Ronnie2K going after Celebrities for 2K13

[JaoSming]

Who predicted that celebrities would be involved with NBA 2K13? Oh yea, I totally didn't at all I fail

The past hour or so Ronnie2K has been tweeting to a bunch of celebrities saying

Have a fun opportunity for you pertaining to the NBA 2K franchise. Follow and direct message me back ASAP if interested.

Celebrities, who we care about immensely, he's contacted include David Spade, ?uestlove (who was playable in previous 2K Blacktop games), Arne Duncan (current US Secretary of Education who balls it up), lil Jon, Spike Lee, Puff/P Diddy, Flea from RHCP, and even Eliza Dushku and Khloe Kardashian.

In NFL 2k5, with "The Crib" you could get phone calls from celebrities in the game, so its only a matter of time to find out where this is headed. Hopefully it is only marketing/ad related, not gameplay.

[Bnicolas13]

My first thought was celebrity fans such as nicholson, alba, etc. Guess not going off that list...I hope you're right and its not gameplay related.

[Andrew]

Presumably they'd be involved in some of the marketing this year, probably also appearing as unlockable players. Not that exciting but it might make for a couple of entertaining promotional spots.

[shorty_ubk]

What the f...!!! I just wanna real players in a realistic basketball simulation, not celebrities for fun...:S

[homicide1550]

Yes! Finally celebrities!

DAMN! All of us want a great basketball simulation game with a complete roster of players. We don't need them celebritites.. smh

[RedPhazon8]

Everyone wants a good basketball sim but 2K seems to continue to do weird things to make everyone question wtf they think they're doing...

[Andrew]

They wouldn't be moving away from that concept, this would just be a little something extra to try and get the game more mainstream exposure. Marketing would be doing the heavy lifting there, I doubt it'll equate to much work (and thus much of a distraction) to the actual developers.

That said, not the most exciting news but we're a little way off getting real info about NBA 2K13.

[RedPhazon8]

I get that point, but it's just kinda annoying to see stuff like this but you never see anything dedicated to working on core mechanics. Most news is stuff like this, I had "a moment" where I just flipped...

[Andrew]

We generally get in-depth developer insights later in the year that talk about that kind of stuff. This is very early stuff and something that's just been pulled from Twitter, not a big announcement they've made.

[fjccommish]

Great service = great marketing too. The darkness about a PC patch into February is not great service for PC customers.

[volsey]

Yay can't wait to start an Association with Jessica Alba in my backcourt?

[RedPhazon8]

Yay can't wait to start an Association with Jessica Alba in my backcourt?

Will the women actually look like women? Or male into women like players on the 2KChina team?

[shadowgrin]

Yay can't wait to start an Association with Jessica Alba in my backcourt?

I'm excited to execute backdoor plays with her or go one-on-one against her and go strong to her rack and penetrate her hole, I mean basket.

[Kieran]

Hopefully Bieber will be an ingame celeb. Then I can go Scottie Pippen and block him into the 3rd row in a celebrity allstar game.

[Wdave]

Personally I can't wait to see Spike lee as the mascot for the New York Knicks.

[chok9]

special guest celebrities would be cool i think in my opinion. but it should not be a priority for the development team. Like there would be a cameo of jack nicholson on LAL home court or spike lee in new york knicks

[Andrew]

I doubt it's a priority. Just Ronnie reaching out to celebrities early for promotional purposes.

[MJALLDAY]

I hate when they put celebrities in the game, especially because it's always someone lame like bow wow or Jermaine Dupree. At least put someone badass in the game like Bruce Lee or a young Clint Eastwood.

[Andrew]

They tend to go for people who have some connection to/interest in basketball.

[SoF'nAwesome]

Sadly one of those people is Justin Bieber

But it's good to see that 2K is certainly building the hype this year...

[mynameisgerd]

Personally, I don't give a damn about celebrities being playable in the game. You loved them because of what they do best, whatever it is they do that made them a celebrity, and playing basketball might not be one of it.

If they will be part of the game, maybe they should just be on the front row during a game. I definitely would love to see those loyal iconic people on the sideline like Spike Lee and Jack Nicholson.

I don't know.

[Andrew]

They're definitely not a big selling point for most people, myself included. It's not like it takes much time out from anything else so I don't think you can say it detracts from the game at all, but I'm not sure it truly creates much excitement.

[SoF'nAwesome]

Yep. It's not like after getting Justin Bieber, you won't dunk with LBJ anymore. It's more of a chill out when in deep association type of thing.

[MJALLDAY]

They tend to go for people who have some connection to/interest in basketball.

Bruce Lee taught Kareem Abdul Jabbar Jeet Kun Do.

[Andrew]

They'd likely prefer a stronger/more direct connection than that. They'd probably also want someone who is still alive and can help them promote the game.