5 Things NBA 2K Must Deliver to Be Successful in eSports Arena

On December 22, 2K Sports officially announced eSports would be coming to the NBA 2K series in February 2016. Because of the huge audience the game has garnered since its inception in 1999, there's a core group of hardcore users already preparing to compete in the inaugural event.

There will be huge cash prizes and a trip to the NBA Finals up for grabs for the winning team. The competition will be centered around the brand-new 2K Pro-Am mode. For those who aren't familiar, it's a spin-off from the iconic Crew mode introduced earlier in the series.

Essentially, it's a 10-man, human multiplayer mode that simulates five-on-five basketball with each gamer controlling his custom-built MyPlayer. There's a great chance this could be the beginning of an enormous new annual campaign that adds to NBA 2K's popularity and value.

If 2K Pro-Am is to be the centerpiece of these efforts, there's at least five things the mode and 2K must deliver for it to reach its potential. Check out the slideshow.

Server Stability

Server stability has been a sticking point for the NBA 2K franchise historically, but after some brief bumps shortly after NBA 2K16's release, 2K Pro-Am has been functioning well. To develop the necessary skills to compete at a high level, gamers need to practice.

Assuming everything functions well in the inaugural event, teams will continue to hone their skills leading up to the release of NBA 2K17 and into next year's cycle of the game's release.

If the servers are less than dependable, it would be a major deterrent for players with plans to participate. Low interest could kill the initiative.

Grand Contest and Event Presentation

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

It may take a few years before an NBA 2K eSports event will look like the picture above, but this should be the goal. I spoke with former Machinima program director and current YouTube and Twitch personality Constant Walker about the prospects of a grand NBA 2K eSports event.

He said: "I can see a time where the grand final of an NBA 2K event takes place at the Staples Center with a packed house watching on the scoreboard and several monitors."

With the amount of subscribers the most successful 2K YouTubers have accumulated, you'd have to think there's a large enough fanbase to make a vision like that come true.

The seed has somewhat been planted with the quality of the game. The next step is to make sure the first few events are delivered in a manner that screams "this is not just another sports video game tournament."

There's no doubt 2K has mastered the art of hyping its game. No other sports video game publisher excels at raising the level of excitement for its title during the prerelease period. That same flavor needs to be applied to the hype for the Pro-Am event.

Stat Tracking

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Stats are a major part of the engagement between sports and its fans. If NBA 2K is to be a fully functional participant in the eSports arena, there must be full stat tracking for teams and individual players.

We're not just talking about points, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, turnovers, field-goal percentage and three-point marksmanship. eSports revolves around each individual cyber athlete earning prize money.

Because of that, a 2K-run site should emulate or at least report its stats and payouts to an entity like e-Sports Earnings. The aforementioned site has detailed accounts of the earnings of the eSports athletes across several different games.

If NBA 2K is to be looked at in the same light as StarCraft 2, League of Legends and others, it must make its details accessible to the community. Fans love to have a source such as Basketball-Reference.com to confirm athlete stats and a team's excellence or futility.

If someone such as KSpade the Prospect is the best three-point shooter in the 2K Pro-Am series, the community should be able to look this up with a simple search.

Accurate Face Scanning

Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press

One of the most unique, ingenious, ground-breaking—and flawed—features to hit the world of video games was the face-scanning technology introduced in NBA 2K15. For those who have been under a rock, the feature allowed gamers to scan their faces to create the ultimate virtual version of themselves in the MyCareer mode.

In its first year, the results were hit and miss. Some got excellent results. Others had horrific, monster-like faces that looked like something from the Walking Dead.

In NBA 2K16, the monster faces aren't as ubiquitous, but even the best scans aren't all that accurate. This is not just an essential feature to improve for MyCareer, but it's also important to get it right for the future of eSports with NBA 2K.

Players use their MyPlayers to compete in NBA 2K Pro-Am. Accurate renders would allow fans to immediately recognize the stars of the events in games and even in real life. That's an element that no other eSports title can offer its players and fans up to now.

Player Focus and Branding

Guys like Shakedown 2012 have already established themselves as pillars in the NBA 2K community via their successful YouTube channels. The players who prove to be the best at NBA 2K Pro-Am should be thrust into the limelight as stars of the game's competitive gaming scene.

Those players may already have YouTube channels, and it would only make sense that they would increase their presence on that front to add to their exposure. However, 2K should make it a point to put these guys and girls front and center.

The 2KTV show that is streamed within the NBA 2K game would be a perfect spot for the top players to be featured. Weekly tips and best-practice segments would be a hot ticket for aspiring gamers, and it would also validate each eSports athlete as a star.

Here's to hoping all of these things and more come to fruition. NBA 2K is a giant waiting to break new ground in the eSports arena. As long as the company commits to the venture wholeheartedly, it's bound to succeed.