2K Sports to discontinue MLB video game series, cancels MLB2K14
By Josh Hill
This past year we saw the NCAA end its relationship with Electronic Arts, thus ending the long running video game series NCAA Football. The gaming franchise had been around for over a decade but the NCAA decided since they don’t want to pay athletes, no one gets to play the games.
A similar video game franchise shut down has occurred but the reasons have more to do with losing money than it does not wanting to hand out paychecks. According to Polygon, 2K Sports has decided to discontinue it’s MLB video game franchise and has cancelled MLB2K14 and all future releases of baseball related video games.
Per a statement from 2K Sports:
"We have decided not to renew our MLB 2K series for 2014. We are very proud of the achievements made by the MLB 2K team and look forward to their contributions to our future titles, including NBA 2K — our industry’s #1 rated and #1 selling basketball franchise."
The move hardly comes as a surprise since the MLB2K series of video games was being outsold, outclassed and generally outdone by 989 Studios and their MLB The Show franchise. The 2K Sports versions of the games consistently got negative ratings from not only critics but from fans as well, where as the NBA2K franchise is one of the best in sports gaming.
That’s where all the 2K Sports efforts will be headed, as the revival of the NBA Live franchise at EA means there could be more competition and 2K can’t afford another sound defeat in the sports gaming world.