Royalties And Licenses

12 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

(8) ROYALTIES AND LICENSES

Our royalty expenses consist of payments to (1) content licensors, (2) independent software developers, and (3) co-publishing and distribution affiliates. 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 years 2020, 2019 and 2018 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,
	2020		2019
Other current assets	$	74	$	53
Other assets	25		30
Royalty-related assets	$	99	$	83

At any given time, depending on the timing of our payments to our co-publishing and/or distribution affiliates, content licensors, and/or independent software developers, 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,
	2020		2019
Accrued royalties	$	171	$	144

Other liabilities	26		51
Royalty-related liabilities	$	197	$	195

As of March 31, 2020, we were committed to pay approximately $665 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 13 for further information on our developer and licensor commitments.