Star Citizen’s Erin Roberts comments on rumoured Crytek troubles

Star Citizen’s Erin Roberts comments on rumoured Crytek troubles

Earlier this week German Magazine Gamestar reported that Crytek were in financial trouble but how would that impact Star Citizen which uses CryEngine 3?

Cloud Imperium’s Eric Roberts, who is working out of their Manchester based studio on the single player Sqaudron 42, responded to a query as to whether Crytek troubles would impact Star Citizen’s development.

“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 news there for anyone concerned about possible problems at Crytek having an impact on Star Citizen’s or Entropia Universe development now and in the future.

Crysis in Crytek 2

So what realy hapens in Crytek happens in every other company in the game industry:

There is absolutely no advocacy for developers as the supply of naive, fresh out of university, 20-somethings is quick to fill whatever ranks are depleted by burned-out veterans with actual experience.

This is a problem that far transcends one studio and is a cancer killing the industry. No one enters into a game developer role expecting to retire at a studio, let alone stick around for more than a few years (at best). You want a family, or even a long-term relationship? Good luck.

Crytek's "bureaucratic environment" is born from the rampant cronyism that places ill-equipped managers into roles they have no business being in while also artificially promoting allied cronies with no experience. I can count several instances where I've witnessed the people that actually made positive contributions losing their jobs in layoff rounds as the dead weight remains unaffected due to their immunity cards gleaned from corporate BS.

This lack of focus on talent retention is why studios collapse: inept management/leadership and poor planning lords over the development process while the few "nerds" are surrounded by the "jock" majorities who only keep their positions because of political maneuvering. The result is a small band of overworked actual workers that end up producing sub-par (and bug-ridden) products while the majority of the team posts photos of their latest alcoholic beverages to Facebook. The ensuing layoffs end up culling the actual workers even further while the parasitic cronies cling for dear life (and/or establish additional social "networks" in anticipation of golden-parachute deployment as the eventual studio closure occurs).

There is absolutely NO reason for unpaid labor in this day and age but, because the supply of workers far exceeds their demand, unscrupulous and predatory employers can afford to continually play their crony-collection games while millions of game developers are forced into an itinerant lifestyle that would make an army brat's childhood look stable.

I really hope a reform comes to this industry because, the last decade of my life has really made me question why I even bother anymore: game design doesn't really exist these days anyways —in mobile development, you're more of a statistician or economist than an actual game designer and AAA game development is so risk-adverse that it's more about copying already existing systems and features than actually designing new ones or refining existing conventions.

Crytek's anti-employee practices are just par for the course and this really needs to stop if this industry ever hopes to deviate from the mediocrity train it's riding toward a certain New Mexican landfill.

CryTek almost Bankrupt

CryTek is the company that made and owns CryEngine. And Entropia Universe uses CryEngine for game engine. I don't know what will happen with Entropia Universe if CryTek Goes bankrupt.

According to Gamestar, the adoption of CRYENGINE is not going well and the word-of-mouth at GDC was negative. Strangely enough, CRYENGINE is currently one of the most optimized engines, so Crytek should really look into its subscription prices otherwise this amazing engine may never be used by other triple-A developers.

Not only that, but Gamestar claims that the development of Ryse was catastrophic for the studio. Just mere months before its release, the game was severely behind and Crytek was able to complete it with additional manpower. And from what we’ve seen thus far, Ryse did not sell as well as Crytek hoped (especially for a console exclusive).

Things are definitely not looking good for Crytek and while Avni Yerli claimed that a cash injection for the company is finally imminent (with a contract to be signed really soon), a lot of big publishers are waiting for a possible bankrupt in order to sign the talent and shop the IPs from Crytek.

For what is worth, Wargaming is listed as a possible buyer of Crytek. If Wargaming does buys Crytek, we can kiss goodbye to all of the studio’s single-player games (as Wargaming is best known for its Free-To-Play games). In short, this may be the end of the Crytek we knew.

But what has happened and the team is facing this major financial issues? According to Yerli, there were “dramatized rumors” from disgruntled ex-employers, something that obviously had a negative impact to Crytek’s public image. Additionally, Crytek has more than 800 employees (a number so huge that explains the company’s possible financial issues). Moreover, Gamestar reported that salaries were paid late and leading employees were sending applications to other studios at home and abroad. And if that wasn’t enough, Warface was only successful in Russia and Crytek’s G-face platform was a big flop.

In short, Crytek is currently in deep trouble and we don’t know whether the studio will be able to recover. And yes, PC gamers can now say to Crytek “We told you so, you had to keep Crysis exclusive to the PC and keep pushing the graphical boundaries.”

• Information is from a half dozen independent sources, according to Yerli "dramatized rumors" from disgruntled ex-employers 
• Salaries are paid late and leading employees are sending applications to other studios at home and abroad 
• Warface doesn't work outside of Russia, other attempts at F2P were unsuccessful 
• G-face was a flop
• The development of Ryse was catastrophic: mere months before release, the title was severely behind, only with additional manpower they were able to finish it
• Disagreements with MS over the ownership of Ryse's IP could be a red flag for other publishers
• Adoption of CryEngine not going as planned, word-of-mouth at GDC was negative
• Too many employees, burn-rate too high (3-5 M euro).
• "The vultures are already circling," says a leading representative for a major publisher.
• Big publishers are not interested in buying outright,would rather wait for bankruptcy, sign the talent and shop the IPs. 
• Belarusian Free2Play giant Wargaming is listed as a possible buyer of Crytek
• Avni Yerli says a cash injection for the company is finally imminent. The contract has not been signed yet, but is as good as in the bag. "It's not all great. Our transition to Free2Play studio was not painless. But that is now behind us, "he concludes.

• Crytek got financial problems
• there are working over 800 employees
• Microsoft and Crytek talked about Ryse 2, but yet it is not in development, because microsoft wants the trademark and crytek don't want to give it up
• Reasons for the problems: Free-2-Play & Cryengine not work as well as expected, crysis 3 and ryse aren't big sellers etc.
• they got saved for now but maybe not forever

Quick map I made with CryEngine 3 SDK

I was playing with CryEngine 3 SDK and for few minutes I made a quick map. It looks easy to make it because everything is premade by CryTek and I just place it on the map. CryEngine 3 SDK is free of charge if you use it for non-commercial purposes. You can use CryEngine 3 for free in educational facilities, even if you are charging tuition. And if you want to make a game and make money with it you will have to pay 20% of your revenue to Crytek.