One thing I have been thinking about more recently is the fact that companies seem to care only about maximizing profit, rather than improving the customer experience or taking any of their feedback into account.
When I think about this, a few questions always come to my mind. Why wouldn’t these large corporations listen to the people who are actively supplying them with their money? Wouldn’t improving the consumer experience and listening to their feedback increase profit margins all around?
The uncomfortable truth is that many large corporations aren’t designed to serve consumers first. They are designed to grow, even if it means doing so constantly and aggressively. When growth is their primary goal, it can become pretty clear to us as consumers that we are secondary to whatever drives the next earnings bump.
Even if we are the people who are driving those earning bumps, our needs or wants are not being prioritized. Whatever sells the most is going be the option that these companies go with ultimately because it puts them in a better position to be on top.
That mindset becomes easier to spot when you look at specific releases. Take NBA 2K26’s season five rollout. The update brought new purchasable content from their season pass, along with the release of tons of additional player variants into the MyTeam experience.
Yet even with all of this new content, frustration amongst the playerbase hasn’t faded. In the case of NBA 2K26, many of the same issues that the players have wanted fixed since launch still linger.
Inconsistent shooting mechanics, unreliable dunk animations and prolonged matchmaking times despite thousands of users online remain unresolved. Meanwhile, widespread complaints about unchecked cheating continue to circulate within the community.
For long-time players, the contrast is hard to ignore. While the in-game store expands, core gameplay concerns persist. This has been an ongoing discussion about the 2k franchise for years, as players like myself noticed a shift from quality basketball games to a constant pump and dump of microtransactions.
They do a great job with marketing these releases, too. I will admit that the most recent season has appealed to me more than any other due to this season’s addition of college players and teams being implemented within the MyTeam experience.
MyTeam is one of my favorite modes to play when I am in the mood for casual gaming, so I felt inclined to get the pass to add the college expansion pack.
I am obviously not the only one who falls victim to these microtransactions. If it weren’t such a successful or efficient model, then the tons of gaming companies that use the same season pass model wouldn’t be using it year in and out with every new release.
As a longtime player, it’s frustrating to feel like fans are being ignored. Every new release feels less like an update and more like a cash grab, making each patch or season rollout feel like a slap in the face.
Season five, with its new college-level content, only highlights that feeling, especially knowing that EA plans to release its own college basketball game in the coming years. 2K, of course, will keep churning out annual releases, repackaging much of the same content while fans’ repeated requests for real improvements continue to go unanswered.
As consumers, our money is our power. Spending our money on products we don’t fully support only signals profit to the corporations making them, it does not showcase our dissatisfaction. Companies see the rising revenue, not our frustration and treat it as a success.
Until we hold companies accountable and stop supporting the groups that only care about making the most amount of money, real improvements to gameplay, service or user experience will remain out of reach.