongoing adventure and an overdue appreciation for an amazing game. Hoping to grab a screenshot for an article, I dusted off NBA Live 18 to play through The One. It was a blast, and I once again developed a greater fondness for an older release, while also lamenting its wasted potential. I didn’t get the screenshot I wanted, but I ended up with something better.
I don’t take that for granted. In an age of disposable games, I appreciate any unique content and modes that remain available years later. That brings me to the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17, which inspired me to spend some more time with an old favourite after revisiting it for research. I did cover the DLC back in 2018, but I’m not entirely satisfied with that feature. Also, with EA (and apparently 2K) developing a new college basketball game, it’s seems only apt to revisit the last time that collegiate content was available outside of a specific mode. Let’s take a look back…way back…
On September 17th 2016, the All-Time College DLC was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of NBA 2K17. As the name would imply, the DLC added college teams to NBA 2K17, specifically squads of school’s all-time best alumni; or at least, the best players 2K could license. There were ten teams in total, and they could either be purchased as a bundle for $14.99 USD, or individually for $1.99 each; the bundle obviously offering better value. Considering that 2K’s last college basketball game was College Hoops 2K8 and EA’s series was also effectively cancelled after NCAA Basketball 10, there was definitely a market for some collegiate content.
Of course, NBA 2K16 and NBA 2K17 both offered snippets of a college basketball experience in their MyCAREER stories. NBA 2K16’s “Livin’ Da Dream” included four games from Freq’s college career, culminating with a showdown for the college championship. Meanwhile, the collegiate portion of NBA 2K17’s story was comprised of a Midnight Madness scrimmage and three games, with a possible fourth game if you won the third to advance to the finals. It was definitely a novelty, giving the pre-NBA stage of MyCAREER a deeper experience than the old Rookie Showcase while also bringing college hoops back to the virtual hardwood, albeit in a limited capacity.
The catch of course was that as in the recent MyCAREER stories that have featured a collegiate chapter, Take-Two only licensed a handful of schools. In NBA 2K16, we could choose to have Freq attend Georgetown, Arizona, Louisville, UCLA, Kansas, Connecticut, Texas, Michigan, Villanova, or Wisconsin. In NBA 2K17, we could send Pres to Oklahoma, Illinois, Georgia Tech, Michigan State, Kansas, Wake Forest, Connecticut, Louisville, Arizona, or Georgetown. It was an understandable decision from a design and financial standpoint, but many gamers were dismayed that they couldn’t choose North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, Indiana, UCLA, and other schools.
Unsurprisingly, the ten schools that we could play for in NBA 2K17 MyCAREER were also the ones featured in the All-Time College DLC. Once again, this made sense, but with so many historical NBA players licensed to appear in NBA 2K17, it felt like a missed opportunity to feature collegiate versions of Michael Jordan, Bill Walton, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and so on. However, while many of the players featured on the All-Time College squads were already available in NBA 2K17 via classic NBA teams, the DLC did feature new players. This included a few that were previously exclusive to MyTEAM, so it was nice to have them readily playable.
Some of the players that we gained access to through the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17 include Wes Unseld, Kenny Anderson, Danny Manning, Mike Bibby, Jo Jo White, Gar Heard, Wayman Tisdale, Sleepy Floyd, Darrell Griffith, Randolph Childress, Len Chappell, Kenny Battle, Reggie Williams, and even George Bon Salle, who only played one year in the NBA way back in 1962. Their ratings were based on their peak performance in college, allowing alumni who hadn’t become stars at the NBA level to actually be useful. It’s the only time that you’ll see the likes of Denzel Valentine, Raef LaFrentz, and Illinois’ Dee Brown with Overall Ratings in the 90s!
As cool as it was to have those players at our disposal in NBA 2K17 – and in a novel concept such as All-Time College squads – the DLC could’ve included so much more. The rosters feature a number of contemporary players who may have had fine college careers, but aren’t exactly legendary alumni. It was necessary in order to fill the teams, but players like UConn’s Jeremy Lamb and Jeff Adrien are poor substitutes for 2004 NCAA Champions Ben Gordon and Emeka Okafor. Gilbert Arenas (Arizona), Pervis Ellison and LaBradford Smith (Louisville), Stephon Marbury (Georgia Tech), and Mookie Blaylock (Oklahoma), are some of the other notable alumni that are absent.
Naturally, likeness rights are an issue here. All of those players were out of the league by that point, and hadn’t been licensed for any of the classic NBA teams. I’m guessing that similar roadblocks – financial or otherwise – prevented the inclusion of any retro school jerseys and historical arenas. Again, these limitations are understandable, and the inclusion of the aforementioned players still made the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17 at least worth considering. With that being said, it’s still somewhat of a letdown to play with All-Time Arizona featuring Chase Budinger instead of Gilbert Arenas, or All-Time Georgia Tech with Anthony Morrow but not Stephon Marbury.
In addition to noteworthy omissions, some of the squads have fewer than 12 players, and either have a logjam or lack of depth at certain positions. A few of the lineups are questionable as well. Active players are forced into some of the starting fives, pushing legends out of their natural position and relegating others to the bench. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that similar to 2016 Team USA, the Australian Boomers, and the pre-order exclusive Dream Team, we can’t modify the squads that the All-Time College DLC adds to NBA 2K17. We can choose new starters while the game is loading – just as we can any other team – but we can’t make permanent lineup changes.
That also includes moving players to other teams, so forget about using the All-Time College DLC to cobble together an All-Time NBA team roster in NBA 2K17! The squads are also only available for Play Now games. While it’s disappointing that we couldn’t repurpose those players or add the teams to MyLEAGUE, it’s not surprising given the nature of downloadable content. If those teams and players could easily be inserted into the active and classic rosters, it’s possible that everyone could access that content free of charge. Problems would also arise if the DLC was missing when trying to load a save file that uses it. It’s a bummer, but there are reasons for the restriction.
Annoyingly, you can’t view any stats screens in games involving two of the college squads going head to head. Interestingly, that menu option is still available if you take on a college team with a current or classic team, or even one of the other bonus teams, but only if the collegiate squad are the visitors. My guess is that this is a by-product of their implementation in MyCAREER, since you can’t view the stats screens during those games. I imagine that coding the teams to work differently in Play Now may cause issues, and thus the restriction carried over to the DLC. If this is the case, it was probably the most viable solution, but it’s a shame to lose the stats and highlight reels.
However, let’s dive into the major controversy with the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17. Because the assets for the college teams were already in the game thanks to MyCAREER, and a majority of the players were available via the current rosters, classic teams, or MyTEAM, the fact it was paid DLC rather than readily available or even unlockable bonus content does smack of greed. Sure, it’s not the most expensive add-on in the history of the series, but that doesn’t justify it having a price tag in the first place! Throw in the fact that the Dream Team was a pre-order exclusive – and too easy to lose thanks to the way that it was unlocked – and it doesn’t inspire goodwill.
Furthermore, while the All-Time College DLC was only made available for the PS4 and X1 versions of NBA 2K17, the content is actually there in the PC version! In fact, it can be unlocked via modding, though you need an executable that works with the available Cheat Engine table. The point is that the content is present on the disc or digital download, thus the DLC is a paid unlock rather than a true add-on. While it’s since been overshadowed by predatory microtransactions, season passes, and FOMO-driven live service content, paid unlocks for on-disc DLC was once an extremely contentious issue, as it was seen as charging for content that was already included.
Even if you want to debate the technical merits of providing DLC in this manner, as I said in my previous retrospective of the All-Time College teams for NBA 2K17, it still felt like a shameless cash grab. Take-Two certainly weren’t going to lose a ton of money if this bonus content was available by default, or as something to unlock. The practice of removing or holding back content so as to squeeze extra revenue out of gamers is already a greedy move, and it’s even more infuriating when it involves paid unlocks for on-disc DLC. The value for money might’ve been better with additional new players and throwback uniforms, but it would’ve been controversial regardless.
Despite the controversy though, as well as the limited functionality and some of the roster shortcomings, I do still appreciate the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17, and I’m glad that I picked it up all those years ago. Granted, I think it should’ve been freely available, but it didn’t break the bank, and it’s something that’s fun to play with whenever I dust off NBA 2K17. Because the assets were there from the start and the DLC is in the purchase history of my PlayStation account, the teams are automatically there whenever I reinstall the game on PS4 or PS5. We can also make use of those assets in modding projects on PC, providing that we have the necessary resources.
And of course, as I noted above, the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17 represents the last time that we could freely play with collegiate content since the end of 2K’s College Hoops and EA’s NCAA Basketball/March Madness series. College has been part of our journey in MyCAREER, and NBA 2K23’s revamped Jordan Challenge also added the 1982 Championship game. However, that’s not quite the same as being able to select college teams – all-time, classic, or contemporary – and stage matchups of our choosing. Apart from mods, the DLC is the closest thing we’ve had to a college basketball game since 2009, and that’s not going to change for at least a few years.
As I said back in 2018, the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17 has a complicated legacy. It was controversial, and could’ve been more substantial. In hindsight, it was a harbinger of some increasingly greedy and predatory practices. At the same time, it was decent bonus content that didn’t hamper your enjoyment in any way if you chose not to buy it. It brought a taste of college basketball back to the virtual hardwood, and even gave us some handy assets for modding. It’s a little sparser than it should be and it’s long been delisted anyway, but if you did pick it up while you could, the All-Time College DLC for NBA 2K17 can add some extra fun in one of the series’ best games.
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