TOCA has revealed that it has terminated their license with Motorsport Games.
As reported by Insider Gaming, TOCA’s official press release revealed that the studio had “ongoing fundamental breaches” of their agreement, and that they had no confidence that Motorsport Games would make the game they promised the company.
This follows new of layoffs within the studio, as RacingGamesgg reported that the company planned to let go of 38 employees, comprising 42 % of their total staff.
TOCA is the abbreviation used by the British Touring Car Championship. Their original license for TOCA racing games, Codemaster, led to a classic video game series, also simply called TOCA. Comprising six games overall, the TOCA games released on PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Windows, and PlayStation Portable. The first game in the series, 1997’s TOCA Touring Car Championship, preceded Gran Turismo by a matter of months.
Developer Codemasters would then move on to their next original franchise, GRID, that would evolve further what they had built with their TOCA games. It had seemed that since then, TOCA had been quiet in their involvement with the game industry, but this upcoming title would have been their big return.
Motorsport Games is a studio with some renown as well, most of it recent. Founded in 2018, it hit its stride in 2020 by producing several esports events for NASCAR, Le Mans, and F1’s founding company, FIA.
In 2021 the company went on IPO, and used the money to acquire Studio 397, the developers of racing sim rFactor 2.So, the company may not be as famous as Codemasters, but they certainly developed clout in a comparatively shorter amount of time.
Almost a year ago, we had reported on rumors of mismanagement within the company. There were already rumors of cost cutting even then. Just last March, they revealed that their latest IndyCar title would be delayed to next year.
While Motorsports made good use of the rFactor engine when running their racing esports series in 2020, the company does not seem to have done a good job transitioning to be the company making new retail games with the engine.
Unfortunately, while the company is dealing with growth spurts, people in the studio are losing their jobs. If their current management is not up to this task, stakeholders around them suffer as a result. Those companies that licensed their names also gave money for development of their games. The last thing they need is to not get any product at all.
It’s hard to see where Motorsport Games will go from here. We wish the best for everyone who was recently laid off from the company, as well as for those who are still there.
