Take 2 Buys Visual Concepts @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on January 25, 2005

News: The 2K sports maker is now owned by Take 2. 2 + 2 = a whole lot of new games.

After acquiring exclusive third party rights to Major League Baseball games yesterday Take Two has gone a little further. Today they have announced that they have purchased Visual Concepts and their studio, Kush Games, from Sega for $24 million. The deal includes VC, all it's intellectual property and the rights to the 2K name.

Also part of the deal is an agreement that Sega will publish and distribute 2K sports games and other selected Take Two products in Japan and Asia.

Paul Eibeler, Take-Two President, said, "With the acquisition of Visual Concepts and Kush Games and their leading sports game development capabilities, we will continue to aggressively pursue our strategy to gain market share with our 2K Sports titles. These studios and their unrivaled talent represent a significant addition to Take-Two's internal development capabilities, which are now approaching 1,000 people worldwide."

Meanwhile, Take Two has also announced that they are once again shuffling their publishing labels. Gathering is out and the newly crowned 2K Games is in. 2K Games will publish games developed by Take Two's internal studios Visual Concepts, Kush Games, Indie Built, Venom Games, PopTop Software and Frog City Software. They will also handle publishing duties for Take Two Licensing. Global Star will continue to provide Take Two's budget line and Rockstar Games will continue to do their own thing.

Take Two has promised that many new games that will be published by 2K Games will be announced soon.

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