NBA 2K14 Unveils Details For Next-Gen MyGM Mode

Today, I was invited to an exclusive conference call about the new MyGM mode in the next-gen version of NBA 2K14 with senior producer Erick Boenisch and NBA great and former Phoenix Suns GM Steve Kerr. Let me tell you something: MyGM is going to be an experience that has NEVER been seen before in a video game, especially a sports game. The developers over at 2K have completely redesigned the old fashion notion of franchise mode.

MyGM starts off with your MyPlayer and that will be your GM. There are certain RPG elements in your GM, like being able to build attributes from your player over time. Character growth is a strong aspect of this mode. You can raise certain attributes of your GM to make him stronger in a certain category of the game, just like you can in an RPG. NBA 2K14 MyGM mode basically combines the best basketball franchise out there and adds amazing RPG elements that will give this game hours on hours of extensive and creative gameplay. Think franchise mode where you can oversee the entire organization, right down to the details of staffing, managing player expectations, game pricing, team facilities, and all of it taking place in real-time conversations that have ripple effects.

What truly separates this game mode is the human experience. The heart of this game mode lies in the conversation mode. Every interaction you have in this game in the conversation mode will affect every single thing you do. Erick Boenisch gave us a great example that he used in MyGM mode. He was the GM of the Kings and was having trouble financially with the roster. He raised prices of parking, food prices and other things. The media picked up on this and questioned Erick why the prices are raising. He had to decide what to say, knowing that whatever he said could either have a positive or negative impact on his reputation. The media will trap you in questions and depending on what you say, could determine your fate as a GM. You can get fired in this mode, which is something that has never been seen before. If your team is losing, expect to get fired when the season is over.

Erick also described a situation when DeMarcus Cousins came into his GM office and they had a conversation about the long-term plans of the Kings and issues with the current roster. After this conversation, the team went on an extensive losing streak and DeMarcus Cousins reappeared in Erick’s office and demanded a trade. This sounds like something DeMarcus Cousins would do in real life, which is a key aspect of MyGM mode. Emotion plays a huge role; DeMarcus Cousins in real life is just how DeMarcus Cousins will act in NBA 2K14.

A huge thing that was pressed was that there is NO right or wrong answer. Every choice you make as a GM is based off of you and what you feel is the right call. Erick’s best advice about the game? Make interesting decisions. Steve Kerr detailed a time when he was GM of the Suns and he had to make a decision on how to tell Shaq that the Suns were trading him. Kerr had to decide to call Shaq before the news of the trade got out to the media. Kerr detailed this to us because he explained that decisions like these are exactly the ones you are going to have to make in MyGM in NBA 2K14. Kerr said that MyGM in 2K14 is the closest thing to being a real life NBA GM — how awesome is that?

MyGM in NBA 2K14 appears to be a ground-breaking feature that will change the infrastructure of franchise modes forever. You will take on a real NBA team and manage them just like Steve Kerr managed the Suns. Your decisions will impact your success. Make a couple bad decisions over the course of a season? You might get fired. Potentially, there has never been such an interactive mode in a basketball game before. MyGM is groundbreaking technology that is setting the bar for the future of basketball games.

Check page 2 for a full Q&A on the new mode with Kerr and Boenisch…

Is there an online component to MyGM?
Erick Boenisch: MyGM is an offline experience. There are online competitive league experiences within the game. MyGM was designed as a single player experience, to give players the feeling of managing relationships with every GM in the league,and with your own staff. In the future, there may be an online component, but this year was all about management and relationship experience.

How cool is it for you to be created and be involved in the game?
Steve Kerr: It really is. I’ve done this for three years and it’s totaled to about 150 hours of recording. It’s a lot of work and it’s really fun. It’s basically mostly ad libbed stuff, telling stories, interacting with Kevin Harlan and Clark Kellogg. The ability to just have fun with it and throw stuff out there. The players come up to me all the time and say stuff like “I hear your voice every night on the road, we were all playing the games.” It’s pretty cool, it’s something I never could have dreamt about growing up, but I’ve been really lucky to finish playing in ’03 and get into broadcasting after. Broadcasting lead into this, along with the GM position. It’s a lot of fun to play a role in it.

What is it like to be such a phenomenal shooter with relatively limited looks?
SK: When you make it to the NBA you have to find your role. Whatever it is your good at, you better be really good at it. So, I worked really hard on my shooting constantly and was never a great player or good enough to generate a lot of offense on my own, but I picked the right teammates and got a lot of open shots from playing with guys like Jordan and Duncan. It was a great experience to be on great teams and play with Hall Of Fame players.

In regards to draft class and editing players, can you create draft classes and edit classes in the next-gen? Can you also edit players in MyGM Mode?
EB: The creation of draft classes was put in three or four years ago, which is one of my favorite features of the mode. It did make its way over to the next-gen version of the game, very similar to previous versions of the game. You do have an ability to create a draft class both inside and outside of the mode. You can share it with your friends, the Internet and download different draft classes.

What do you miss the most about being a GM?
SK: I love what I’m doing right now with broadcasting. The GM role is really exciting when it comes to player acquisitions, whether through the draft, FA or trade. When you get to acquire a player that you have had your eye on through the draft or trade, it’s an electric feeling that goes through that room with your scouts and player personnel in the front office. That’s what I miss the most, accomplishing something, getting a player you really like and seeing it come through on the floor, in terms of winning and success of the team. That’s the one thing I do miss as a broadcaster. I don’t get the winning, but I also don’t get the losing so that’s also good.

Are you thinking about getting back into being a GM down the road?
SK: I have a lot of thoughts about coaching, more so than management. I think if I get back in, it would be on the coaching side. My favorite part of the GM role is dealing with players on the court before the game and things like that. I let the coaches coach, but just getting to know players, dealing with them and talking strategy really appeals to me. I think if I get back, which I anticipate, it would be on the coaching side.

How important was adding the ability to fail and be fired a key component to the MyGM mode since it is so different from traditional franchise modes?
EB: That was the key decision. Accountability is something that I really wanted the users to feel when they play the game this year. I want you to make decision, and always have the consequences in your mind. Obviously in real life, the consequences of making poor decisions is getting fired. It’s a delicate balance, you don’t want to have it so over-tuned where you make one bad decision and then you get fired. So what we did to ease that was build a trust system in the game. You have a trust with any person you converse with and build that up over time. When you build up your trust with your owner by having success in the regular season/postseason, winning titles, making a healthy profit, when you do that you can afford failures along the way by building up your franchise and having trust with your owner. That’s a key component to the mode.

Why was MyGM made for next-gen only and not for current-gen?
EB: It’s a lot of things. The first thing is that I’m not sure if we could have done this in a single development cycle. This is something we’ve been working on for a while and delivering it convincingly visually requires the power of the next-gen consoles. You have all seen the trailers and how visually appealing the graphics are, everything is in high resolution, every aspect of the game. This carries right over to MyGM. MyGM is a whole new experience, but the bones of it are built off of our very successful my association mode. Everything that wraps around that is completely new and that aspect of getting it done in a year is very difficult to do.

Who is the best team in NY in your perspective? Can the Knicks win a title without a big-time rebounder?
SK: The best team in NY is Brooklyn, especially right now with Tyson Chandler being injured. Brooklyn has more talent and is more well-rounded. The Knicks are in no position to win a championship, they are a good team when healthy. They should be a playoff team, but are a significant notch below the elite teams in the league.

How are you guys building out the conversation system to make it more life-like and immerse players more in it, since it has been a heavily criticized component of the game in the past?
EB: When we got press conferences in the game in 2K10 or 2K11 it was very exciting because the fans could speak out as a player, what they were thinking or feeling. To an extent, they got to see reactions based on what they said. I think being able to objectively look back on that, we learned a lot from that experience. We really want you to see things change around you when you make decisions and that’s really where MyGM steps in as the strong suit. You will literally see everything you say have an effect on the mode.