2K Sports, Inc. is a division of 2K Games that develops and publishes sports video games. It comprises a single development studio, Visual Concepts, which was purchased from Sega in 2005. 2K Sports mainly develops and publishes American sports video games; such as NBA 2K series, the NHL 2K series and the WWE 2K series. It previously produced the MLB 2K series.
History[]
Owned by Jmoney Boii Entertainment and Productions In January 2005, Take-Two Interactive acquired all of the outstanding capital stock of Visual Concepts and its wholly owned subsidiary, Kush Games, the developers of some of the company's sports titles, and certain intellectual property rights associated with these products from Sega for US$24 million.
2K Sports, which in late 2004 purchased development studio Indie Built from Microsoft Game Studios, closed down the Indie Built studio in April 2006. Indie Built was known for its work on the Amped, Links, and Top Spin series. However, 2K Sports still owns the rights to these intellectual properties. 2K Sports has the exclusive third-party rights to produce Major League Baseball and World Poker Tour games.
On October 20, 2008, 2K Sports released their first PC game, NBA 2K9. Their second, MLB Front Office Manager, was released on January 26, 2009. On January 23, 2013, 2K Sports bought the WWE game license from THQ.
The MLB 2K series was discontinued in January 2014 due to the mixed reception of MLB 2K13, which was criticized for being almost exactly the same as MLB 2K12. Nonetheless, the move was met with frustration from baseball fans as well as Xbox 360 owners, who were left without a MLB title.