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Crytek is in crysis

netBuff

Member
Didn't that one guy respond to some other person on Twitter about this saying everything was fine? He was a Crytek employee. It was in the other topic.

A single Crytek product manager was tweeting some overly specific denial, denying the claim people hadn't been paid for six months. His targeted wording lead me to believe these reports are true.
 

nacimento

Member
Pity, also because it was almost the only succesful company created by German-Turkish people. It doing well might have helped against the common stereotypes.
 

Dalibor68

Banned
Why though? There are lots of mobile devs here, let other countries fight that race to the bottom with tax breaks etc for a couple of thousand jobs in the "classic/AAA" dev space.
Because they're the biggest european country and economy and could do a lot as an "opposition" to the american industry, as in open world games set in europe/germany etc
 
ito-odul-toreni.jpg

um, don't have no idea what this means.

also... the pun is terrible.
 
Sure does. In South-Western Germany (which, besides Bavaria is the economically strongest region), there's virtually no "good" game developer, beside some smaller ones (Black Forest Games, for example).

My guess is, that the automotive industry snags up all good programmers. But that doesn't explain, why there's NOTHING.

If I had the opportunity, I might switch to game development, but not with bad pay and crunch...

Either way, I have a "source" about Crytek as well. But his info is old. However, he said that even some years ago, Crytek always was on the verge of bankruptcy. Not that this is interesting info now, though...

i don't know why people always leave NRW out of the table when talking about germanys strongest enonomical regions.
650bn GDP compared to 550 for bavaria and 450 for BW.
even per capita GDP is just 3k and 4k behind, while we have double the unemployment rate of those two in the south.

NRW is very strong, but have to subsidize weak regions and cities.



on topic of game development: yeah just doesn't exist in germany. we don't even have a information technology industry here. the only big global player known outside of germany or europe is sap. sad but true
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
They should've stopped making games after Crysis 3 and just focus on pushing their own engine to other developers.

That's pretty much what they did (hence why Warface/et. al. are mostly quick-releases) nobody wants it due to lack of documentation.
 

Kthulhu

Member
The Climb – Oculus VR
Robinson: The Journey – PlayStation VR
Arena of Fate (free-to-play) Windows PC

+

Warface

basically VR games + FTP games

What were they thinking? If their in dire straits shouldn't they be making something safer than VR games?
 
What were they thinking? If their in dire straits shouldn't they be making something safer than VR games?

VR Platform holders have been paying developers for exclusivity, so they might have had payments for some parts of the company for some time because of that.
 
Hopefully someone can pick up TimeSplitters and actually do something with it...dont let a creative imaginative franchise just disappear like that.
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
What were they thinking? If their in dire straits shouldn't they be making something safer than VR games?

Well, VR was a good bet for a while, I understand it.
 
Sell Ryse to Microsoft. Crysis Trilogy or original remaster and Warhead for current consoles and modern PC set ups along with new mod tools.

Ryse was three years ago, and even if they sold today and work started on a new one, it would probably be another three years before it was released. I doubt MS would be interested any more.


Uh, some context please?

Amazon should buy them.

Why would Amazon want them? They have their Lumberyard engine, they have a few mid-sized developers under their wing, and I don't think they would need or want a studio the size of Crytek.

Or at least get them re-released on the PSN store. Seems like bad business decisions have landed them in this situation. I hope they turn things around soon.

Yep; they have neglected both Crysis and TimeSplitters, both of which could get them a bit of cash if they re-released them on digital services. Hell; I would buy the shit out of a Crysis Collection; especially if it included Warhead!

I cant believe we are still talking about Crysis lol

a studio known for its FPS couldn't even finish Homefront The Revolution. The Crytek of old died years ago.

To be fair, Homefront 2 never looked good and seems to have been a bit of a damp squib for Deep Silver. Selling it was probably the right decision all things considered.

What I want to know is how did Crytek balloon up to the myriad of studios I keep hearing it had? Black Sea, UK, Ukraine, Hungary, even a fucking USA branch. Lmao there's also Korea and China branches!

Jesus it's like they just tried to expand without thinking of the consequences of rapidly adding a few hundred employees into the fold.

Yeah, they expanded very rapidly and had over 900 employees at one point. It has been a very poorly managed company overall, which is a shame as their first couple of games were outstanding. First they chased the super high-end PC user, then they chased the console-ified COD market, and then they chased the F2P market, and then they chased the VR market. It's hard to see how just focusing on deliver a proper sequel to Crysis wouldn't have been a better strategy.
 

Xiao Hu

Member
on topic of game development: yeah just doesn't exist in germany. we don't even have a information technology industry here. the only big global player known outside of germany or europe is sap. sad but true

Because #Neuland and shit. It's baffling that despite all the innovative power in Europe, and specifically in Germany, the most prominent 'players' on the internet are yet another Rocket Internet start-up or an online shop with a computer generated name and zero profile. At least France is home to Ubisoft :S
 
Because they're the biggest european country and economy and could do a lot as an "opposition" to the american industry, as in open world games set in europe/germany etc
If AAA studios want to invest, sure why not. The post was insinuating "Germany" should do sth about it (eg incentives such as tax breaks etc, basically subsidies). To what i'd say nope.

on topic of game development: yeah just doesn't exist in germany. we don't even have a information technology industry here. the only big global player known outside of germany or europe is sap. sad but true
Goodgames, Bigpoint, Gameforge etc. Crytek isnt even the biggest dev, they are just one of the few (the only one?) in the AAA space.
 

Patrick S.

Banned
"Insolvenzverschleppung" (delaying filing for insolvency) is a serious crime in Germany. This will get them sooner or later.

In Germany, after you have been owed your wages for an overly long period, which isn't set in stone but usually courts accept a period of two months without pay, and after demanding what is owed to you in writing and giving them an adequate deadline to pay you, you can quit the company without losing any of your unemployment payments (normally, if it's you who quits, you lose your right to get your unemployment payment).

If the company files for insolvency, you can then just go to the employment office and they will pay you whatever wages you are owed and then get it back from the company in question. You do still have to fight with the insolvency administrator for owed vacation and overtime, don't think you have very good chances with that, though.

I had to go through that, and it sucks.
 

jetsetrez

Member
I just don't understand how you can think it is a rational decision to make VR and F2P games, and open satellite studios all over the world, if you are in any way financially unstable. It just baffles my mind how stupid and irrational that logic seems, from an outside perspective.

I really don't understand how they didn't just stick to making one technology-pushing, incredibly high production FPS, and getting serious on the engine licensing business. Their engine produces results as good as if not better than Unreal. Epic just destroyed them by actually taking their engine business seriously. Crytek could've easily been the European equivalent to Epic. Instead, Amazon will take their engine and actually make it useful, and it will be the last remnants of Crytek, if Amazon doesn't want to buy their core talent and own the engine outright.
 
What I want to know is how did Crytek balloon up to the myriad of studios I keep hearing it had? Black Sea, UK, Ukraine, Hungary, even a fucking USA branch. Lmao there's also Korea and China branches!

Jesus it's like they just tried to expand without thinking of the consequences of rapidly adding a few hundred employees into the fold.

Yeah, they expanded very rapidly and had over 900 employees at one point. It has been a very poorly managed company overall, which is a shame as their first couple of games were outstanding. First they chased the super high-end PC user, then they chased the console-ified COD market, and then they chased the F2P market, and then they chased the VR market. It's hard to see how just focusing on deliver a proper sequel to Crysis wouldn't have been a better strategy.

Wow what a terribly managed firm.
It's been non stop bad news since Crysis 3 shipped.

If they had better leaders, didn't chase trends like mad and managed their resources better, they could have become a modern day Bethesda or Deep Silver.

With their own properties+partner studios and pushed by powerful technology, Crytek could've been a corner stone of modern gaming.

Now there will be vultures circling for their IP soon enough.
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
OléGunner;226512821 said:
Now there will be vultures circling for their IP soon enough.
Got a feeling that might have been the actual plan since a good while ago. Selling the brand legacy would probably be a much better business these days than to continue it.
 

Havel

Member
All the main tech guys at Crytek are getting snagged by Cloud Imperium Games, so at least some employees will be able to find new jobs if anything terrible happens.
 

Jackpot

Banned
If the company files for insolvency, you can then just go to the employment office and they will pay you whatever wages you are owed and then get it back from the company in question. You do still have to fight with the insolvency administrator for owed vacation and overtime, don't think you have very good chances with that, though.

That's good to know.
 

orava

Member
Didn't CIG hire a lot of their (former) employees for star citizen? Crytek was involved in their procedural planet generation stuff.

One of their lead engineers and all around tech wizard, Tiago Souza, went to id and is now their lead rendering programmer.
 

dr_rus

Member
The fact that they are no capitalizing on crysis remaaster and crysis 2 and 3 remake is bafflng.

Not really as Crysis was funded by EA so it's most likely up to them to greenlight any remasters and remakes on it - and with EA not being interested in Crysis 4 the chance for this to happen is slim.
 

m_dorian

Member
I hope those employees get their money. I have been at the same spot for months (other trade not gaming) and i know exactly how these people feel.
It is hard not to get paid for your hard work, it seems harder when it is during holidays.

Stay strong people.
 

Floody

Member
Seems like it's too late for them to save themselves this time, hope those affect land on their feet. Guess this'll be the final nail in the TimeSplitters coffin too, which would be such a waste, if there ever was a time for it to come back now would be perfect, could easily see it working as a "Hero Shooter" and cutting itself out a nice playerbase if it's good.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
It seems like they're always waiting for the next rescue plan. This isn't the first time this has happened and if they survive this bout of serious issues its only a matter of time till the next time something like this happens. The company seems to have some incredibly serious and deep running issues that just cause the same problems to happen over and over again.
 

desu

Member
Who the hell works without being payed? That in itself is crazy.

Well if other AAA game studious would be around, I am pretty sure more people would quit and just go there. But there aren't really many job opportunities for those people in that area and if you have family obligations it just gets harder so just move out of the country on a whim as well.

Additionally Germany has unemployment benefits if they lay you off, however if you quit on your own and don't find a job it's likely that you will face penalties on those benefits.

Crytek's mismanagement (the infamous Yerli) has been a topic for years now. I remember the headlines from around 2014 when they their last? or just another crisis. People weren't getting paid for months but their bosses rolled in with their Ferraris.

Crytek has been a sinking ship for years, hope everyone can get out there as fast and secure as possible.
 

LowSignal

Member
After the first time Crytek stopped paying it's employees I would have been looking for a new job. My heart goes out to the people in what sounds like a bad situation, I hope everything works out.
 
It seems like they're always waiting for the next rescue plan. This isn't the first time this has happened and if they survive this bout of serious issues its only a matter of time till the next time something like this happens. The company seems to have some incredibly serious and deep running issues that just cause the same problems to happen over and over again.

Yeah, but at this point they're basically out of bargaining chips. I think a publisher like Sony or Take Two might have some interest in Crysis (I would just reboot and go back to the style of the first game) but other than that unless someone wanted to buy CryEngine I don't think they have much to offer.
 

Arttemis

Member
I thought this company had stepped away from games development and instead focused on government contracts and engine creation?
 

KKRT00

Member
Makes me sad to read this as l really like their games and tech.

This :/

Its their fault to expand too so many studios.
I also do not get it why Crysis Trilogy Remaster was not a think on the start of this gen, seems like no brainer. Maybe EA's policy "no to remasteres" hurt the chance of it being a thing.
 

PlayerOne

Banned
That's what happens when the mantra of the company is "Look at all these grafx our games can do!"

They piggy-backed off of their Crysis 1 fame. That's about it, really. All their other games were mediocre at best.
 
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