The NBA 2K series is a series of basketball simulation video games developed and released annually since 1999. The premise of each game in the series is to emulate the sport of basketball, more specifically, the National Basketball Association, and present improvements over the previous installments. The series was originally published by Sega, under the label Sega Sports, and is now published by 2K Sports. All of the games in the franchise have been developed by Visual Concepts. The series consists of eighteen main installments and several spinoff-style titles. It has seen releases on eighteen different platforms. The NBA 2K series has also been used in eSports. The series has consistently achieved critical and commercial success.