Visual Concepts is a
video game developer based in
Novato, California best known for developing
Take-Two Interactive's
2K series of
sports games. After the success of the series, they were acquired by Sega and became a wholly owned studio with Sega, usually termed a
first-party developer. However, Sega at the time termed non-internal studios that the company either set up or purchased as "1.5 development studios" in order to differentiate them from their own internal studios. In January 2005, Visual Concepts was sold to
Take-Two Interactive along with their wholly owned subsidiary
Kush Games. With the purchase of Visual Concepts, Take-Two created
2K Games, a new publishing label. Although the company started out developing quirky titles such as
Lester the Unlikely, development efforts are now primarily centered on sports titles such as Basketball and Wrestling.