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Cevat Yerli seems indifferent towards staff pay [Eurogamer article]

daninthemix

daninthemix

Member
Interesting article regarding Crytek's woes. What strikes me most is how he seems to have long ascended to the place of cloud cuckoo land where the concept of receiving your wages on time is apparenty some nicety, rather than absolutely critical. I also despise how he somehow equates foregoing wages with loyalty to the company.

Some people live in very tight financial planning. That's their own privacy. They can do whatever they want.
Click to expand...
 
B

BGMNTS

Member
' I have never ever used these words before. This is complete bullshit. I would never ever say to somebody, hey guys, you're lucky you got paid. What we have communicated to the team is, we have two choices: either we let people go immediately and pay the remainder, or we can't pay you right now and we stick together. We chose - for the team itself - for this reason not to downsize. And the majority of the team has applauded this, rather than critique. We would have never ever said, hey guys, you are lucky you get paid. If you were arrogant like that you wouldn't be in this business for 15 years now. And people would not be loyal to us and sticking with this, like the majority of Crytek is right now.'

Seems reasonable.
 
D

DoctorPayne

Banned
Some people were very impatient and got angry at the smallest delay. Also, there was a critique of us not being proactive in communication, which we don't understand, because we had been frequently in the UK as well as every other studio, talking about potentially rough times. And we had even shared with people how they should maybe work with different banks at a personal level to prepare. Or, if not, they could make a choice to resign and look for other jobs.

But our priority was to not downsize the company. Our priority was to not let anybody lose their jobs at that point. Because if a company gets into a difficult situation and you know the outcome is going to be bad, you have the choice to downsize everything. But we haven't done that because we wanted to keep everybody tied together as a team.

I was surprised and upset a little bit that the intention of us keeping together everybody upset a few of them. But I understand that situation. Some people live in very tight financial planning. That's their own privacy. They can do whatever they want. Those guys, when they get under pressure it can become emotional. We tried to individually help out. Like if somebody gets in trouble they can talk to us directly so they don't get under pressure. We tried whatever we could do. But you can't make it right for everybody.
Click to expand...

Yeah, fuck this dude.
 
digoutyoursoul

digoutyoursoul

Member
On Ryse 2

"We are not 100 per cent happy with Xbox One sales right now."

Maybe if there is a sequel, it will launch on Xbox, PS4 and PC day one
 
K

KJRS_1993

Member
He sounds like an absolute jerk.
People have every right to be pissed off at you if they do the work and you don't pay them on time.
They don't wake up early and stay until late out of loyalty to your stupid company. They do it cause they've got mouths to feed.

Screw this chump.
 
S

SamVonSam

Neo Member
Some people live in very tight financial planning. That's their own privacy. They can do whatever they want
Click to expand...

You mean like Crytek?

Also notice how he threw the management of Crytek Austin under the bus.

This was a slightly different story. A team always hinges on leadership. There were two problems. One, we need to have strong leadership in place for every studio. Just around the time we finalised the deal that brought us back to where we needed to go, there was a discussion with the studio heads about what would be the situation at the studio. We came to an agreement this wouldn't make sense for Austin because of the cost factor, the burn rates and the development costs are high in Austin compared to what we have within Europe.
Click to expand...
 
Breakfast at Noon

Breakfast at Noon

Member
As someone who runs a company, this is not how you look after your staff on even a bog standard setting.
makes our company look like Google.
 
S

Sodding_Gamer

Member
I responded in the comments on the article about this twat.

Personally putting all your cards into free-to-play which has an uncertain future is the single most retarded thing I have seen a company do since Xbox One's original vision.

If you want to dabble into a new market then you do it as a side project until it has some solid ground. Having a clear vision to completely disregard retail gaming is absolutely ludicrous.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
And we had even shared with people how they should maybe work with different banks at a personal level to prepare.
Click to expand...

Was he advising his employees to take out personal loans for the duration he didnt/couldnt pay them? Thats a level of scumbag thats honestly astonishing and one would assume punishable by law somehow.
 
B

BigAl1992

Member
I's an interesting interview from Eurogamer. They really piled the pressure on this geezer. His attitude as a whole is just out-of-touch to the rest of the staff, who quite clearly have a right to know what the hell is going on in there.
 
SJRB

SJRB

Gold Member
Rather twisted sense of reality. But that's nothing new, he has a track record of saying weird things.

But this stuff.. Getting paid for the job you perform is the most basic principle of employment, the way he talks about it is bizarre.
 
G

GameAddict411

Member
What a fucking idiot, his employees actually have lives, children, expenses to pay. Its not a luxury to have your paycheck on time. They're not a bunch of whiny kids. I was actually sad for crytek for them to close down but after this I don't give a single fuck about him or his company.
 
G

Guymelef

Member
digoutyoursoul said:
On Ryse 2

"We are not 100 per cent happy with Xbox One sales right now."

Maybe if there is a sequel, it will launch on Xbox, PS4 and PC day one
Click to expand...

"Any sequel to Ryse would have to wait until consoles sales across the board are up, according to Yerli. “For Ryse 2, we aren’t saying it’s cancelled. It’s our IP. It just has to wait for the right timing. And the right timing means higher installed base across next-gen,” he added."
 
C

CecilRousso

Member
Some arrogant answers, but I think that he at least deserves some credits for actually answering all those questions, and with such lengthy answers. That was some pretty tough questions.

It does however seem like a company chasing trends, and chasing A LOT of them, and that will most likely end in tears. With Crysis 1 they were the leaders, but now they seem like their looking for what others do, and following them, always being one step behind.

Nothing they're working on interests me as a gamer, but it sure will be interesting to follow them as a company and see how it turns out, even though I right now think that they will fail.
 
Breakfast at Noon

Breakfast at Noon

Member
Guymelef said:
"Any sequel to Ryse would have to wait until consoles sales across the board are up, according to Yerli. “For Ryse 2, we aren’t saying it’s cancelled. It’s our IP. It just has to wait for the right timing. And the right timing means higher installed base across next-gen,” he added."
Click to expand...

Backed the wrong horse. Ryse would of appealed more to PS players.
 
A

Armaly

Member
Does this remind anyone else of that side story in Yakuza 4 where the guy is too proud to downsize so
he just lets his company go bankrupt?
 
R

renitou

Member
1-15--guillotine.jpg
 
M

MadGear

Member
fastballspecial said:
Is this dude for real? He's on another fucking level of stupidity.
Click to expand...

Well yeah, guess he turned a bit mad after he nearly sunk the ship that is called Crytek.
I wish there was a future for Crytek without the Yerli Brothers. As it seems they have lost control over the company for quite some time now antagonizing themselves towards their employees wont really help them at all.
 
M

Masquerader

Member
So Cevat and Crytek in general is literally this:

TrashoftheTitans.jpg


Who can clean the frame rate?
I don't mind at all!
Who can make a nanosuit faster than them all?
The Crytek Man can!
Oh, the Crytek Man can!

And it's all fine and dandy, until the question of money comes to mind.
 
W

wrowa

Member
I understand that, but your staff see that you guys have done well out of the business while they struggle because they're not getting paid.

Cevat Yerli: We didn't get paid, too.
Click to expand...

What a jerk. You are a millionaire, you are the founder of the company. You are responsible for the fate of the company, so saying "I didn't get paid too" is not an argument - especially not when you have enough money on your bank account to survive without.

However, most of the people who you're employing don't have that kind of luxury. They need their damn money in order to pay their bills.
 
B

BGMNTS

Member
Masquerader said:
So Cevat and Crytek in general is literally this:

TrashoftheTitans.jpg


Who can clean the frame rate?
I don't mind at all!
Who can make a nanosuit faster than them all?
The Crytek Man can!
Oh, the Crytek Man can!

And it's all fine and dandy, until the question of money comes to mind.
Click to expand...

I giggled.
 
Z

zhao3gold

Banned
digoutyoursoul said:
On Ryse 2

"We are not 100 per cent happy with Xbox One sales right now."

Maybe if there is a sequel, it will launch on Xbox, PS4 and PC day one
Click to expand...

I think MS will try to make it exclusive or at least time-exclusive on X1 (console wise) if Phil sees it is worthy to do it.

Personally, I want to have Ryse 2 and I don't care if it will be launched on all platforms. I just want to have the game coming out.
 
A

Auto-Reply

Member
Guymelef said:
"Any sequel to Ryse would have to wait until consoles sales across the board are up, according to Yerli. “For Ryse 2, we aren’t saying it’s cancelled. It’s our IP. It just has to wait for the right timing. And the right timing means higher installed base across next-gen,” he added."
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how much of a seller it could become.... Ryse 1 does not have the best reputation.
 
C

CHC

Member
Yeah bosses who try to spin their companies as "families" when if suits them are completely toxic. Hell, I don't mind being warm and friendly at work, but you realize that no company is a "family" the first time your ass gets fired from one.

Sorry, but work is cold and clean cut: do your job, get paid. This guy is a typical fucking spin doctor.
 
F

feint_ruled

Member
Pie and Beans said:
Was he advising his employees to take out personal loans for the duration he didnt/couldnt pay them? Thats a level of scumbag thats honestly astonishing and one would assume punishable by law somehow.
Click to expand...

I think he was suggesting his employees should go to the bank with their tiny violin and basically beg them for a mortgage or loan payment holiday. Which you would probably get, but at a detriment to your future credit rating. He makes it sound like a formality. "Oh yeah, just sort something out with the bank"
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
ManThatYouFear said:
Shit game aside, the style of gameplay is more suited to people who buy PS consoles.
Click to expand...

Character action? GoW is huge, but it's a special series. Ryse is closer to something like Heavenly Sword. That only broke even according to Ninja Theory. Plus Ryse on the PS4 wouldn't have been appealing to Crytek because Sony would've wanted the IP in exchange for funding its development, and they don't seem to want to give it up.
 
O

Oersted

Member
ManThatYouFear said:
Shit game aside, the style of gameplay is more suited to people who buy PS consoles.
Click to expand...

Your posts are. .. weird.

CHC said:
Yeah bosses who try to spin their companies as "families" when if suits them are completely toxic. Hell, I don't mind being warm and friendly at work, but you realize that no company is a "family" the first time your ass gets fired from one.

Sorry, but work is cold and clean cut: do your job, get paid. This guy is a typical fucking spin doctor.
Click to expand...

Yep.

feint_ruled said:
I think he was suggesting his employees should go to the bank with their tiny violin and basically beg them for a mortgage or loan payment holiday. Which you would probably get, but at a detriment to your future credit rating. He makes it sound like a formality. "Oh yeah, just sort something out with the bank"
Click to expand...

Its their own privacy, so to speak.
 
S

shacklesmcgee

Member
This guy is scum the more I read about him. Crytek will not last long until this dumbass, and his brothers from what j hear, are booted out the door with no damn severance package. I'm sure he'd rather tank the company and cash out than quit, and by golly he is doing a great job if so!
 
F

fabricated backlash

Member
Guymelef said:
"Any sequel to Ryse would have to wait until consoles sales across the board are up, according to Yerli. “For Ryse 2, we aren’t saying it’s cancelled. It’s our IP. It just has to wait for the right timing. And the right timing means higher installed base across next-gen,” he added."
Click to expand...

I've heard this line of reasoning too often when devs were basically saying: No we're not going to develop for WiiU.
 
P

Percy

Banned
Sorry Cervantes, but paying your employees on time isn't like the gameplay in your games... it's not optional.
 
M

MadGear

Member
Auto-Reply said:
I'm not sure how much of a seller it could become.... Ryse 1 does not have the best reputation.
Click to expand...

Well at least they have Homefront whose reputation is ... OK nevermind, at least they have Crysis ... .
I think Crytek needs a new IP pretty bad. With all their current games they have some bad reputation to overcome, wouldn't call that an ideal position.
 
B

BGMNTS

Member
CHC said:
Yeah bosses who try to spin their companies as "families" when if suits them are completely toxic. Hell, I don't mind being warm and friendly at work, but you realize that no company is a "family" the first time your ass gets fired from one.

Sorry, but work is cold and clean cut: do your job, get paid. This guy is a typical fucking spin doctor.
Click to expand...

I've worked at companies where teams form very close bonds and are very close friends. Don't know if they'd work for free though.
 
B

Bony Manifesto

Member
BGMNTS said:
' I have never ever used these words before. This is complete bullshit. I would never ever say to somebody, hey guys, you're lucky you got paid. What we have communicated to the team is, we have two choices: either we let people go immediately and pay the remainder, or we can't pay you right now and we stick together. We chose - for the team itself - for this reason not to downsize. And the majority of the team has applauded this, rather than critique. We would have never ever said, hey guys, you are lucky you get paid. If you were arrogant like that you wouldn't be in this business for 15 years now. And people would not be loyal to us and sticking with this, like the majority of Crytek is right now.'

Seems reasonable.
Click to expand...

Let's not kid ourselves that delaying the payment of wages served anyone except the owners of Crytek. We know now that they were in negotiations with Koch to sell the Homefront IP and UK studio, so they were just holding on until that went through and the payroll would no longer be their concern. If the studio had collapsed before then, Crytek would have got only a relative pittance from Koch for Homefront (if they were even still interested).

Plus, the whole speech about "sticking together" rings totally hollow when you look at how they treated their Austin studio, which was to downsize first, ask questions later.
 
S

Saty

Member
That's a poor title. Yerli explains the whole situation, read the whole of the interview.

--
Some interesting quotes:
In order for the company to transition, we still had to take into account the retail market in the meantime. We couldn't just go 100 per cent full blown into free-to-play immediately.

So in a sense we used these titles to transition out of these markets. And the transitioning out is still not finished. We're still committed to retail this year and some of it will be next year. You'll hear of that soon. But the majority of our game launches this year are already games as a service, and will be more and more so in the coming years
Click to expand...
I guess he's referring to Ryse PC, but there's also a a retail title for next year. Wonder what it could be.

launching Warface, Arena of Fate and Hunt within the next 12 months, those three games need full attention for us. Homefront would have taken a lot of attention from top down of the company across Frankfurt, UK and many more. That kind of commitment would have come at the price of focus towards the other gamer services
Click to expand...

When the studio was founded did you not realise the cost of development in Austin would be high?

Cevat Yerli: To be honest, what we had forecast for cost and what we accrued was much higher. The forecast we received back then and the reality were off by a high margin.
Click to expand...

Has Crytek been bought or is it an investment?

Cevat Yerli: It's not an investment and Crytek has not been bought. It's revenue. It's purely revenue.

It's a revenue deal?

Cevat Yerli: Yeah.
Click to expand...


But you still needed to offload Homefront and Crytek UK.

Cevat Yerli: No. We didn't need to do this. We didn't need to downsize our company. Maybe this didn't come across. We didn't need to sell Homefront. That deal would have secured Crytek's future even if it would have added another 100 people on top of where we were before we sold Homefront or changed Austin's direction. It is an optimisation stage that we said we should do strategically right now in order to focus short term our mindset on the launch of Warface, Arena of Fate and Hunt. It wasn't a pure commercial deal. It was a strategic deal for focus. We didn't need to sell Homefront or the UK office.
Click to expand...

-

Ryse is in the forecast of what Microsoft has always shared with us, and we didn't expect more than that

There were rumours saying, hey, there were penalties if you don't release. This was all bullshit. We had agreed with Microsoft to put it out on time. In fact, we had conversations from Microsoft to us, telling us, guys, do you want to push out the game? We wouldn't be offended by that. But when we let the team choose - not the management - when we asked, guys, do you want to try to get it done by Christmas or do you want to take a few more months time, unanimously they team decided to go for the launch window of a console because that's something emotional to be a part of.
Click to expand...

There is never a not troubled development. Let's be realistic. Far Cry was troubled. Crysis was troubled. Every game that wants to say it's a high quality product will have challenges that are unpredictable towards the last nine months of the project. This is the reality. And as a launch title the trouble comes from the fact that there are - there are NDA-related materials I can't talk about - but the platform is being built at the same time we are building the game.

So, was it challenging? Definitely Ryse was one of the most challenging I have been involved in. And I have been involved from Far Cry forwards. It was a very tight development and definitely had its troubles. But are looking back at is a proud achievement. That's what matters at the end of the day.
Click to expand...

About a potential Ryse 2:
Does it have to be an Xbox exclusive, or can you release it on PlayStation? Can you find another publisher, or does Microsoft have to publish it?

Cevat Yerli: No. We can do whatever we want with it with whoever we want.
Click to expand...

Again, much more in the full article. Great interview.
 
SerTapTap

SerTapTap

Member
fabricated backlash said:
I've heard this line of reasoning too often when devs were basically saying: No we're not going to develop for WiiU.
Click to expand...

Ryse is not the sort of game they'd bother putting on Wii U anymore than they'd try to port Crysis to Wii. And that's ignoring a lethal combination of Power PC and poor installbase that make it an unappealing idea regardless of graphical power (which is very often a Crytek selling point).

ManThatYouFear said:
it's not a shooter or racer, sorry but that is all that sells on xbox.

Mind you.. that's all that sells :'(
Click to expand...

Hey now...sports sell too
 
M

MrNyarlathotep

Banned
Pie and Beans said:
Was he advising his employees to take out personal loans for the duration he didnt/couldnt pay them? Thats a level of scumbag thats honestly astonishing and one would assume punishable by law somehow.
Click to expand...

The less pitchforks and torches jump-to-conclusion would be to tell employees to speak to their banks about an overdraft.
 
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