Nine dollars and seventy-nine cents. That’s what it takes to get NBA 2K26 onto Steam’s Top Sellers list — an 86% discount that slashes the game from its $69.99 launch price to less than a pair of movie tickets.

The result: 44,689 concurrent players and a #10 spot on Steam’s Top Sellers chart, a position the game never sniffed at full price. The sale runs through May 25, and by every metric, it’s working.

But the discount also surfaces an uncomfortable question for publisher 2K and developer Visual Concepts. If the game flies off digital shelves at $9.79, what does that say about the $69.99 asking price from eight months ago?

The Numbers at a Glance

NBA 2K26 launched on September 4, 2025 to a respectable critical reception. IGN awarded it an 8/10, praising a “much more intuitive, easier-to-time curved bar shot meter” and calling the Spike Lee-directed MyCareer story “Out of Bounds” the best in years. Player movement felt significantly smoother than the previous entry’s “janky” feel, per IGN’s review. The WNBA joined MyTeam for the first time. New Go-To Post Shots made paint play more realistic. By the standards of annual sports releases, it was a solid entry.

Steam users are more measured. The game sits at 74% positive across 10,849 reviews — “Mostly Positive” in Valve’s taxonomy, with 7,981 positive and 2,868 negative. That’s a passing grade, not a victory lap. And the reviews tell a story the aggregate score doesn’t fully capture.

“If u just play offline or just use the Play Now with friends, then u don’t really need to buy, previous nba2k like the 2k23 isn’t much different,” wrote one player with 4.4 hours logged. They noted worse graphics settings on 2K26 compared to 2K23 and loading times that were “so long” — but still gave it a thumbs up at the sale price.

That’s the tell. At seventy dollars, the identical product gets scrutiny. At ten, it gets a pass.

The $120 Grind Tax

The discount on the base game is one thing. The economics inside it are another entirely.

Upgrading a MyCareer player to the maximum 99 overall rating costs roughly 500,000 VC (Virtual Currency), according to IGN’s review. At 2K’s published exchange rates — which range from $1.99 for 5,000 VC up to $149.99 for 700,000 VC — that translates to approximately $120 in real money on top of whatever you paid for the game itself. MyTeam, the card-collecting competitive mode, earned the label “microtransaction central” from IGN, with Season Pass ads and VC deals pushed aggressively throughout the experience.

Mashable’s coverage was similarly blunt: “NBA 2K26 hasn’t changed the fundamental equation: the grind is possible, but your wallet still speaks loudly when it comes to performance.”

The business model is in full view. Slash the entry fee to draw in the crowd. The path to competitiveness inside the game? Still priced like a luxury. Get players through the door cheap, monetize them once they’re invested.

Price as the Great Equalizer

NBA 2K26 at $69.99 is a tough sell — a yearly sports title with incremental improvements, aggressive microtransactions, and a PC version walled off from crossplay with PlayStation and Xbox. At $9.79, those concerns evaporate. Nearly 45,000 people are playing concurrently. The review score trends upward as bargain hunters weigh in with insights like “great game for basketball” and the profoundly informative “yeah.”

The math is brutal for 2K’s brand positioning. Three editions launched in September: Standard ($69.99) with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the cover, Superstar ($99.99) with Carmelo Anthony, and Leave No Doubt ($149.99) featuring Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony, and Angel Reese. The top tier came with 135,000 VC — roughly a third of what you’d need to max out a single MyCareer player. Eight months later, the base game costs roughly five times the cheapest VC microtransaction.

The discount strategy works. The charts prove it. But it works by confirming what players have suspected for years: the annual sports game at full price is a tax on impatience. Wait long enough, and the same product becomes a bargain.

Whether that’s savvy pricing or an implicit admission that the game was never worth $69.99 is a question 2K won’t answer publicly. The Steam charts answer it every day until May 25.

Sources