British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) has announced it has terminated its license with Motorsport Games.
The termination comes following last week’s layoffs at the studio, which affected 40% of its staff.
According to the announcement, the company entered into an agreement with Motorsport Games in May 2020 but has been advised to cancel the agreement due to “ongoing fundamental breaches of the agreement by Motorsport Games.”
TOCA gave Motorsport Games “sufficient latitude to rectify those contractual breaches”, but “Motorsport Games has failed to do so”, it continues.
It’s unclear what contractual terms Motorsport Games breached, but speaking with sources, Insider Gaming understands that internally, Motorsport Games made no true effort to develop a British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) game.
The full announcement reads,
“BARC (TOCA) Limited – more widely known as ‘TOCA’ – is the rights holder to the British Touring Car Championship (‘BTCC’). In May 2020, TOCA entered into an agreement with Motorsport Gaming US LLC – an entity more widely known as ‘Motorsport Games’.
That agreement exclusively licensed Motorsport Games to produce interactive video gaming products relating to the British Touring Car Championship.
It is with regret that TOCA now advise 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.
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 fulfill its contractual commitments.”
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