Earlier this week, NBA 2K21 players began to notice that unskippable ads were popping up in the game’s loading screen. This is not the first time that Take-Two has opted to add these types of ads in-game. NBA 2K19 and NBA 2K20 both had unskippable ads at one point in those games’ life-cycles, and in the two instances, users were frustrated over the placement of said ads.
Today, Take-Two responded to the backlash surrounding this controversy, as the company apologized for the controversial addition that was made earlier this week.
In a statement that was tweeted out on the NBA 2K Twitter account, Take-Two acknowledged the placement of the ads. The company stated that it is aware that these ads “impacted our players’ experience in a way we didn’t intend,” and that these ads were not meant to run as part of NBA 2K21’s pre-game introduction.
Take-Two capped off the statement by noting that this issue will be fixed for future episodes of 2KTV (where the ads aired).