The Rise of Visual Concepts in the SEGA Era: Prototypes and Behind the Scenes of the Making of Their Dreamcast Classics
This feature is dedicated to Visual Concepts (VC) and its most iconic games. It catalogs the Dreamcast prototypes available on the site, along with several articles about this world-renowned studio. Around twenty beta versions at various stages of development (Early, Gray Boxing, Near Final, Inside Joke, Debug Symbol, Proof of Concept, Demo, Unreleased, etc.) cover most of the titles developed by Visual Concepts during the Dreamcast era, with a clear focus on preservation. Making-of features and exclusive developer testimonies sometimes accompany the analysis of builds such as: Floigan Bros.: Episode 1, NFL 2K1, NBA 2K, NBA 2K1, NBA 2K2, Fantasy Prototype (Proof of Concept), NHL 2K, NHL 2K2, NCAA College Football 2K2, World Series Baseball 2K2, ToeJam & Earl III (Unreleased), Over The Top Soccer (Unreleased), and Ooga Booga.
That’s a lot of GD-Rs (Gigabyte Disc Recordable) for Visual Concepts’ Dreamcast games!
This unique archiving project is intended to appeal to readers and to accurately portray the history and behind-the-scenes stories of Visual Concepts’ productions. Enjoy the read, and happy gaming!
Visual Concepts: A Brief History
It all began over 36 years ago in Novato, a city in Marin County, California. In 1988, Scott Patterson, Greg Thomas, and his brother Jeff Thomas founded Visual Concepts Entertainment (VC), a development studio destined to become internationally renowned. What originally started as a modest office located above a bank would later become the birthplace of the famous NBA 2K franchise, launched in the late 1990s on Dreamcast.
Michael Rhinehart: « There was a basketball court near the VC offices they put into the game. A lot of that team used to play pickup basketball. »
Things moved quickly. Visual Concepts gained visibility, collaborated with major industry players, and saw Electronic Arts take a stake in the company. The studio eventually specialized in sports games, working on Madden NFL ’94 and Madden NFL ’95 for EA. However, a dispute arose during the development of Madden NFL ’96 on PlayStation, which was deemed insufficient in terms of quality. The project was canceled, and the California-based publisher ended its partnership with VC. In the meantime, several employees left the studio to found Tiburon Entertainment. Ironically, this new team later signed a deal with Electronic Arts to produce several Madden titles before being acquired in 1998. Renamed EA Orlando (EA Tiburon until 2023), the studio has since been responsible for all Madden NFL releases since the late 1990s.
The first game published by VC
Nick Jones: « VC is in Marin County just north of San Francisco. There's a beautiful town here right on the Bay called Tiburon. That's how the company got it's name. Although they eventually moved to Florida but they still retain the name to this day. »
VC logo from 1995 to 1996
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In 1997, SEGA, sensing an opportunity, announced its intention to bring VC into its creative teams. The acquisition was finalized on March 18, 1999. Together, they would go on to reshape the video game landscape by launching a new line of sports games under the 2K label. The Japanese company clearly knew how to surround itself with talented studios!
Scott Hawkins: « My understanding is that Visual Concepts worked on the year of Madden that ended up not shipping. SEGA saw an opportunity to work with the talented team at Visual Concepts - as they were available after the challenges of the Madden project, so SEGA took a chance on them with NBA Action 98 and NFL 2K. »
The critical and commercial success of NFL 2K and later NBA 2K—which even managed to compete with Electronic Arts’ NBA Live 2000—provided SEGA with a strong financial cushion. As a result, Visual Concepts was granted the freedom to experiment with more unconventional projects: Floigan Bros.: Episode 1 (Dreamcast), Ooga Booga (Dreamcast), Internet Game Pack (Dreamcast, Unreleased), Fantasy Prototype (Dreamcast, Proof of Concept), Soccer Slam (PS2), and ToeJam & Earl III (Dreamcast, Unreleased). However, none of these titles achieved the same aura or originality as some of SEGA’s more eccentric Japanese productions, such as Crazy Taxi, Super Monkey Ball, or Propeller Arena. In fact, the sixth console generation remains the only period—aside from Lego 2K Drive in 2023—during which VC released anything other than sports games.
The golden age of beautiful press kits!
Michael Rhinehart: « VC had a lot of pull within SEGA to partner with other developers to create sports games for their lineup. Blue Shift Inc., Black Box Games, Kush Games Inc., Blue Castle Games, and Treyarch all worked on Visual Concept games. I am probably missing more. »
The partnership between Visual Concepts and SEGA came to an end in the early 2000s. The California-based studio then changed ownership and came under the umbrella of Take-Two Interactive. Since then, VC has released a new NBA 2K every year. The series now includes more than 26 entries, and the pace shows no sign of slowing down. Today, the studio operates eight branches, several of which are located in Asia.
Michael Rhinehart: « Once Take 2 took over, VC made some mistakes. MLB 2K6 was one of them. They missed the release date and the game was so buggy it was blocking Xbox 360s. I should mention that VC managed an outside developer on this one. They had a few other issues. MLB 2K9 when it was brought internal from Kush Games. WWE when they took it over from Yukes. »
Who could have imagined back in November 1999, when the very first NBA 2K launched on the beloved Dreamcast, that Visual Concepts’ franchise would, more than 26 years later, become the ultimate standard in basketball simulation?
Electronic Arts vs. Visual Concepts: The License Wars
Since the early 1990s, Electronic Arts’ sports sims had dominated the market with little real competition. However, the arrival of NFL 2K and NBA 2K on Dreamcast—two major titles released just months apart—would disrupt this balance, much to the delight of consumers, and shake up the industry.
The Japanese version pack of NFL 2K and NBA 2K (The Bible)
Andy Ashcraft: « Visual Concepts set new standards in quality for those games that Electronic Arts had to rise to after that first year. So, I guess it worked, yes? »
In 1999, with the American launch of the Dreamcast, SEGA introduced its 2K sports lineup, developed by Visual Concepts. The goal was clear: to establish itself as a major player in the sector. The success of NFL 2K, which sold over a million copies, confirmed this ambition and immediately caught the attention of Konami, Midway, and especially EA, who now faced serious competition.
Alex Lee: « VC is certainly one of the more interesting Dreamcast devs. As we were one of the most technical we often had early prototype hardware as well as early access to a lot of code. »
Relations between SEGA and EA soured after negotiations to bring EA Sports games to the Dreamcast fell through. According to several witnesses at the time, Electronic Arts demanded a form of exclusivity for its sports titles. SEGA agreed to lower the royalties, but Larry Probst, then CEO of EA, stood firm and refused any concessions: it was all or nothing.
This conflict has deeper roots. In the early 1990s, EA developed, through reverse engineering, an unofficial Development Kit for the Mega Drive/Genesis, threatening SEGA with the possibility of releasing its games without a license. To avoid a lawsuit and keep the publisher on the MD, the Blue Hedgehog company signed a very favorable deal for EA, allowing it to pay lower royalties than other partners. This arrangement ultimately benefited both companies: EA’s sports games became a hit in the United States, simultaneously strengthening the publisher’s position and increasing the appeal of the Mega Drive. A compromise that was profitable but tumultuous both legally and in terms of their relationship.
Unofficial Mega Drive development kits from EA
Faced with EA’s demands, which were deemed unreasonable, Bernie Stolar, Vice President of SEGA of America, rejected Probst’s offer. EA then decided to boycott the Dreamcast. SEGA, having just acquired Visual Concepts for around ten million dollars, believed it could offer a solid alternative and placed its full bet on its own franchises: NBA 2K, NFL 2K, NHL 2K, World Series Baseball 2K2, and NCAA College Football 2K2.
The SEGA SPORTS and 2K brands, trusted names (VHS digitization for NFL 2K and NHL 2K Dreamcast, sent to retailers to promote the games)
Andy Ashcraft: « I remember a lot of discussion about making sure every game was entertaining to 'the other person on the couch', that is, that people watching others play would be as entertained as they would be if they were watching TV. Console games, by nature, competed directly with televised entertainment because they played on the family television. The expectation was that every family only had only one TV in the common room. Now there are TVs in every person's private room, so there is less need to make games entertaining to watch. »
SEGA’s answer to EA’s FIFA (if the game had been released)
However, it seems that EA hadn’t completely stopped support for the platform: some developers mention the existence of internal Madden NFL prototypes running on the Dreamcast, showing that Electronic Arts hadn’t fully halted its strategy initially.
Scott Hawkins: « I was at an Intel developer conference when the engineers from Electronic Arts told me that they had Madden running on Dreamcast. »
The absence of EA Sports games, however, posed a real disadvantage in Europe, where typically American sports attracted little interest. Players were mainly expecting a football sim capable of rivaling FIFA or Konami’s ISS Pro. None arrived on the Dreamcast: Virtua Striker, too arcade-oriented, and Sega Worldwide Soccer, whose Dreamcast version disappointed, failed to fill the gap. SEGA did initiate development of Over The Top Soccer (or Soccer 2K2) with Visual Concepts and Black Box Games, but the project was soon abandoned.
Scott Hawkins: « I am not familiar with that project, but I did work on a couple of Worldwide Soccer titles for the PC that at least one of those was on SEGA Saturn as well. The game had the Cobi Jones license. All of the other players were generic, so I renamed the rosters to have people from SEGA and other game industry contacts!! »
For five years, SEGA and EA waged a genuine battle in the sports video game market. EA stepped up its strategy and secured several exclusive licenses to lock down the market. In 2004, the publisher obtained exclusive rights with the National Football League, bringing the NFL 2K series to an immediate end. The National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, however, when approached for similar agreements, refused. Deprived of this major franchise, SEGA ultimately decided to sell Visual Concepts as well as the 2K brand to Take-Two in 2004/2005, for an estimated amount of between 24 and 34 million dollars.
Dave Lavender: « They knew the NFL 2K game would do well and, therefore, so would Dreamcast. It did so well, in fact, that it may be what prompted EA to get in bed with the NFL and make the deal where Madden would be the only NFL video game on the market. Had that deal not happened I think it is likely that the NFL 2K series would have surpassed Madden. »
Yes, it’s not a Visual Concepts game, but this WSB 2K1 press kit is incredible
EA Sports has long been known for its well-crafted sims, but today the benchmark belongs to the 2K series.
Into the depths of Visual Concepts’ Dreamcast game prototypes
More than twenty Dreamcast game prototypes, at various stages of development, trace the period of creative ferment experienced by SEGA alongside its former American flagship studio, Visual Concepts, between 1999 and 2002. It was a collective human adventure marked by the birth—and the tour de force—of the 2K-branded games, but that's only the start!
Each title—or group of games based on the same sport—opens with a dedicated page that provides context for the game/s development - sometimes enriched with firsthand accounts from key figures of the time. This introduction is followed by an in-depth exploration of the most significant beta version of each project or group of games, often time being the earliest beta!
Two surprises await fans of the console with the blue, orange, and red spiral. The first lifts the veil on a secret long kept by SEGA, Visual Concepts, and Black Box Games, exclusively revealing images, a video, and a pseudo-playable version of Over The Top Soccer on Dreamcast—also known as Soccer 2K2, depending on preference. The second highlights a lesser-known facet of the medium by offering the chance to play Fantasy Prototype Dreamcast, a Proof of Concept that was abandoned before further development could continue.
Presentation of a making-of featurette, including developer testimonials and several Dreamcast Floigan Brothers prototypes, and an intermediate version with untextured elements and differences in its level design.
Presentation of several prototypes, some early versions, for World Series Baseball 2K2 (Dreamcast), a game by Blue Shift and Visual Concepts. WSB 2K2 stands as a symbol of redemption for DC fans, correcting the mistakes of WSB 2K1.
Archive of prototypes for Visual Concepts’ Dreamcast NBA 2K series, some early versions, others special, such as NBA 2K1: The Jason Voorhees Build and The Mask Build, which transform the gaming experience into a horror or comedy film.
Presentation of Fantasy Prototype on Dreamcast, a proof of concept or unreleased game by Visual Concepts. This build of an unknown game demonstrates in action the true definition of the word “prototype,” a term often misused nowadays. The player controls a satyr, possibly a character from a comic book.
Development retrospective - featuring developer testimonials and archived Dreamcast prototypes of Visual Concepts’ American football games (NFL 2K, NFL 2K1, NFL 2K2, and NCAA College Football 2K2). Some builds are early versions, including one in "Blockout" form.
Archive of prototypes—some early versions, others special, such as NHL 2K: The Face/Off Build, which transforms the gaming experience into an action/horror film—for Visual Concepts’ Dreamcast NHL 2K series (NHL 2K and NHL 2K2).
Presentation of a Dreamcast prototype for the unreleased Over The Top Soccer by Black Box Games and Visual Concepts—also known as Soccer 2K2 among fans. Historically, it demonstrates SEGA’s attempt to compete with Electronic Arts’ FIFA.
Presentation of a making-of for Ooga Booga (Dreamcast). Andrew Leker and Michael Biancalana explain the history of its development and its origins, which stem from the Resurrection project—an independent game that won the Best Game Design award at GDC 1999.
Presentation of a Development retrospective for ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth (Xbox) featuring developer testimonials, who worked on the game, along with a prototype of its Unreleased Dreamcast version and an image of the Dev Kit, Katana, that contained it.
I would like to express my gratitude, for their kindness and availability, to all the people listed below who are directly or indirectly connected to Visual Concepts, its games, or SEGA. Their experiences in the industry during this pivotal period for SEGA and this talented development studio teach us more about its journey and reveal the behind-the-scenes secrets of its iconic games.
John Brooks : Lead Technologist on World Series Baseball 2K2
Nick Jones : Engineers on several Visual Concepts games
Alex Lee : Engineers on several Visual Concepts games
Michael Rhinehart : Associate Product Manager on several Visual Concepts games
Scott Hawkins : Senior Producer on Quake III: Arena
Marc Cellucci : Sega.Net and Sega.Com Online Support on NBA 2K1
Andy Ashcraft : Game Designers on Floigan Bros.: Episode 1
Dan Lavender : Character Animators on Floigan Bros.: Episode 1
Cord Smith : Associate Product Manager on Floigan Bros.: Episode 1
David Blanchette : Animators on Floigan Bros.: Episode 1
Michael Biancala : Artists on Ooga Booga
Andrew Leker : Original Idea on Ooga Booga derived from Resurrection
Edoardo De Martin : Producer on Sega Soccer Slam
Greg Johnson : Lead Designer & Creative Director on ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth
I-Wei Huang : Lead Animator & Concept Artist on ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth
Suruchi Krieglstein : Design Assistant on ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth
I would also like to thank everyone involved in Visual Concepts’ projects. Everyone is eagerly awaiting the return of NFL 2K on the next-generation consoles!
Special thanks to:
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Hicks for proofreading and correcting the French text
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Neil Riddaway for the English correction of the article
Continue your reading by exploring the other articles featured on the following page: [Articles, Databases, Making-ofs, Interviews, Special Discoveries, and Photo or Development Archives]
