The BTCC videogame licence is up for grabs after TOCA and Motorsport Games part ways

TOCA, the rights holder to the British Touring Car Championship, or BTCC to its mates, has announced that it’s terminated a videogame licence agreement with Motorsport Gaming LLC.

That means the licence could soon be potentially up for grabs. Dare we even dream about the glorious rekindling of Codemasters and TOCA?

Motorsport Games is a publisher and developer with rFactor 2, Nascar and Kartkraft in its portfolio. Before this announcement it was due to produce an official BTCC 24 game, but we can now consider that one vapourware.

Here’s what right holder TOCA had to say about the split in a press statement. “​​It is with regret that TOCA now advises that it has been forced to terminate that agreement forthwith, due to ongoing fundamental breaches of the agreement by Motorsport Games. Having been given sufficient latitude to rectify those contractual breaches, unfortunately Motorsport Games has failed to do so.”

The statement confirms that BTCC is no more. “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.

“TOCA is aware that this news will come as a huge disappointment to our hundreds of thousands of fans, many of whom were eagerly anticipating the release of a new BTCC game… and we very much share that frustration, due to Motorsport Games being unable to fulfil its contractual commitments.”

Very little likelihood of Christmas cards being exchanged between those two organisations this year, then.

But does that mean the BTCC licence is up for grabs to other studios across the industry? It’s not clear. But it does spark memories of Codemasters’ seminal TOCA releases throughout the Nineties and Noughties. We can’t be the only ones who spent the best part of 1998 writing rude words into the back windows of our Lagunas and driving backwards around Oulton Park on a revenge mission against Jason Plato, surely?