NBA 2K is a series of basketball games published by 2K Sports. Their last entry, NBA 2 K26, was reported by Sports Business Journal as number 2 in sales for all games in 2025. The series as a whole has sold over 8 million units according to Game World Observer, and is the biggest sports game of this generation. Even with other options, it’s the most popular basketball game that high schoolers play. 

This makes it all the worse when the developer exploits their players and make it necessary to spend extra money just to be competitive. While not everyone plays 2K, these cheap tactics should be avoided if you plan on gifting this game to a friend. NBA 2K26 represents a gaming industry that is willing to exploit its customers who just want to have a good time and not spend money or not spend too much.

The issues with 2K start with their two biggest modes, MyTeam and MyCareer. MyTeam shows the worst practices of 2K, with a market that is too restrictive, where players need to buy and open packs with real money, and have to deal with a horrible auction house and restriction from 2K themselves, and MyCareer that puts heavy emphasis on what the meta is and restrictions on what players you can use for your animations (how your player moves and shoots). This is important because the most money grabbing modes are also the modes people play the most.

For starters, NBA 2K has one of the worst auction house systems out of all the big sports games. For example, if you would like to buy a good card, it’ll be over 100k MyTeam coins (MT). Unfortunately, you have to bid on that card, which often takes hours to do, and since people are bidding, it is very possible to get outbid. 

Now this is a problem because the maximum amount of MT you can immediately buy a card is only 100k MT. And even if you can get that card, you will have to wait for the game to decide whether your auction was valid, so it will say it’s pending, meaning you have to wait to get the card you spent time grinding for or indirectly spent money on. It is by far the most complicated auction house system out there. And for reference, 100k MT is worth around $80 to $85 from third-party websites.  

Additionally, in MyTeam, there are these things called packs, and with these packs, you can get players. If you’re lucky enough, you can get a good card. Unfortunately, though, NBA 2K has reduced the pack odds. For example, the odds for a pack in NBA 2K to get a Dark Matter (one of the best rarity’s in the game) was 60% in a boosted pack. Now, compared to 2K26, the odds of getting a Dark Matter from a boosted pack were 1.8%

Now, even if you do get lucky, you could get a WNBA player. Now, this is not because they are bad players; it is mainly due to the emphasis NBA 2K places on height and weight, and because WNBA players are, on average, shorter and lighter than NBA players, they are just not as good. And because 2K MyTeam has been an all-male game mode, the animations have only been built for men and not adjusted for women, which is a huge design flaw by 2K. 

MyCareer in NBA 2K is the most-played game mode in NBA 2K because it is a game mode in which you can make and customize your own character and use them in the NBA or other online game modes. But 2K has taken advantage of this and made it the most expensive it can possibly be to max out your build. Costing around 450,000 Virtual currency. In USD, that is 100 dollars.

Youtuber AugSauce also agrees with this saying, “VC and 2k have changed a lot, from being introduced as just another currency in the game to making it almost impossible to play without buying.’’

It has gotten so bad that when trying to search things defending 2k, you will instead find people criticizing 2k. One of the top videos you see when you search up why 2k is not a cash grab  is titled “Do not fall for NBA 2K’s money grab scheme,’’ in the title of YouTuber jdgetspaid’s video.

Why do I bring this up? I bring this up because 2K has been releasing products that are far too expensive and pay-to-win. And I think that even for the players who pay, it is still too expensive. I think that we 2K players should stop buying in-game transactions in 2K until something changes.