Motorsport Games' BTCC Title Might Be Delayed, President Stephen Hood Leaves

New BTCC Game Might Not Release in 2022.jpg
Following in the footsteps of the classic TOCA games, the BTCC was supposed to make a comeback to the sim racing stage with its own game in 2022: Announced in the summer of 2020, many touring car fans are looking forward to the title - however, it looks like its release might get pushed back.

As Traxion, a part of developer Motorsport Games, has learned, the new BTCC game's schedule is now listed as "to be determined" instead of a 2022 release. This became apparent in a call of Motorsport Games, outlining the plans for future titles - games like the brand-new IndyCar and WEC games announced earlier (and scheduled for release in 2023) are still listed, while the BTCC game has been demoted to merely a footnote.

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After the release of NASCAR 21: Ignition that was plagued by bugs, this may hint at a "get-it-right" approach regarding the BTCC game - another game release like the NASCAR one would not have looked great for Motorsport Games, which is likely what the developer is trying to avoid. Even if the BTCC game has been pushed back indefinitely, the developer still holds the license until 2027 - more than enough time to create a worthy successor in spirit to the old TOCA games.

President Hood Leaves Motorsport Games​

However, this is not all. According to Traxion, Motorsport Games President Stephen Hood is no longer with the company. A change in the bio of his Twitter profile seems to confirm this. However, no word is out on the reasons of Hood's departure.

Update: Stephen Hood left the company already on January 21, 2022 after his position was eliminated. CEO Dmitry Kozko will assume all responsibilities of overseeing Motorsport Games Development Studio, the PDF on their corporate website states.​

The last time the BTCC had an exclusive, standalone game was in 1998 when TOCA 2 Touring Cars (or Touring Car Challenge in the US) was released. It then evolved into the Race Driver series, which featured many more different classes, and eventually laid the cornerstone for the current GRID series.

What do you think about the game possibly being delayed? How much are you looking forward to a dedicated BTCC game for the first time in more than 20 years? Let us know in the comments!
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About author
Yannik Haustein
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

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Comments

MJQT
Stelcio said:
I think you guys are attributing good will where there simply isn't any. At least all I see from Bram Hengeveld are elaborated "**** off"s. Anybody feel free to convince me otherwise.
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I hate this comment. RD does so much for the community by providing massive forums for discussion and hosting thousands and thousands of mods for this niche hobby of ours. There's tons of good will there. And ultimately, it's down to people who pay for and run the place like Bram to choose what they want to discuss or promote on the front page, cause they, you know, run the place :roflmao:

Stelcio said:
But RD staff shouldn't come into comments and make up stupid excuses based on false premises for not covering the story, while berating people who call them out on this.
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I personally didn't feel Bram "berated" me or anyone else. Far from it. He's made some choices, he's presented a couple reasons for it respectfully differing from my ideas, and that's fine. He has no "obligation" to present his whole reasoning to me or any other user here IMO – and if you think he does, then you need to tone down your own self-importance, I think.
 
S
MJQT said:
I hate this comment. RD does so much for the community by providing massive forums for discussion and hosting thousands and thousands of mods for this niche hobby of ours. There's tons of good will there.
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Agreed. That doesn't mean they should be free of community's scrutiny. I'm talking about this specific case, not RD's overall count. And in this specific case I don't see any good will to inform the community as well as possible. Don't make this about more than it is about.
MJQT said:
And ultimately, it's down to people who pay for and run the place like Bram to choose what they want to discuss or promote on the front page, cause they, you know, run the place :roflmao:
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Again, agreed. That's my point. You don't want to run the story? Don't run the story. I can make a comment about it and you should respect it instead of going after me and trying to disparge me, which is what Bram did.

What was the point of asking me if I want the kind of journalism that involves colporting rumours, if not to present my journalist standards as dubious, and his as stellar in comparison? What was the point of saying the post about the story is on forums, if not to suggest I wrongly accused them of censorship? What was the point of saying users expect him to "to watch investor calls or go through annual reports of all these esports companies out there" when nobody asked for that, if not to present his critics as unreasonable?

What was the point of calling Austin's reports, which are exceptionally well-substantiated, as "rumours" in the first place if not to downplay them as unworthy of covering?

If you still think Bram was "far from" berating and disparging people here, you're just turning a blind eye on his comments, just like he's turning his on this whole story.

He has no obligation to run the story and he has no obligation to present the reasoning behind it. He decided to present it anyway. Too bad it's a fake one, apparently, because it just doesn't stick. And maybe I'm a little self-important, but I'd rather be that than to swallow all that smelly thing I was presented with, especially after how I was responded to. But you go ahead.
 
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MJQT
Stelcio said:
That doesn't mean they should be free of community's scrutiny. I'm talking about this specific case, not RD's overall count. And in this specific case I don't see any good will to inform the community as well as possible.
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Yep, nobody should be above scrutiny! :thumbsup:

And (as indicated by my previous comments) I feel the same as you that RD should (in my opinion) have done something to "spread the word" about this. But at this point, we've made our feelings clear. They've responded. At this point, there's nothing to be gained by repeating our feelings again and again because "this time they'll see"... cause that's not how it works.

Plus, I want to be sure to respect the work the RaceDepartment staff put in while running this place, because it's a pretty great place – and running a site like that means making tough decisions about lots of things, including what sorts of articles they want to put on the front page.

Stelcio said:
I can make a comment about it and you should respect it instead of going after me and trying to disparge me, which is what Bram did.
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I apologize for my slightly aggressive tone towards you... I should know better. My mistake. :redface:

All the same, I still personally don't read Bram's comments as "berating" or "disparaging" me or Austin. Or you, actually. Maybe a bit snarky in his first comment responding to you, and I agree he didn't give a complete answer to your fundamental question, but not "berating" or "disparaging" IMO. BUT... I am not trying to tell you how to feel or something, and please do not take it as such. If you feel strongly about Bram's comments towards you, go ahead and take that up with him (not me) as you wish.

I'm going to leave this thread here. I think I've said what I have to say, and heard what others have to say as well.
 
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Austin Ogonoski
James Cook said:
GTR3-esque vapourware.

Move along. Nothing to see here.
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Well yes, but not really.

Imagine if GTR 3 came out, and it was one of the worst games we'd ever played, period. Not just a bad sim, but a bad game. It rained sideways. The game crashed every other race. AI did 180mph in pit lane. You couldn't map your buttons on your wheel.

Yet somehow the GTR 3 logo was on no different than four different race cars, and the CEO of the dev team had a million dollar salary and bragged about his car collection.

And the company was publicly traded, and over a million shares were exchanged right at the end of Q4 2021, when typically only 60,000 moved in a single day.

And it was the second company the CEO has been involved in, that shipped defective products and moved suspicious amounts of stock on a single day.

That's where we are at.
 
TheRealCeeBee
rf2 - still the windows Vista of Simracing

Anyone know who is buying RF2, so it can get some talented coders to get it fixed up, and released as rf3? I'd buy that..
 
BBRacing
To be honest, if all the sims cam out which were supposed to I doubt I’d have the time to invest in all of them, currently ruining through GT7 on my ps5 with my new gt dd pro, saving up for a new pc for AC2
 
W
Mekonrider said:
I don't think a poor game would be a good look for the BTCC so this is probably for the best. I'm also not sure a BTCC only title would hold interest in this day and age. They are only using 9 tracks for the series. Back in the PSone days having 9 tracks and a full field of cars was exciting and progressive stuff but I'm not sure it would go down as well now.
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Well... I am not from UK and I watch BTCC maniacally. If broadcast wasn't so inaccessible outside of UK it would be really popular series. And current set of tracks still offer many "bangers" that are very hard to find in sims. Current NGTC cars offer great visual variety and very close racing, while sprint race formula with success ballast is great for games.
 
K
Paul Bennett said:
Hopes & dreams crushed. Still pains me why Sector3 didn't get a shot at BTCC, they are only studio that could do this.
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If they could get their graphics into the current age they could make such a good game, they already have the best AI and Netcode for touring car racing
 
MJQT
Kenny Paton said:
Yet more news and it's all bad. Good job Austin
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Great stuff Austin, and thanks for sharing here Kenny!

Again, I do not understand the choice by RaceDepartment to not cover this kind of investigative journalism (because that's what it is) and not promote it on the front page (which is supposedly for "news" about the sim racing landscape) with either a guest article by Austin or a summary piece by someone like Mike or Damian.

No need for anyone at RD to respond to my comment here or justify themselves to us commenters, but I hope that behind the scenes, you think about what you're doing with the "News" section and why you're doing it. Because from the outside, it makes very little sense to me. Unless Motorsport Games has co-opted RD financially or otherwise to "go easy on them" for some reason... and the possibility of something like that makes me uneasy. There's a reason I don't look at Traxion for sim racing news (since it's owned by MSG) and I have no desire to have to consistently treat news at RD with a similar level of suspicion.

For example, this most recent video from Austin shared by Kenny is not slanderous, or baseless speculation, or engaging in the 'takedown' of a company. Far from it. Much of it simply presents information about a major developer suffering serious setbacks and potentially losing the licenses behind some of the most anticipated games in our hobby. Surely that warrants a front page mention?
 
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Kenny Paton
Staff
Premium
MJQT said:
Unless Motorsport Games has co-opted RD financially or otherwise to "go easy on them" for some reason.
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Absolutely not, don't even think that for a minute, if that was the case then there would be nothing on here about it at all and I wouldn't be allowed to link to his videos.
Anyway what could we add that Austin hasn't already covered.
 
MJQT
Kenny Paton said:
Absolutely not, don't even think that for a minute, if that was the case then there would be nothing on here about it at all and I wouldn't be allowed to link to his videos.
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Good to know :)
Kenny Paton said:
Anyway what could we add that Austin hasn't already covered.
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True! Although it wouldn't necessarily be a matter of "adding something" – even just a summary front-page article to share the information would seem like a no-brainer, just to share the story with a broader audience than (for example) those who watch Austin's channel.
 
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