How Steph Curry Broke The Way Basketball Video Games Are Being Built

[benji]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2016 ... 989e6c4112

“Scoring in the paint and 3-point shooting have historically been the toughest areas to properly balance,” says Mike Wang, gameplay director of NBA 2K, adding that fighting 3-point cheese is “always on his mind.”

To that end, he and his team have developed a formula to keep 3-point shooting in check. For example, the game accounts for things like the difficulty of shooting off the dribble and volume shooting fatigue — meaning, if you just run around with your player jacking up shot after shot after doing three spin moves, you’re going to be shooting bricks, even if your player has a super high 3-point rating.

“Taking 3s off the dribble are also definitely discouraged in NBA 2K,” Wang adds. “Especially after over-dribbling beforehand.”

The formula, which also incorporates a lot of advanced metrics, has mostly worked, to the point that the last couple of 2K games have received universal praise for its balanced and realistic gameplay (these “rules” to keep digital basketball shooters in check apply to real life basketball playing, after all). I say mostly because there’s dude named Wardell Stephen Curry, whose ability to make insanely difficult 3-pointers has thrown all basketball conventional wisdom out the window.