NBA 2K18 Terrible Shoe Deals Will Be Fixed In The Patch 5 Update

NBA 2K18 has been widely criticized for its aggressive lean toward VC purchases and microtransactions, but an upcoming patch update will help to make that grind a lot better when it comes to shoe deals. Thanks to a little help from Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith, 2K fans got the answer they were probably looking for.

“If I have a shoe deal, how come I still have to pay for shoes to wear in the playground,” he tweeted Wednesday afternoon, “an[d] if you don’t they take away your shoe deal?” In about an hour, 2K marketing guru Ronnie Singh replied, “Right now you don’t get all the free shoes until the upper tiers of shoe deals. We’re adjusting in [the] next patch and they’ll be free upon signing,” he confirmed.

This issue has been relevant since the launch of NBA 2K18, but it has only become a major point of player contention in recent weeks. The situation goes that if a MyPlayer signs a shoe deal with Nike, for example, your manager will start pestering you with in-game texts suggesting you should be wearing certain high-end Nike shoes around the virtual neighborhood. The problem being, of course, that those shoes cost VC to buy even though they’re required to maintain an endorsement deal.

In previous editions of NBA 2K, all of a certain brand’s shoes would become available to MyPlayers once a contract had been signed. When the Patch 5 update it arrives, it appears that’s how the system will work regardless of the tier of the deal.

Once the change goes live, it will mark yet another adjustment in a line of small feature tweaks to curb NBA 2K18’s reliance on VC purchases and microtransactions. Mere hours after the game's release, its development team at Visual Concepts drastically lowered the price of in-game haircuts to make them more open to experimentation. Especially since haircuts are still consumable and can’t be seen until after they’ve been paid for, it was the absolute smallest concession that could possibly be made. This shoe deal update isn’t necessarily a game changer either, but it does remove one payment hook that feels more than a little predatory.

NBA 2K18 was updated last week with a host of new gameplay improvements across its various modes. Despite ongoing issues with Pro-Am access that have persisted since shortly after the patch went live, the changes were largely helpful in making the title’s stellar basketball mechanics that much stronger. That being said, with the fourth major update still fresh out of the oven, it could be a little while before we see Patch 5’s shoe deal adjustments in the final game. Unless there’s an emergency situation, Visual Concepts generally likes to take its time on updates that offer a large swath of fixes at once.

NBA 2K18 is available now on PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Switch and PC.

How do you feel about NBA 2K18’s shoe deals right now? Will the next update truly make them better? Tell us in the comments section!