Bsimracing Sim Racing Resources and News for the racing enthousiast.
Back in July 2020, Motorsport Games, the parent company above Studio 397 announced that they had acquired an official license to produce a standalone BTCC racing game and eSports series. The game was originally scheduled to be released somewhere in 2022.
Recently rumors started to appear that Motorsport Games had lost, or canceled the announced official standalone BTCC game. In contrast, Studio 397 proudly announced that several British Touring Car Championship cars would be coming to the Factor 2 racing simulator as addon cars.
Then, during their recent Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call, Executive Chairman, and CEO of Motorsport Games, Dmitry Kozko stated that a new release date of the official BTCC game will be announced before the end of June 2022.
And here we are. Motorsport Games has announced that the official standalone BTCC game is now scheduled to be released in 2024. If I have read it correctly, the BTCC game will be developed using a hybrid game engine combining the best assets of Factor 2 and KartKraft. For more details, check out the official press release.
Press Release:
MIAMI, FL – JUNE 2, 2022 – Motorsport Games Inc. (NASDAQ: MSGM) (“Motorsport Games” or the “Company”), is a leading racing game developer, publisher, and esports ecosystem provider of official motorsport racing series throughout the world, announces today a promotional plan update, including activations, content releases, and ‘first-play content’ tech demos through rFactor 2, to its planned British Touring Car Championship (“BTCC”) official game, which will release in 2024, as previously disclosed by the Company. A link to the trailer for the rFactor 2 content can be found here.
Motorsport Games and its developers are expanding and reinforcing their BTCC development efforts to optimize the user experience, offer a better value proposition to the end user, and enhance product differentiation within a robust racing games marketplace. By expanding their development efforts, the Motorsport Games development team will fundamentally overhaul the platform, allowing for a cleaner codebase with more robust features. As part of these efforts, Motorsport Games will leverage the improvements it made to the rFactor 2 platform, developed in its work on KartKraft, to strengthen the BTCC offering, unifying the title with the Company’s current and future product portfolio to create the best possible user experience.
George Holmquist, Vice President, Publishing and Marketing, Motorsport Games: We are expanding our development efforts on the BTCC release to create the best experience possible for all players, with the full support from our partners at the BTCC. Both Motorsport Games and the BTCC are committed to bringing this famous and popular motorsport series to life within the virtual world. We remain excited by this project and look forward to the many activations and content releases we have planned for the BTCC game.
While these development efforts are ongoing, Motorsport Games and the BTCC will have multiple activations for fans to participate in. This includes on-site BTCC Fan Zone events at selected BTCC events in the second half of the 2022 season, at the Autosport International Show, and future BTCC events during the 2023 season. At those races during 2022 and the majority of 2023, the BTCC Fan Zone will have between two to four racing simulators with BTCC ‘first-play content’ tech demos through rFactor 2. As the BTCC game development progresses, each activation will include the official BTCC game via demos at the tracks. Fans who participate will be able to provide real-time feedback for the new game’s development. As development approaches full release in 2024, more content is planned to become available through the first playable demos.
Further, Motorsport Games plans to add additional BTCC branded content into the rFactor 2 simulation platform, which would also host regular BTCC esports events. Motorsport Games and rFactor 2 added the Infiniti Q50 and Toyota Corolla BTCC cars into the simulation for fans to drive as part of a first content rollout. Daily BTCC competitions through the rFactor 2 competition system will be open to all users, allowing for statistics-driven benefits to each driver’s rating. All content released via rFactor 2 will be utilized as a technical test bed, allowing consumers and official drivers to provide feedback for the development team and help build the best experience upon full release.
Alan Gow, CEO, BTCC: While we understand that our fans are eager to get their hands on the BTCC game, I can assure them that the expanded development efforts that Motorsport Games is pursuing through the game’s 2024 launch will make it well worth the wait. So, we invite all of our fans to attend activations at selected BTCC events later this year to get a first look and to provide their feedback, so as to help make the new BTCC game the very best.
Motorsport Games will announce additional information on select BTCC events featuring test versions of the game closer to each activation date. Fans are encouraged to keep up-to-date on the status of the official BTCC game through the social media channels of both Motorsport Games and the BTCC.
Official Webpages – motorsportgames.com – www.btcc.net
