2K Sports gives up on College Hoops series

by Dustin Burg { Jan 15th 2008 at 1:15PM }

In a surprising turn of events, 2K Sports has confirmed that they've stopped development on College Hoops 2K9, which was originally scheduled for a November release. Why the sudden cancellation? According to 2K, they couldn't negotiate a fitting deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company (licensee of over 200 college trademarks) and say that they would have loved to create College Hoops, "but given our disciplined approach to the business, we do not believe the current discussions would result in an acceptable outcome". The rabbit hole gets deeper as rumors are swirling that the CLC's relationship with EA (and their NCAA March Madness franchise) has caused them to act unfairly in negotiations with 2K. In other words, the CLC could be cheating on 2K! Gasp! Whatever the reason, we know that there will be no College Hoops 2K9, so everyone will have to settle for March Madness. So much drama ...

[Via Game Stooge]

Tags: 2k, 2k-sports, college-hoops, college-hoops-2k9

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

xenocidic @ Jan 15th 2008 1:51PM

eh nerds and geeks shouldn't be playing sports games anyway

Chase @ Jan 15th 2008 2:01PM

God damn EA.

AnOffday @ Jan 15th 2008 2:04PM

I hate EA Sports more every day.

pandlcg @ Jan 15th 2008 2:08PM

So March Madness scores 11 lower than College Hoops (according to Metacritic) and EA's response is to buy up exclusive licensing instead of making a better game.

Fuck you EA. I used to love sports games.

Mark @ Jan 15th 2008 2:26PM

With all these EA exclusive licenses for NFL and other leagues, I'm glad I don't play sports games. I don't have to worry that my favorite game won't come out because of some stupid exclusive deal. Now, if EA starts locking up car companies to only have their cars in EA games, then I'll be upset.

kastonie @ Jan 15th 2008 2:27PM

so all they have is baseball and fake football? man.... thats crazy...and they can make a totally better game than anything ea puts out.... EA suck...its in the balls..or something

Evan @ Jan 15th 2008 2:44PM

Yet another reason to hate EA. To this day I believe NFL 2K5 was the best football game I ever played.

Chase @ Jan 15th 2008 2:51PM

As a long-time NFL, football video game fan, I agree one-thousand percent.

Chris Smith @ Jan 15th 2008 5:30PM

Amen brother.

zlionsfan @ Jan 15th 2008 2:52PM

I'd like to thank EA for moves like this. Before their obsession with exclusive licenses (and their decision to stop fixing obvious bugs and just churn out the same old stuff every year), I was having tons of difficulty playing all the games I liked every year.

Now, it's much easier. I rarely play sports games any more. More time for Mass Effect, Orange Box, GTA IV ...

Jonah Falcon @ Jan 15th 2008 9:56PM

The Orange Box = EA lol

pandlcg @ Jan 15th 2008 10:28PM

@Falcon
EA just published it, they had nothing to do with the development of the game (at least not the 360 version, but they ported the PS3 version)

G @ Jan 15th 2008 3:13PM

2K's College Hoops has been the best basketball game on the 360 each year. Period. In fact, they're the only basketball games I own for the 360. The March Madness games are garbage compared to College Hoops. I guess EA will be going after baseball and hockey next.

Pyronite @ Jan 15th 2008 3:30PM

EA hasn't bought exclusive rights to NCAA basketball. What are you guys smoking?

I hate EA as much as the next guy, but at this point, the only thing the story suggests are RUMORS. If EA had exclusive licensing, we sure as hell would have heard about it, and 2k wouldn't have been negotiating in the first place.

EA might hold some clout of the CLC, but again... it sounds like half of the commenters didn't even bother reading the post.

xenocidic @ Jan 15th 2008 3:49PM

read the post?

you must be new here...

Boff @ Jan 16th 2008 6:03AM

:o)

Larry @ Jan 15th 2008 3:43PM

I'm upset that no 2k NFL game exists and now this...I switch over from EA back in the 2005 College Hoops game and haven't looked back. This makes my sports world a sad one again. I'm definitely going to buy this one and hope that 2k continues to update the rosters like they did for NFL 2k5. That'd be sweet.

Lilbrudder11 @ Jan 15th 2008 10:18PM

this is an OUTRAGE!!!

I call shananigans...

Boff @ Jan 16th 2008 6:15AM

You'd be better of calling shenanigans mate

Whingnut @ Jan 16th 2008 10:09AM

Great! So I imagine this, too, will go the way of the Madden franchise since their NFL exclusivity contract - straight into the toilet. No competition = No need to innovate.

Josh @ Jan 16th 2008 11:23AM

i've said it before and i'll say it again. exclusive licensing of sports is beneficial to NOBODY, except the companies involved. we, the consumers, get screwed.. royally

i'll go ahead and put most of the blame on the sports organizations. nfl, mlb, and now the clc can all suck it. greedy jerks.