2K Sports

**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.

## The Beginning of 2K's Subsidiary (2005-2007)

On January 24, 2005, Take-Two Interactive announced that it had acquired Visual Concepts, including its Kush Games subsidiary and the intellectual property of the 2K sports-game series, from Sega for US$24 million. The following day Take-Two Interactive established the 2K publishing label, consisting of the sub-labels 2K Games and 2K Sports, with the latter focusing on sports games. Several of Take-Two Interactive's development studios—Visual Concepts, Kush Games, Indie Built, Venom Games, PopTop Software, and Frog City Software—became studios of 2K, and Take-Two Licensing was merged into the new label. On January 21, 2006, a fire heavily damaged the administration and marketing portions of 2K's offices. In June 2007 2K announced that they had closed their offices in New York City and would move to a new location on the West Coast, namely Novato, California. On September 10, 2007, Take-Two Interactive announced that they had struck a partnership with Nickelodeon on publishing games based on their licenses. Alongside this announcement, Take-Two Interactive introduced a third 2K label, 2K Play, to focus on casual games. Through this opening, 2K absorbed all assets of Take-Two Interactive's budget-range publisher Global Star Software, including the game Carnival Games, the studio Cat Daddy Games, and games based on Deal or No Deal.

## 2K Sports' Future (2013-Present)

In 2013, 2K obtained the rights to publish video games based on the professional wrestling company, WWE. On May 4, 2017, 2K's co-founder and until-then president, Christoph Hartmann, announced that he had stepped down from his position. Hartmann had worked for Take-Two Interactive for roughly 20 years, but did not state a reason for his departure. He later joined Amazon Game Studios in August 2018. He was succeeded by previous chief operating officer (COO) David Ismailer later in May 2017. The role of COO was filled by Phil Dixon, formerly of Betfair, in November 2017, and Melissa Bell was hired as senior vice president and head of global marketing in April 2018. On September 25, 2018, 2K announced 2K Foundations, a program that would "support underserved communities across the nation by refurbishing basketball courts in neighborhoods that need them the most". Microsoft will also partner with 2K to establish Xbox One S gaming-stations at these courts. 2K Foundations planned to refurbish 12 basketball courts in several cities across the United States (including Cincinnati, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Cleveland) within its first year. 2K acquired HB Studios in March 2021, who previously developed *The Golf Club 2019 featuring PGA Tour* and *PGA Tour 2K21* under the 2K Sports' publishing label. The acquisition includes the rights to HB's *Golf Club* series, which has since relaunched as the *PGA Tour 2K* series, and is now officially licensed by the PGA Tour itself. Additionally, 2K announced they had secured a contract with Tiger Woods, who had previously been a key figure for Electronic Arts' own *PGA Tour* series, as an executive director and consultant for future 2K *PGA Tour* games as well as his likeness for the games. Also in March 2021, 2K acquired the games division of HookBang based in Austin, Texas, which had supported work on the *NBA 2K* series in the past. The division was relocated to a new Austin location and rebranded as Visual Concepts Austin to continue support for that series.

## References

1. ↑ Goldfarb, Andrew (February 13, 2013). TAKE-TWO CONFIRMS WWE PUBLISHING DEAL. *IGN*.