Crytek in trouble?

Akrasia

Apparently the staff at Crytek have walked out because their wages have not been paid.

Crytek are the developers behind Crysis and are currently developing Homefront: The Revolution

Is Homefront the kiss of death in gaming development (the original was the last game developers THQ released before going bankrupt)

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/07/report-crytek-uk-staff-not-getting-paid-leave-studio-en-masse/

Wasn't the writing on the wall? I think Crysis 3 sold poorly but I'm open to correction (In my opinion it was too soon to create another sequel and this is why it suffered).

wayne040576

They were denying reports last week that they were on the verge of Bankruptcy. Was mentioned on a few podcasts.

Akrasia

Today they're apparently unavailable for comment.

I'd say the ****eness of Warface has sealed their doom.

Maximus Alexander

Crysis 3 was poor, all sound and fury and no substance. With Warface evidently not delivering on its promise either (I haven't tried it myself), it wouldn't surprise me if they were finding themselves in hot water.

Cuddlesworth

They were always banking on large amounts of Engine Sales with Crysis being the showcase, don't think that ever really worked out.

Maximus Alexander

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

They were always banking on large amounts of Engine Sales with Crysis being the showcase, don't think that ever really worked out.

Their engine is very awkward to work with compared to the competition (Unreal, Unity) so I'd imagine they're beating a dead horse there. The original Crysis was great, but they messed up by not figuring out what made it great and continuing down that path in my opinion.

Yeti Beast

They've something like 800 staff worldwide too... Their output surely can't justify that number.

Smiles35

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Their engine is very awkward to work with compared to the competition (Unreal, Unity) so I'd imagine they're beating a dead horse there.

The likes of Star Citizen will be useing Cry Engine for the next decade so, whatever happens, that won't be let die.

gizmo

Akrasia wrote: »

Today they're apparently unavailable for comment.

I'd say the ****eness of Warface has sealed their doom.

I'd say Warface being released so suddenly and with supposedly little in the way of polish since the closed beta is more indicative of their current financial position than anything else.

Yeti Beast wrote: »

They've something like 800 staff worldwide too... Their output surely can't justify that number.

That number has only swollen in recent times though with most of their newer studios not open long enough to have delivered their own projects. Homefront 2 is Crytek UKs first solo project, Crytek US are on the recently announced Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age and Crytek Black Sea are on Arena of Fate.

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Their engine is very awkward to work with compared to the competition (Unreal, Unity) so I'd imagine they're beating a dead horse there. The original Crysis was great, but they messed up by not figuring out what made it great and continuing down that path in my opinion.

Yup, pretty much. They had a chance against UE3 but with the workflow being more awkward than these closest rival and the significant upgrade UE4 has gotten, I don't think it has a chance of being a major player this gen.

That being said, I'd wager they were aware of what made Crysis great it's just that it was unworkable in their engine on last gen consoles. That, combined with the relatively low sales of both titles on the PC and the investment required to produce them kind of backed them into a corner with regards a console-focused sequel. On the other hand, I'm currently playing Crysis 2 and while I sympathise with the above, it doesn't excuse the god awful AI present which is really ****ing up my enjoyment of the game.

Still though, fingers crossed it works out for the employees.

Maximus Alexander

Noblong wrote: »

The likes of Star Citizen will be useing Cry Engine for the next decade so, whatever happens, that won't be let die.

That doesn't really help Crytek though. Star Citizen is one game and, no matter how popular it is, whatever royalty agreement they might have with Crytek won't be enough to keep them afloat.

CIG already have the engine and, I would have thought, have probably branched significantly away from Crytek at this stage. This may not be the case, maybe any changes they need are relayed to Crytek and the engine is updated accordingly, but regardless if Crytek disappeared tomorrow their assets would be sold off and someone else would take CryEngine.

The engine doesn't need to be in active development for existing games or works in progress to carry on with it anyway.

Yeti Beast

gizmo wrote: »

That number has only swollen in recent times though with most of their newer studios not open long enough to have delivered their own projects. Homefront 2 is Crytek UKs first solo project, Crytek US are on the recently announced Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age and Crytek Black Sea are on Arena of Fate.

Okay, change "output" to "revenue". Whatever way we look at it, it's bad management by the Yerlis.

gizmo wrote: »

Still though, fingers crossed it works out for the employees.

Agreed.

Smiles35

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

CIG already have the engine and, I would have thought, have probably branched significantly away from Crytek at this stage. This may not be the case, maybe any changes they need are relayed to Crytek and the engine is updated accordingly, but regardless if Crytek disappeared tomorrow their assets would be sold off and someone else would take CryEngine.

The engine doesn't need to be in active development for existing games or works in progress to carry on with it anyway.

Seems your right.

Quote from Erin Roberts - Star Citizen-
''We did an outright buyout of the engine last year and have the source code, so while we hope all the noise about Crytek blows over, as they are great partners and friends to the project, if the worse happened we would be ok, as we’ve already branched the engine and have a large team that is adding features and supporting it every day here at CIG. So even in the worst case scenario we should be fine, but obviously we hope it does not come to that.''

Maximus Alexander

Noblong wrote: »

Seems your right.

Quote from Erin Roberts - Star Citizen-
''We did an outright buyout of the engine last year and have the source code, so while we hope all the noise about Crytek blows over, as they are great partners and friends to the project, if the worse happened we would be ok, as we’ve already branched the engine and have a large team that is adding features and supporting it every day here at CIG. So even in the worst case scenario we should be fine, but obviously we hope it does not come to that.''

Good to know I'm not always talking out my ass!

gizmo

Yeti Beast wrote: »

Okay, change "output" to "revenue". Whatever way we look at it, it's bad management by the Yerlis.

Oh in that case yes, it looks like they've expanded far too quickly and left themselves exposed to, by the looks of it anyway, a pretty significant cash flow problem.

On the licence front, any decent AAA studio will have a proper source licence for the engine so Crytek's woes won't affect them. The only people that are really going to suffer are their near 800 employees.

Varik

gizmo wrote: »

Oh in that case yes, it looks like they've expanded far too quickly and left themselves exposed to, by the looks of it anyway, a pretty significant cash flow problem.

On the licence front, any decent AAA studio will have a proper source licence for the engine so Crytek's woes won't affect them. The only people that are really going to suffer are their near 800 employees.

A good few kickstarter projects seem to be using it, and I'd say there'll be a few of those who will be effected and while larger developers can probably get through a small new team may not have the technical expertiese to work out problems on their own.

calex71

Some sites are reporting a mass walkout by staff today

http://www.xboxachievements.com/news/news-18608-Mass-Walkout-at-Crytek-UK-Threatens-Future-of-Homefront--The-Revolution---Report.html

gizmo

Varik wrote: »

A good few kickstarter projects seem to be using it, and I'd say there'll be a few of those who will be effected and while larger developers can probably get through a small new team may not have the technical expertiese to work out problems on their own.

I was referring more to the previous licencing deal whereby it was either a full Source Licence or simply SDK usage. There may have been a cheaper, indie-based licence focused more on royalties and featuring less support of course but it's hard to tell, given how much that area is wrapped up in NDAs. Either way, the possibly collapse of Crytek would mainly affect those using the SDK option since they'd literally have no way to fix issues that arise during development.

That being said, I'd seriously question the wisdom in using a source-based licence for Crytek if you didn't have a decent level of technical expertise on-staff.

McSasquatch II

"Crytek says new source of capital has secured its long-term future" - PC Gamer

"In recent weeks, there have been repeated reports and rumors relating to financial problems at Crytek. Having already given an update to staff across all our studios, we are now in a position to share more details with members of the press and public.

Internally, we have acknowledged that the flow of information to employees has not been as good as it should have, however we hope you understand that communicating details of our plans publicly has not always been possible.

Like the games industry as a whole, Crytek has been in a transitional phase. Our evolution from a development studio to an Online-Publisher has required us to refocus our strategies. These challenges go along with an increased demand for capital which we have secured.

We can now concentrate on the long term strategic direction of Crytek and our core competencies. We kindly ask for your understanding, that we won't be communicating further details about our developments and progress.

Ultimately, with our organization, capitalization, portfolio and technologies we have now laid the foundations for securing Crytek's future - not just in the short term, but also long term.

Through this period of speculation, we are thankful for the support and encouragement we've received from our community and our partners, and for the contribution all of our staff have made. We remain committed to doing what we are best known for and trying to develop the best interactive experiences and technology possible for everyone who loves gaming.

We are confident that we will be able to share more positive news on Crytek's progress soon."

gizmo

Looks like the story isn't done yet.

Deep Silver parent company buys Homefront from Crytek

From the jist of the article it looks like they've bought both the IP and the studio although the wording makes it pretty hard to figure out.

Either way...

calex71

Glad as Homefront was looking promising, but with all thats gone on I wonder what state it's in

gizmo

They've also announced that they're moving development of Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age from their Austin studio to Frankfurt and allowing the devs located at that studio who aren't involved with CryEngine Support to reapply for positions at their HQ. So basically means they're laying off a large chunk of the team.