Royalties And Licenses

12 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2024

ROYALTIES AND LICENSES

Our royalty expenses consist of payments to (1) content licensors, (2) independent software developers, and (3) co-publishing and distribution affiliates. Content license royalties consist of payments made to celebrities, professional sports organizations, movie studios and other organizations for our use of their trademarks, copyrights, personal publicity rights, content and/or other intellectual property. Royalty payments to independent software developers are payments for the development of intellectual property related to our games. Co-publishing and distribution royalties are payments made to third parties for the delivery of products.

During fiscal year 2024, we recorded impairment charges of $30 million for costs associated with licensor commitments, all of which were recorded within Restructuring in the Consolidated Statement of Operations. See Note 8 — Restructuring Activities for additional information on the impairment charge related to our 2024 Restructuring Plan.

During fiscal years 2023 and 2022, we did not recognize any material losses or impairment charges on royalty-based commitments.

The current and long-term portions of prepaid royalties and minimum guaranteed royalty-related assets, included in other current assets and other assets, consisted of (in millions):


	As of March 31,
	2024		2023
Other current assets	$	98	$	105
Other assets	24		31
Royalty-related assets	$	122	$	136

At any given time, depending on the timing of our payments to our content licensors, independent software developers, co-publishing, and/or distribution affiliates, we classify any recognized unpaid royalty amounts due to these parties as accrued liabilities. The current and long-term portions of accrued royalties, included in accrued and other current liabilities and other liabilities, consisted of (in millions):


	As of March 31,
	2024		2023
Accrued and other current liabilities	$	189	$	208
Other liabilities	20		—
Royalty-related liabilities	$	209	$	208

As of March 31, 2024, we were committed to pay approximately $1,948 million to content licensors, independent software developers, and co-publishing and/or distribution affiliates, but performance remained with the counterparty (i.e., delivery of the product or content or other factors) and such commitments were therefore not recorded in our Consolidated Financial Statements. See Note 14 for further information on our developer and licensor commitments.