Monday Tip-Off: The Same Old MyCAREER Story
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 how despite some interesting ideas here and there, MyCAREER keeps telling us the same old story.
When the Next Gen version of NBA 2K14 launched with the very first MyCAREER story, it was a bold attempt to innovate with the single player career experience. The mode had already been expanding since its debut in NBA 2K10 as My Player, but introducing a narrative with cutscenes and further role-playing elements continued to differentiate it from the franchise modes. Once 2K began working with big name filmmakers and actors, MyCAREER came to feature impressive production values and deeper stories, which I’ve come to appreciate.
There are some recurring problems with the story-driven approach to MyCAREER, of course. Not everyone is interested in flavour content like that, especially if they just want to build up a player for the online scene. The quality of the stories has varied over the years, with a few of them being very obnoxious in tone. There have been some distracting disconnections between the story and the MyPLAYER protagonist, where a very specific back story doesn’t suit the concept of avatar customisation. If nothing else, we’re not rated like we’re a future star! However, the biggest issue is that even in the best case scenario, we end up being told the same old MyCAREER story.
That’s because the basic plot of every MyCAREER story has to be reminiscent of the last. The “traditional” side of the mode is all about stepping into the shoes of an NBA player, entering the league as a rookie, and becoming a Hall of Famer over the course of your career. There’s nothing wrong with that; much like the franchise modes, it’s a staple basketball gaming experience that we expect to see in NBA 2K every year. The problem is that when you attach a cinematic story to MyCAREER, every year will tell the same old tale. Sure, the scenarios can change and the path may have more twists and turns, but ultimately, it’s all about a promising prospect’s journey to the league.
Now, this problem has existed from the moment that the story-driven approach to MyCAREER was devised. For the first few games however, it had the benefit of being a fresh idea that invited novel concepts, as well as improvements to production values year-to-year. NBA 2K14’s story was inserted into the traditional MyCAREER format, essentially serving as flavour content. NBA 2K15’s tale experimented with a later starting point and different route to the pros. NBA 2K16 extended the pre-NBA portion of the story, though it sacrificed a bulk of our rookie year to tell a deeper tale. NBA 2K17 did the same thing but better, and added the whole Orange Juice gimmick.
By NBA 2K18, we’d basically seen what was possible with the MyCAREER story concept. Even if future stories were better – and a couple of them were quite good – it wouldn’t be a fresh experience. The quality of the stories and strength of the gameplay couldn’t overcome the unavoidable fact that they’d inevitably be variations of what came before, all building to the same conclusion: reaching the NBA. And yes, while media literacy does make it easier for us to understand tropes and predict how stories will end, the overarching concept of MyCAREER means there’s no room for any real twist ending. Outside of rare Game Overs, our MyPLAYERs will achieve their dream.
Once again, that was easier to overlook when MyCAREER stories were a newer idea and trying out plots and different paths to the NBA for the first time. After a few years of the same old MyCAREER story, it was tougher to ignore. In hindsight, it’s likely why NBA 2K18’s story went in a far wackier direction. It’s probably also why NBA 2K19 offered the ability to skip the preliminary story altogether; well, that and it was a feature we were very loudly asking for back then! After six years of stories, even those of us who appreciated the work that went into them were growing weary of an experience that ultimately didn’t have anything to do with NBA or online gameplay.
So, why even keep doing the same old MyCAREER story when the concept has seemingly run its course? Well, there are a couple of understandable reasons. As I’ve discussed before, once NBA 2K started going bigger and bigger with MyCAREER, implementing concepts such as a cinematic story and an open world, going back to a simpler experience became impossible. Doing so would appear to be regression. It would also forego the recurrent revenue opportunities, but even putting that aside, returning to the style of MyCAREER that we had during the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 generation would be seen as a major downgrade, and a failure to further innovate.
The other reason is something that TV Tropes refers to as the “Fleeting Demographic Rule“. In short, turnover in the audience makes it easier – and sensible – for a long-running work or franchise to recycle stories. There’ll always be new viewers, readers, players, and so on. You can’t guarantee fresh content for long-time fans indefinitely, but you can reuse what’s previously worked to entertain newcomers. To that point, anyone who has played through MyCAREER stories for a decade or even longer may well be tired of them, but every game during that span was someone’s very first 2K; their first foray into MyCAREER and the story of a future star’s journey to the pros.
It’s why the option to skip the story made sense, and was welcome. If it was your first MyCAREER, then you’d probably want to play through it. If you were starting over from scratch once again and just wanted to get to the meat of the mode, you were no longer forced to endure a lengthy prelude you weren’t interested in. Of course, there could be drawbacks to skipping the story, namely forfeiting the opportunity to start upgrading your attributes and earning Badges earlier. With the mode becoming more and more of a grind, any chance to level up without spending money is worth strongly considering, which undoubtedly led to many of us slogging through stories anyway.
And so, we became frustrated as MyCAREER stagnated with the same old story, with the same old journey. Yes, it was fresh for newcomers, but the audience for NBA 2K is extremely consistent. The “Fleeting Demographic Rule” isn’t an absolute, and there are many hardcore basketball fans and gamers who have been playing the games for years. Going back to the earliest iterations of story-driven MyCAREER modes, they were changing things up by giving us a rival, having us battle to get to the league on ten day contracts, experiencing a longer journey to the NBA by playing in high school and college, and forming a dynamic duo that introduced unique dual player controls.
Beginning with NBA 2K18, the mode began sticking to an established format. Sure, playing in a streetball tournament or taking a much longer road to the NBA via China and the G League was different, and NBA 2K21 even allowed us to choose between college and the G League. It’s still a very familiar journey though, starting us out as an NBA hopeful prior to making it to the league, which again, is the inevitable resolution of the story because that’s what MyCAREER is all about. Many of the specific details have also been recycled in several stories: we’re talented but need to mature, there’s a cocky rival we need to overcome, and even losing our father at a very young age.
And yes, “Fleeting Demographic Rule” and all that, but a lack of innovation has led to a lack of freshness for long-time gamers. The repetitive use of familiar tropes – and the inevitable ending that a MyCAREER story must build to – would be far less of an issue if they were accompanied by more substantial changes. One idea would be to have the ability to choose different MyPLAYER back stories with their own benefits and drawbacks; something that The W actually did in NBA 2K24. Story branching, or even two distinct paths as in NBA 2K21, potentially adds replay value for secondary builds. The option to skip the entire story without penalty is also a necessary option.
We’ve seen glimpses of these ideas, but they’re too infrequent, which emphasises the stale aspects of MyCAREER stories. I’d suggest it’s a sign that the concept is played out at this point, even with every release being someone’s first NBA 2K game. There are too many gamers who have endured the same old MyCAREER story alongside an increasingly tough grind for years now, and it doesn’t make the mode more palatable. Neither does adding mandatory quests – especially when they have little to do with basketball – but to the credit of the developers, they have backed away from that after NBA 2K23. As someone who expected that to get much worse, I was glad to see it!
Still, I believe we’re at a point where MyCAREER should begin moving away from cinematic stories, though I’m not keen on the open world approach either. However, as long as there aren’t any mandatory quests, or fail conditions that force us to re-play games, The City and The Neighborhood can potentially provide the flavour content that cinematic stories originally brought to the table. With so many gamers only being interested in competitive online team play or journeying through an NBA career, we could definitely argue that lengthy cinematic stories have become passé. If nothing else, it’s been a long time since a new story seemed better than a previous one.
Other genres may recycle tropes and plots – Fallout 4 basically inverted Fallout 3’s story, having the parent searching for their child rather than the other way around – but it’s a major issue with MyCAREER stories, as they’re in a series with annual releases. Apart from vague call backs and recurring characters such as Jackson Ellis, they’re also disconnected stories that reset canon along with our attributes every year. MyCAREER stories can be fun and I have enjoyed them, but there’s only so many ways to tell the story of a young player making it to the NBA. Multiple back stories might help, but a familiar ending will always mean the same old MyCAREER story.
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