Publisher wants fans to move to 2012 version of the game

Nov 4, 2011 07:54 GMT  ·  By

2K Sports, the simulation-oriented division of Take Two, has announced that it plans to close down the multiplayer servers for its basketball game NBA 2K11, just over one year after the official launch date.

When the 2009 version of the game was launched, multiplayer support was offered for more than two years after release, while for 2K10 Take Two kept the servers up for 15 months.

The ever decreasing length of support time for the multiplayer modes suggested that Take Two is eager to pressure fans of the series to move to the next available version by limiting the game options available to those who still play the older titles.

In 2012 multiplayer servers for NBA 2K12 might get taken down on launch date.

2K11 offered two multiplayer game modes, Online League and 10 versus 10 My Crew, which are not included in the newest release, and some players reported that they were not getting the 2K12 release because of their investment in them.

NBA 2K12 launched on October 4 of this year and arrived on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the PC, the PS2, and the PlayStation Portable.

Versions of the game are also available for the iOS powered devices from Apple.

The game was somewhat affected by the fact that there's still no NBA season this year because of problems with negotiations between the players and the owners.

Take Two chose to focus on the NBA's Greatest game mode, which allows the player to go back in time and play using legendary teams from the history of the franchise and even create match-ups that never took place in the real world, pitting players from different areas against each other.

Reviewers also praised the new game for the physics system and for the new options linked to the My Player Mode, but that will not stop long term fans of NBA 2K11 from criticizing 2K Sports over the closure of multiplayer support for the older game.