TOCA/BTCC have this morning announced that they have terminated their agreement with MSG due to ongoing breaches of that agreement. Statement says they also "immediately withdraw all licenced BTCC rights that were provided to Motorsport Games under that agreement." I'm going to guess that means the BTCC DLC will disappear? However these are currently still listed on Steam. https://www.btcc.net/2023/11/06/toca-terminates-btcc-video-game-licence-with-motorsport-games/
That will mean no further on-line BTCC races hosted on MSG/Studio397 servers too I assume. How will/might that affect community servers?
According to chat on discord, the cars/tracks will remain but may have to be rebranded, licence is with OEM and BTCC licence just covers branding.
So finally they finish the competition system, have zero new content to sell due to LMU taking up resources, and now are losing one of the biggest draws rF2 has(had). It looks like all eggs in the LMU basket now
What does this mean for the content? I'm assuming tracks won't be affected much but what about the cars.
probably the cars will remain, as Hondas, Fords, BMWs. But they won't be able to be grouped under a BTCC menu any longer.
Well, bugger. I had hoped that once LMU had been released, they'd do the same thing with BTCC and release it as a standalone game using the same game engine with a few necessary tweaks. I just hope we are able to keep the cars in rF2, but we probably won't be allowed them in Race Control official series now. The one thing unique about BTCC is it allows both front and rear drive smaller touring cars, and I much prefer the latter. There's V8 Supercars and Brazil Stock Cars (available in other sims) but they are much bigger and more powerful rear drive cars; and then TCRs in many games.
Could be the cause of why they terminated the agreement maybe, but im just speculating ofcourse. Shame tho, I would be very happy with class specific sims if that means they can raise the level of detail like Kunos did with ACC. I thinks sims are trying too hard to cater to everyone and therefore suffer in other places. Might not be a doable from a financial pov tho.
I don't see a reason to not be able to use the cars or tracks online. As long as it's not called BTCC competition. Also, we don't know if the end of the deal means they can no longer use the name for the current season. Maybe it's for the next. I'm not like the iGuys so I don't care what it's called.
Imo, as long as Studio 397 gets resources to focus on what they do best, I hope this all works out for everyone. One does wonder what cash flow generating assets will remain.
I remember MGPR (Monaco GP Racing) or Racing Simulation 2 or something at the end of the 90ies, where they (do not remember the company) did not buy / get a license for all the sponsors on the cars (or whatever) and so the F1 cars and tracks were in the game, but the liveries of the cars were just fictional. The community reacted very quickly and livery packs from the famous painters that days were released pretty soon - and I think using those liveries (which were not sold but given for free) is legal. And - didn't we know this situation from Silverstone track? I think community servers will not be affected and I am guessing that it is prohibited to use that naming and painting of the BTCC as long as you are a profitable company ... but that are rumors and speculation ;-) Let's see ... but I am also wondering why we do not hear anything reliable concerning LMU (the news on the website are somewhat general concerning motorsports, but anything else).
Devs said Silverstone was the only content with a expiring license. MSG doesn't have the BTCC license anymore but that doesn't necessarily mean they have to erase everything done. They had the cars licensed for two seasons, they can't have the cars for future ones but I think they can keep the current seasons in place. They already paid for it. We're always falling for the drama...
@Bernat... the BTCC statement states "In order to protect the reputation and intellectual property of the BTCC, including those of its participants and partners, TOCA had been left with no option but to terminate the agreement and immediately withdraw all licensed BTCC rights that were provided to Motorsport Games under that agreement." And one of the issues has been that MSG DON'T appear to have been paying the monies due under the licence agreement. As at end of june 2023 they would appear to owe BARC (TOCA) somewhere in the region of $800K The statement also mentions "participants and partners" so you'd have to wonder if MSG are going to have to do away with the existing liveries on the cars.
If that's really the case we'll know soon. I hope it's not. They were supposed to release a BTCC game that they didn't release. It was still planned for 2024 so the license covered quite a lot. Some things might be paid, others maybe not. I don't think they would have released the content without having finished paying for the licensing. It's all speculation that goes nowhere. We'll know in time. What can we do now? Buy the BTCC content and race with it.
