Unsealed court materials in a Take-Two NBA 2K lawsuit show why the publisher says VC does not transfer between annual games, and why that fight matters for sports game spending.
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Unsealed testimony puts NBA 2K VC carryover in court
The newest development in the NBA 2K virtual currency fight is not a patch note, a store listing, or a community complaint. It is sworn testimony. Newly unsealed court materials reviewed by Game File show NBA 2K vice president of product management Michael O’Dwyer explaining why Take-Two Interactive and 2K do not let players move Virtual Currency, known as VC, from one annual NBA 2K release to the next.
That testimony lands at the center of an ongoing California class action lawsuit filed in 2023 by a minor identified as J.A., along with his mother. According to Game File and Kotaku’s reporting on the case, the lawsuit alleges Take-Two is effectively stealing from players when older NBA 2K servers are shut down and players lose access to unspent VC balances bought with real money. Take-Two denies the claim and argues that players do not own VC in the first place.
The tension is easy to understand if you play MyCAREER, MyPLAYER, or MyTEAM every year. NBA 2K sells a new full-price sports game annually, but it also runs a live-service economy inside each release. VC can be earned through play or bought with cash, then used on cosmetics and ability boosts, according to NBA 2K support material cited by Game File. When the series resets with a new edition, the roster changes, the mode cycle restarts, and the VC balance from the previous game stays behind.
Take-Two’s argument starts with ownership, not convenience
The bluntest line in the dispute comes from the terms of service. Kotaku, citing the newly public court materials, reports that Take-Two’s lawyers pointed to the game’s terms, which described VC as a virtual item and stated that players have “no ownership or other rights in or to any Virtual Items or your Account.”
That is the core legal position behind the Take-Two NBA 2K lawsuit defense as described in the available reporting. The company is not only saying that NBA 2K currency transfer is unavailable. It is saying the purchased or earned balance is governed by the service terms attached to that specific game ecosystem, rather than treated like player-owned property that must follow the customer into a sequel.
J.A.’s side disputes that framing. Kotaku reports that the plaintiff’s lawyer described the terms elsewhere in the documents as “overly harsh, unduly oppressive, and unfairly one-sided.” The lawsuit’s theft theory, as summarized by Game File and Kotaku, focuses on what happens when a player has paid money for VC, leaves some of it unspent, and later loses access after servers for that game are shut down.
For players, the distinction can feel academic until the server date arrives. For the court, it is central. If VC is treated as a limited license under Take-Two’s terms, the publisher has a stronger basis for keeping currency locked inside each title. If the plaintiffs persuade the court that bought VC carries property-like consumer rights despite those terms, the consequences could reach beyond one basketball series.
The “fresh start” defense is a design claim with a spending shadow
O’Dwyer’s testimony, as reported by Game File, gives the company’s design rationale. He said NBA 2K’s annual reset is intended to put returning players and newcomers into the new game with “an exactly equal opportunity.” In other words, Take-Two frames non-transferable VC as part of the competitive reset that arrives with every edition.
That argument fits part of how sports games sell themselves. A new NBA 2K is marketed around the current league year, updated teams, new mode tuning, and a refreshed ladder for MyPLAYER builds and MyTEAM lineups. A player arriving on day one of a new release does not face opponents carrying over years of saved currency from older editions. From a competitive-design view, that avoids a scenario where veterans begin the new cycle with a bankroll large enough to skip early progression friction.
The problem is that NBA 2K’s reset is also a commercial reset. Operation Sports argues that VC is central to the series’ economy and that players who finish a cycle with excess VC cannot take that balance forward. The publication’s framing is critical of Take-Two, saying the yearly structure pushes players to start over and spend again. That conclusion is commentary, but the underlying facts are supported by the court materials and NBA 2K support pages: VC does not transfer between annual games, older servers are sunset, and Take-Two does not reimburse players for unspent balances according to Game File’s summary.
For mode-focused players, this is where the equal-start argument gets messy. VC is tied to cosmetics and performance-related boosts. A fresh economy can protect the first weeks of a new release from old-game hoarding, but it also means anyone who bought too much VC late in a cycle has limited options before the game ages out.
The technical claim is narrower than it first sounds
O’Dwyer also testified that “there is no technical solution in existence” to move NBA 2K VC from one year’s game to the next, according to Game File and Kotaku. That line has drawn attention because it can sound like a claim about impossibility. The reporting supports a more precise reading: Take-Two is saying NBA 2K does not currently have a system for this kind of cross-release transfer.
Techtroduce makes that distinction explicitly in its coverage, noting that O’Dwyer’s statement does not necessarily mean such a system could never be built, only that 2K does not have one implemented under the current design. Game File’s excerpt adds the key complication. O’Dwyer said a carryover system would require separating VC earned through gameplay from VC purchased with real money, and NBA 2K does not display that distinction to players.
That matters because the lawsuit is especially concerned with purchased, unspent VC. If Take-Two were ever required to treat paid currency differently from earned currency, it would need records accurate enough to identify which portion of a wallet came from cash and which came from play. The available reporting does not establish whether Take-Two’s internal systems could reconstruct that split for every account. It does show that the company views the separation as a major sticking point.
Reports from iXBT.games and Se7en, drawing from the same Game File coverage, add that 2K sees such a project as a large undertaking that would pull developer time and resources away from other areas, while the company does not believe it would provide a substantial benefit to players. That is Take-Two’s judgment, not a court finding. Players who lose paid balances at sunset may reasonably see the benefit differently.
Server sunsets turn the VC question into a deadline
The lawsuit is not only about whether VC can move into NBA 2K27, NBA 2K28, or any later release. It is also about what happens when an older game’s online services end. Game File reports that NBA 2K server shutdowns usually occur about two and a half years after release, citing NBA 2K support material. Once that happens, the suit alleges, players are cut off from unspent VC tied to that edition.
NBA 2K support pages quoted by iXBT.games and Se7en state that VC cannot be transferred between different NBA 2K versions. The support language says this applies both to different console versions of the same game and to different installments in the series, such as moving from NBA 2K26 to NBA 2K27. That is the practical rule players face today, regardless of how the lawsuit develops.
The court materials also raise a separate transparency question. Game File reports that filings show Take-Two can track a player’s sessions, modes played, number of plays, playtime, spending, and VC-related activity day by day. iXBT.games and Se7en similarly report that the materials revealed daily tracking of sessions, VC balances, purchases, and spending.
That creates a sharp contrast. The publisher has detailed player economy data, according to the reporting, but says there is no current solution for rolling currency forward and that separating paid from earned VC is a key obstacle. Those points are not automatically contradictory, but they are likely to shape how players read the case. Sports game audiences already track every attribute point, pack pull, and season reward. Seeing that level of account data described in court will only make the currency rules feel less invisible.
The sports game spending question goes beyond one annual reset
The broader stakes are clearest in annual sports games because their business rhythm is predictable. Players buy the new edition for the current league year, then engage with connected modes that use the same yearly clock. NBA 2K sits in that space between boxed release and live-service economy, which is why the NBA 2K VC lawsuit has become a test case for player expectations around digital balances.
Nothing in the provided court reporting says Take-Two has changed its policy. Nothing confirms that VC transfers, refunds, or separate paid-currency wallets are coming. The confirmed state is the opposite: NBA 2K support says VC cannot transfer between versions or installments, and Take-Two’s court position is that players do not own VC or other virtual items under the terms of service.
A ruling against Take-Two could pressure publishers to rethink how paid balances are disclosed, tracked, refunded, or carried through annualized sports games. That is an implication, not a confirmed outcome. A ruling for Take-Two could strengthen the industry’s reliance on terms of service language that treats virtual currency as a limited entitlement inside a specific product cycle. Either way, the fight highlights the same consumer problem: players often experience VC like money once they buy it, while publishers describe it as a virtual item governed by license terms.
For NBA 2K players deciding how to spend now, the safe assumption is simple. Treat VC as locked to the specific game where it is bought or earned. Do not assume an NBA 2K currency transfer will be available in the next annual release. Be especially cautious late in a game’s lifecycle, when a large unspent balance has less time to be used before the next edition becomes the center of the community and eventual server sunset moves closer.