The NBA has so much momentum that is about to be pissed away because the owners and players can’t decide how to split up the fans’ money. That will create a lot of disgusted fans. With that will come a lot of collateral damage — scouts, team office workers, pub owners near arenas, and many more are now and will be in the future losing money because of this fight.
And now you can add video game makers to the list.
The NBA’s momentum was carrying over to sales of Take-Two’s video game NBA 2K11, which sold 5.5 million units. Now with the lockout, 2K12 is expected to miss that number, maybe by a lot reports gamespot.com. (Via I am a GM.)Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia issued an investor note this morning that stated if the NBA lockout does not end, sales of NBA 2K12 will be softer than predicted.
Just yesterday, Take-Two reported its latest quarterly earnings, saying NBA 2K11 has sold 5.5 million copies. However, Bhatia’s firm is currently projecting that sales of NBA 2K12 could fall off by 1 million units over last year. Sales at this level would diminish Take-Two’s earnings by $40 million, he projected.
To counter that, NBA 2K12 has added 15 of the game’s legends — Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Dr. J, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and more — who are in the game and unlocked (so you can pit Dwight Howard against Kareem, if you want). Jordan alone was part of the game last year and that helped boost sales.
But if people are disgusted with the NBA, then 2K12 will suffer. And it looks like people will have plenty to be disgusted about with the NBA labor situation.