No Pre-Release Demo for NBA 2K14

In recent days it had become apparent that 2K Sports had decided to pass on the usual pre-release demo with NBA 2K14. There was no promotion of the demo date – today being the last possible date for one – and on social media representatives ignored all requests from fans for demo info while PR ignored media requests for comment. Without anything official coming out of the company it took until today to report with any certainty that it would be the case.

While this doesn’t necessarily indicate a lack of confidence in the product it does suggest that 2K Sports recognizes the improvements made to this year’s game might not be immediately evident to the average consumer through playing the demo. There have been situations in the past where companies have forgone releasing an early demo because the game was of poor quality but also situations where it was bypassed because the gameplay and presentation changes for a good game were not very dramatic. All evidence would point to the latter here considering the gameplay footage that has been observed.

2K’s thinking here is that those on the fence about waiting until next-gen may play the demo and find that they can wait the six weeks…four of which the NBA season won’t even be underway for. The marketing for the 360/PS3 game has taken a step back instead heavily relying on reputation to sell it with more significant resources shifting to next-gen. It may be the right decision for them but won’t make those skeptical about the current-gen effort feel any better about it now.