Steph Curry Broke The Way Video Games Are Made
I know that title seems a little hyperbolic but it's absolutely, 100% true. If you know anything about basketball or if you're friends with anyone who knows anything about basketball, then they probably talk about how much of a beast Steph Curry is on the court. He hits 3-pointers from way beyond the arc and he's consistent with it. And I can see the look on your face, you're like, "Paul what the fuck does this have to do with video games?" Well, Curry's performance this season (in real life) has just broken the way NBA2K builds their video games.
In a recent interview with Forbes, Mike Wang (gameplay director of the NBA2K games) said, that they're "looking for new ways to translate his [Curry's] game into 2K". As an avid fan and player of the NBA2K games, I know first hand that they've come up with formulas and rules for the game so the game feels like a realistic basketball game. In the most recent iteration, shot selection is a big factor in making shots. But -- if you watch Curry play -- his shot selection is, sometimes, insane.
But that doesn't translate to the video game, like, at all. ESPN even ran an article titled, "Real-life Stephen Curry is better than video-game Stephen Curry" which compares Curry's real stats to simulated video game stats and Steph Curry in real life does consistently better than the video game version of him. And it seems like the next iteration of the NBA2K series will have some careful consideration when they start designing the way Curry plays in-game. If you watch the first minute of the video above (which is from a game that just happened a couple of days ago), you'll see Curry make a 3-point shot with two defenders on him. If you were to do this in NBA2K as Steph Curry, you'd most likely miss. It's insane to me that because of his skill, the people that work on 2K have to develop new ways to deal with his on-court skill.
It's kind of insane (and awesome and amazing) to me that Stepch Curry is better than an artificial version of himself who, by all means, should be better. Mostly because it's an AI that doesn't get tired or have thoughts or anything else like that. It's kind of breathtaking, to be honest. And I'm sort of happy to be alive during this sports-historic moment in time.
All of that being said, I guess the color-commentators need to stop comparing Curry's skill to something that's "video game-like" instead of saying it's unbelievable because, well, the best basketball video game (and its developer) can't believe it either.
