NBA 2K announced they will charge players for a season pass in NBA 2K24. The season pass usually contains accessories and other goodies for your MyTEAM and MyPLAYER. Players will get level-up rewards from 1–40 for free but must pay for premium rewards. The Pro Pass ($9.99) comes with 40 premium rewards and four extra season pass rewards. The Hall of Fame Pass ($19.99) comes with everything in the Pro Pass but includes a 15% XP boost and 10 level skips.
There is a lot of dialogue surrounding the paid season pass from the 2K community. The amount to play and enjoy NBA 2K has just increased. Will this affect NBA 2K negatively or will the users reap the benefits of the season pass in the future?
A Slippery Slope for NBA 2K25?
The NBA 2K player base could be walking on a slippery slope. We could see a price increase if the data and feedback that NBA 2K receives from the paid passes are majorly positive. NBA 2K could go out on a limb and increase the price as the user seemed to purchase the pass eight times throughout the year.
NBA 2K Following the Path of More Revenue
The season pass isn’t anything new, it became popularized by Fortnite and their battle pass. However, Fortnite is a free-to-play game, and the battle pass doesn’t contain any pay-to-play aspects. A free game like Fortnite generates a large sum of money from their battle pass. NBA 2K can make $509.91 from just one customer this year. We got this number by calculating the cost of the most expensive version of the game $149.99, the amount it costs to become a 99 OVR $200, and the total cost of buying the Hall of Fame Pass for eight seasons $159.92. This calculation doesn’t take into account the VC cost for multiple MyPLAYER builds and MyTEAM packs. If NBA 2K wanted to, they could generate more revenue with the season pass.
A Free to Play Model
An unlikely outcome of the paid season pass, but in the range of possibilities. With the extra revenue from the season pass NBA 2K could recoup the loss of money on each unit they would’ve sold and make the game free to play. They would profit solely from VC transactions from MyTEAM and MyCAREER and the season pass. A similar model to Fortnite and Overwatch 2.
Competition in the Basketball Market?
The paid season pass could blow up in their face and anger their player base – who’ve become more and more burnt out over the years from the increasing money grabs. This could open the door to other developers looking to create a simulation basketball game. The market has been unsaturated for a long time; could this be the perfect time for a competitor to gain ground on NBA 2K?
Fueling Innovation
Maybe NBA 2K has something up their sleeve for their loyal player base. So far they’ve announced crossplay and ProPlay for NBA 2K24. The added revenue from the paid season pass could be used to expand on ProPlay and create even more realistic animations. We could see the implementation of new game modes from NBA 2K. They could use the money to develop their own VR simulation basketball game. It could give them discretionary funds to add legends of the game that haven’t been in 2K like Reggie Miller, Charles Barkley, and Rasheed Wallace. The EuroLeague could return in future game iterations and be incorporated into MyNBA Eras and MyCAREER.
I don’t love the idea of a game you have to pay 100+ dollars just for your player to be able to shoot the ball adding a paid pass. Sadly, 2K knows many gamers will spend the extra money to get the premium rewards. It is almost predatory, but as consumers, we can only wait and see the positives or repercussions of this idea.
Article contributed by Miles Peters
