2K (2017-present)

2K is an American game publisher that was founded on January 25, 2005 in New York City. Since 2007, it moved to Novato, California. 2K was founded under Take-Two Interactive in January 2005 through the 2K Games and 2K Sports labels, following the acquisition of Visual Concepts from Sega in the same month. The company serves as one of Take-Two Interactive's three publishing labels, the other being Rockstar Games and Private Division.

Why They 2K% Suck Now
NOTE: Many of these reasons and actions can be attributed to excessive executive meddling on Take-Two's part.


 * 1) Many of their recent sports games are loaded with microtransactions and lootboxes and heavily rely on pay-to-win mechanics. They were even one of the companies that attended seminars called, "Hook Habit Hobby," yes these were actual seminars, centered on exploiting children through teaching how to get them addicted to in game gambling through the use of loot boxes and microtransactions.
 * 2) They are trying to persuade gamers in Belgium into getting lootboxes unbanned from games in the country. They were even desperate enough to ask Belgian gamers to ask the government to change gambling laws.
 * 3) Their sports games are heavily recycled each year, making them feel very copy pasted. They also tend to be buggy and barely functional.
 * 4) They bribed various game review websites to give their sports games high scores despite their numerous issues. When a game review site called The Sixth Axis gave the game a 3/10, they tried to pressure the website into altering the score.
 * 5) Even some time ago, they published poorly received games such as Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Duke Nukem Forever, and WWE 2K20.
 * 6) They forced an update for Civilization V that includes a new launcher that displays ads for Civilization VI, and there are many reports of people who can't play the game properly or at all due to the launcher selecting the wrong version of DirectX when booting the game. On top of that, the update has also been reported to contain potential security vulnerabilities.
 * 7) They added unskippable advertisements in NBA 2K19, a $60 AAA game.
 * 8) Their trailer for NBA 2K20 was one of the most transparent and shameless instances of AAA publishers advertising that their games have gambling mechanics in them.
 * 9) * 2K continues to claim that loot boxes are not gambling despite their own trailer literally advertising gambling and Casino mechanics.
 * 10) Their WWE games (2K14 - 2K19), had their 2K servers shutdown, meaning you cannot download community content, play online matches, or upload new custom logos anymore on these certain WWE Games. Meaning if you bought the game after the servers have shutdown, there is going to be less features in the game.
 * 11) Other than small discounts and during sales only, they never drop the prices of their old games, while many studios like Nintendo and Activision do this as well, many of 2K's games are yearly sports games, which means no one will play them anymore since the modern ones are released, games like NBA 2K17 is still $60 even today.
 * 12) Other than having PC ports, The WWE games series has went downhill ever since they took the rights from THQ, with the games basically focusing more on being a simulation instead of the old arcade-like style in the old games, barely any improvements between each installments, still having $60 after years (With MTX of course) and more bugs within each series (Especially WWE 2K20)
 * 13) In 2020, they released the Mambo Forever edition for NBA 2K21 which had Kobe Bryant (A former Lakers player who died in early 2020) on the cover to gain extra money. And while they could add him in the cover art as some sort of tribute to him in general, they did it in a Deluxe Edition that's more expensive than the Standard Edition. In other words, it shows that 2K Games doesn't have a problem with using a deceased person for-profits, which morally speaking, completely. Disrespects. THE DEAD. (Just think about that for a second!)
 * 14) 2K's Cloud storage for save data has the reliability of a potato. Whether it be their WWE or NBA series or XCOM, doesn't matter. Every game they make, good and bad, has their data corrupt and all the work and progress made is lost. That's potentially hundreds of hours invested into the one game when taking into account the creation suites or difficulty for nothing.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) They are responsible for publishing great games such as the BioShock, the Borderlands series, various Sid Meier's Civilization games, and more.
 * 2) They've released very good WWE games (with exceptions of WWE 2K15, WWE 2K20 and WWE 2K Battlegrounds), and that many fans thanked 2K in making the WWE games after the bankruptcy of mh:awesomegames:THQ.
 * 3) Unlike their sister company, Rockstar Games, they give better support for the mh:awesomegames:Nintendo Switch by porting most of their games to the console. Even if that port of WWE 2K18 had negative reception, including WWE 2K Battlegrounds. And when come to think of it, 2K and mh:awesomegames:Nintendo have a much better partnership.
 * 4) * Much like mh:awesomegames:CD Projekt, they were able to fit huge games like the three BioShock titles along with their expansions into a single Nintendo Switch cartridge unlike most other third-party companies like Capcom, who often cheap out on the Nintendo Switch by releasing games as digital-only or put one game on a cartridge and another in a voucher code in their bundles and collections.
 * 5) In March 2020, they announced that they would revive the long dormant NFL 2K franchise. However, the first title has been delayed and they only have the non-simulation rights due to EA Sports' extended simulation rights up to 2026.
 * 6) Before they integrated microtransactions into their games, they were a good company. They also have a rich history of publishing some of the most iconic video game franchises.

Videos
XqhXBj8zAhQ WzV_Ps52hyk