College basketball fans deserve better than 2K’s revival

College basketball fans saw their hopes of a fully fleshed-out video game revival of our favorite sport dashed this week thanks to publishing giant 2K Sports.

The video game company that is most noted for releasing a subpar NBA game each year with scammy microtransactions and a predatory system designed to get kids to blow their parent’s credit card on the MyTeam mode confirmed reports (shouts to Matt Brown of ExtraPoints for being on this first as usual) on Thursday that they have secured exclusive rights to move forward with a college basketball game.

And oh man, that statement is full of bad news. Let’s break down some of the major points.

1: The game “will feature more than 100 programs from across the country.”

This sucks, and many on Twitter/X, the Everything App, made sure to make that known. Tweets ranging from “if it doesn’t include all 365 teams we won’t buy it,” to outright hatred, flooded 2K’s replies and quotes.

Look, we all just want to make Mercer a powerhouse. A college basketball game that doesn’t give the full experience is simply not worth buying.

The experience of recruiting one and three-star players to Eastern Washington and turning the Eagles into a Pac-12 power of the course of a decade is what makes a college basketball video game special. A game that only includes the top 100 programs deemed worthy by the publisher only furthers the divide between the power conferences and mid- and low-major schools.

2: “Competition fuels quality at all levels.”

This part isn’t on 2K, as Brown noted in a recent newsletter. EA Sports does not want to share the college basketball experience with 2K. Schools choosing 2K in custody agreement prompted EA to take their ball and go home.

“2K is not pursuing an exclusive license with any school, conference or athlete. It is EA that is asking for an exclusive license. If a school indicated it’d like to work with 2K on its project, EA doesn’t want them involved,“ Brown wrote.

For those of us who are Old, we remember when EA Sports published a competing franchise in NBA Live and their own EA College Basketball series that went up against College Hoops 2K. Meanwhile, EA’s basketball ventures were not good for the majority of its lifespan, but the competition kept 2K honest.

EA hasn’t published an NBA game since NBA Live 19, and basketball video gamers have seen 2K’s quality dip ever since the monopoly truly grew.

3: “We’ve proven the quality of the basketball experience”

No. See above. Play NBA2K and tell me with a straight face that the game has made notable improvements at all since NBA 2K16.

Yes, I know NBA 2K is a money-printer. I implore college basketball fans to NOT buy this rag unless it includes all Division I teams. Don’t waste your $80 on this.

There are additional rumors and posts about 2K ham fisting college basketball into NBA2K, akin to the way the series added the WNBA as a limited mode without much polish and a feeling of emptiness. But, instead of the additions being part of the base game, college basketball may be added as incremental DLCs as more schools iron out their licensing.

This is not enough. And neither is a game with just 100 schools. Hopefully 2K hears the outcry and does right by adding as close to 365 as possible.