Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of 2K Sports, is facing a class-action lawsuit over the highly popular NBA 2K series.
As first reported by Axios, the suit was filed in a California federal court by a minor who is represented by their mother. It accuses Take-Two of theft and unfair business practices regarding microtransactions in the video game. The main complaint is centered around the inability to transfer virtual currency (VC) between games each year.
This is important because NBA 2K sells VC, which is used to buy in-game items. Prices for VC ranges anywhere from $1.99 for 5,000 VC to $149.99 for 700,000 VC. In NBA 2K23, it took an estimated 220,000 VC to upgrade a “MyPlayer” to an 85 overall. The suit claims that the company’s approach with the sale of VC is “unfair, illegal, and greedy,” as the base game is already $69.99 on its own.
Since NBA 2K has an annual release schedule, players are often left with worthless VC. And beyond that, NBA 2K deactivates servers yearly for older editions of their games shortly after new copies are released. NBA 2K22’s servers are scheduled to be shut down on December 31, 2023.
Once these servers are turned off, any leftover VC is completely inaccessible.
“By removing Plaintiff and the Class members’ VC, Defendants took and stole their personal property, or fraudulently appropriated property that had been entrusted to Defendant,” the suit stated.
NBA 2K also faced criticism with the introduction of a three-tiered “season pass” system in NBA 2K24. While the first tier is free, players can upgrade to the Pro tier for $9.99 or the Hall of Fame tier for $19.99. Each additional tier comes with in-game rewards, but progress resets at the beginning of each new “season.”
Take-Two hasn’t yet released a statement on the lawsuit, nor have their lawyers responded in court.
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