You have to be pretty stupid to work without payAccording to this Reddit post, Crytek staff are still not being paid.
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Crytek is in crysis
- Thread starter netBuff
- Start date
Agnostic Priest
Member
Ryse is a great game in my opinion. Yeah it had flaws but they could have been corrected in a sequel which could have been absolutely amazing.
JigglesBunny
Banned
This is seriously a terrific idea.
Like you said, Microsoft can buy the lot, secure TimeSplitters, Crysis and Ryse, CryEngine becomes more readily available tech for Microsoft's in house development teams and Crytek gets to close its doors after paying off the debt owed to the employees.
I doubt it will happen this way unfortunately since it seems like Crytek is determined to sink their ships in spectacular, Titanic-like fashion, but it would be the preferred outcome of what's sure to be an eventual studio closure.
Futurematic
Member
Yeah I miss unions and labour laws too.
dr_rus
Member
There isn't a bunch of studios in Crytek anymore, they closed off or sold all but the central Frankfurt one and a Kiev studio which is working on Warface.
Ragnar Blackmane
Member
Option 3: Because the employees are like cornered rats on a shinking ship far out at sea. Crytek is pretty much the only AAA developer in Germany, the rest of the studios here are small AA studios or tiny simulator/mobile dev teams I won't even bother to list. Just as an indication: Piranha Bytes has 28 employees, Daedalic 148, Yager (at least back in 2005) 130. It's unknown how big Shin'en is, but can't be more the latter two, likely less and unlike Crytek they pretty much only develop for Nintendo systems. Crytek Frankfurt alone has 390 employees (at least back in december before they started firing non-deveoping staff like the marketing and publishing teams).
Those AA studios are small and can't afford picking up new staff (at least more than you can count on two hands). So if Cloud Empire doesn't pick them up for their German Foundry 42 Studio (and it's unknown how many they would actually be willing to hire, probably not too many because it's a small engine development branch office), most of them won't be able to get a new job because there are none in Germany and the games industry in Austria and Switzerland is even smaller. So they either go to a completely different country (good luck with family and children, if you bought a house or language barrier is an issue and that's just Europe, not even to get started on the much lower pay in Eastern European studios and the working/immigration/job security conditions in the US). That or change their profession and hope for the best, not easy considering how highly professional experience in a certain field is valued in Germany and how big the impact of that is on whether you get hired or not.
That said I think it's definitely your first and likely your second point as well, though I have no idea what projects they still have going on now that they sold Warface off. Maybe some VR titles? Can't be much either if they plan to fire their VR head this month.
To be fair Nordic is paying for the development of several new games for lesser known IPs that were dead in the water two years ago like Aquanox, The Guild, Spellforce or Darksiders (the former three being decade old german JoWood IPs) in addition to several remasters, so they are at least doing something with their IP catalogue. At least more than most AAA publishers are doing with their old, well-loved IPs from the PS1 or PS2 era while Nordic is funding new games for rather risky and unknown IPs, something I find commendable. Deep Silver would do absolutely nothing with the IPs though as most other publishers (with the exception of Crysis and maybe Ryse), agreed.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Cry Engine was the most promising engine lasg gen, wbat happened?
1) They haven't had a hit game in a decade. Everything has been downhill since the first Crysis.
2) They expanded far too fast. I read that before the first time they imploded (2014?) they had 900 employees across a ton of studios. That's fucking ridiculous for an independent studio unless you've got a goddamn goldmine revenue stream like Clash of Clans, League of Legends or GOG.
3) They were outmanoeuvred in the engine market by both Unity and Unreal. I believe Unity is/was entirely free to use, while UE is free and you only pay royalties once the game releases. CryEngine had a small monthly fee with no royalties as I recall, but for indie devs that was obviously not attractive enough. I believe the support and documentation for UE is also excellent (something Epic have really stepped up in the last few years), while it's inadequate for CryEngine.
4) The Yerli brothers are terrible at running a company. This happened in 2014, and they were bailed out only by selling the source code for CryEngine to Amazon (so, basically the company's most valuable asset). This also happened in 2016 and I've no idea what the outcome was, and now it's happening again. They've learnt nothing.
Probably other stuff too. Basically, it's been a horribly managed company for years.
I don't know, but at the point when a company is flirting with bankruptcy for the third time in as many years some kind of government agency should step in, order the business to pay its employees and then shut the company down. If they can't reliably pay their members of staff then they should not be allowed to have employees.
There were rumours they'd received funding from the Turkish government and were supposed to be moving the offices to Istanbul, but nothing seemed to come of it.
At this point the writing is on the wall, and MS is probably better waiting for Crytek to implode then buying the IP for a few hundred thousand and getting a much more reliable dev to work on it, like Ninja Theory.
Microsoft declined to buy Crytek many years ago as they didn't see the value in having two sci-fi FPS brands. I see it even less likely happening today.
On the other hand, I think a publisher like Take Two, Sony or Square Enix who don't have a major in-house FPS would do well to pick up Crysis, and maybe hire a team from Crytek Hamburg (not buying the studio outright, but setting up another studio in the city and poaching staff) to develop it. Keep the Yerlis well away from the new studio though.
Some people don't have a choice, as if they leave before a certain amount of time has passed they're not entitled to anything. Or they cannot find a comparable job.
They sold Amazon a licence (not sure if it actually was a licence legally speaking but sth along those lines) to use CryEngine as a basis for their own Lumberyard engine which they got a good deal of money for. But I think it's already been like two years or so since then and they apparently haven't used that Amazon money very wisely.
Triggerhappytel
Member
In case anyone missed it, Crytek Black Sea in Bulgaria were just sold to Sega and rebranded as Creative Assembly Sofia. According to the following link, it houses 60 staff.
http://venturebeat.com/2017/03/07/c...n-bulgaria-to-sega-and-the-creative-assembly/
http://venturebeat.com/2017/03/07/c...n-bulgaria-to-sega-and-the-creative-assembly/
Eh... good employers shouldn't be discriminating on that basis.
Steverulez
Member
MS have no use for CryEngine and all that comes with it, the support etc, the acquisition would kill whats left of it straight away. They use UE4 for every project that isnt an in-house engine (Halo/Forza) or Unity and I cant see them switching from that considering how close they are to Epic.
Also, a bunch of new studios... do they have to have things MS want? Would they want Hunt? Do they want Arena of Fate? I doubt they have any need for all those VR devs either.
Given MS have serious issues running first-party, all they really want is the Ryse IP, cant see them wanting anything else given everything else that would come with it, at best they might try to extract Ryse and a dev team for that but even that is probably a stretch.
Not publicly at least. But even so, their chest of IP's isn't very deep. Of any worth they have what, Crysis, Ryse and Time Splitters? And none of these seem like they would sell for all that much.
The influx of cash from Sega's acquisition of Crytek Black Sea will keep things chugging along for a while longer.
Triggerhappytel
Member
I'm repeating myself in this topic, but I still think a publisher like Take Two, Sony or Square Enix would do well to buy the Crysis IP and hire a bunch of Crytek staff to form a different studio and reboot the series. The first game was so great and only had a few issues, and I think a remake could be superb and completely rejuvenate the series.
Triggerhappytel
Member
I think your keyboard's broken.
Eolz
Member
Thought I'd post that here to avoid making a thread...
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming_communities/comments/5zzi6e/crytek_shanghai_march_2017_update/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming_communities/comments/5zzi6e/crytek_shanghai_march_2017_update/
I think you can make a new thread about this and just link to the OP in this thread, with the caveat that this isn't confirmed. That'd be fair.
new thread for new news so you can make one
ClosingADoor
Member
Wasn't it already going to be closed? Eurogamer reported on that back in december: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-12-20-crytek-breaks-silence-lets-go-of-multiple-studios
Seems like the promised transition plans where thrown out the window though.
Seems like the promised transition plans where thrown out the window though.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
That sucks.
Well, they're getting money from Ryse going GwG. Now sell the IP to Microsoft or at least let MS find a sequel.
Pay your damn people.
Well this happened:
https://virtualrealityreporter.com/...vr-first-lab-istanbuls-bahcesehir-university/
FWIW, VR first is also trying to be a for profit fund investing in VR developers in addition to setting up this network of labs around the world. VR pivot?
Sounds fake.
They have already announced to become independent last December.
http://news.17173.com/content/01182017/000317813_1.shtml
Triggerhappytel
Member
Seven months without pay? Man, the Yerlis are fucking scumbags. Sell the remaining assets, pay your damn employees and then shut the company down bit by bit.
Yeah, they should sell Ryse because they're not going to be able to do anything with it anyway without a publisher funding. A combat-action-adventure like this would be a good addition to MS's catalogue of IPs, and it gets Crytek some regular money coming in for 3-4 years. God damn it, this is not hard; why are they so shit at running a company?!
mikezilla2
Member
Square enix would be the most intresting buyer and probbly the most alian
would be odd if take two took it in as a mainline title ....
Sony would do well i suppose to grab it considerng they dont relly have an FPS franchise anymore ? ( killzone is resting for now)
regardless isnt this compney crytek going down the shitter soon ?
would be odd if take two took it in as a mainline title ....
Sony would do well i suppose to grab it considerng they dont relly have an FPS franchise anymore ? ( killzone is resting for now)
regardless isnt this compney crytek going down the shitter soon ?
AHA-Lambda
Member
Why would you work that long with no pay??! D:
Agree with this. Gurella are clearly moved on from Killzone, so something new and fresh would be a good idea. Not sure how a German Studio would feel about working on a game about "Space Nazis" but doing a KZ 1-3 Remastered trillogy to pay the bills/learn hardware before releasing a new FPS IP in say 3-5 years would make a lot of buisness sense.
Triggerhappytel
Member
I was only suggesting them as three major publishers who don't have an active FPS franchise right now. Sega have made a lot of investments in western developers in the past and they've just bought Crytek Black Sea, so there is a connection there.
I don't see why Take-Two buying it would be odd? Evolve is dead, I'm assuming we won't see a new BioShock any time soon, and Borderlands although highly successful is not theirs. I imagine they'd like a big FPS franchise in order to compete with EA, Activision and Ubisoft.
Square-Enix have made a ton of investment in western studios (probably more than any other Japanese third-party publisher) and now that Deus Ex is dead they also don't have an active FPS franchise.
Sony makes probably the most sense, but on the other hand they seem to have moved away from making their own FPSs as they have close ties with several major third-party titles (most specifically Destiny and COD), so they may not wish to directly compete any longer. However, their efforts to get into the genre have mostly been wet tissue paper in the past (Killzone, Resistance, MAG) and I think buying Crysis and getting some of the original developers (NOT THE YERLIS) would be a decent strategy.
I could also see Deep Silver and THQ Nordic sniffing around, as they specialise in buying up IPs when companies go under.
I would also like someone to buy TimeSplitters and make a fun new entry in that series, but I don't really know who would be best for that. Maybe Devolver as they have an excellent sense of fun, but I don't want it to try and be mature or gory.
EDIT - if I were making decisions on buying Crysis and developing a new one, I'd probably set up a new studio in Frankfurt and re-hire many of the same staff.
?? Plenty of big EU devs. Sweden has DICE, Massive and Avalanche. France has the giant that is Ubisoft. Square Enix EU/Eidos etc
hey wait a minute... I am here in the middle of the heart of the automobile doing game stuff!
don't call me a no one...
LOL
I just don't understand why they tried to cater every market and how they missed the engine battle. They could have put ressources into proper documentary and tutorials and maybe today it wouldn't be so much Unity vs UE only.
But it's easy to say afterwards
Buried in the news about the Hunt: Showdown gameplay ...
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...s-back-from-the-dead-and-it-looks-pretty-cool
Triggerhappytel
Member
Man, that would actually be a shame if they went under because Hunt is looking pretty special. I get Resident Evil 4 village x Bloodborne x co-op FPS vibes from it. Not sure it's going to be the massive success they would need to save the company from financial troubles though. Is it F2P or will it use a different business model?
Cow Mengde
Banned
Edit - Nevermind, the article answered my question.
Bedameister
Member
Yeah Hunt looks great. Could be a massive success just like DayZ. Hope they'll make it long enough to put this out.
100% that.
Just watched this video - first I've heard of the game.
Looks absolutely sublime. Exactly my cup of tea. Phenomenal stuff.
bitbydeath
Member
I've got an idea, how bout they stop sitting on the god damn goldmine known as Timesplitters. Even a HD remaster could've helped their money issues in a big way.
Soulblighter31
Banned
Timesplitters is a gold mine only in the bubble that gaf resides in. It means less than nothing in the grand scheme
bitbydeath
Member
I don't think official numbers were ever released but it was quite popular. I'd say it was 2nd to Halo in terms of FPS popularity on consoles.
Maybe in 2004.
Alexander DeLarge
Member
A shooter with an in game level editor on consoles would be huge I'd imagine. It still has brand recognition. Especially with their cast of characters that they could easily introduce cosmetic microtransactions with?
It's not a huge IP but it's not like it's some washed up IP no one cares about.
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Maybe because they're wasn't that much shooters to begin with?
John Caboose
Member
Actually, I think it is.
Everything is getting to expensive.
People want more and more realistic gfx,frames/sec,higher resolution and so on...
At the moment it's getting more important for them than the game content itself.
We need to take a step back. It's more important to get good games and more AAA games.
Still MS and Sony are both going for power as there NR. 1. priority. It will mean the end for many dev companies. Don't expect ps5 soon or a new xbox.
People want more and more realistic gfx,frames/sec,higher resolution and so on...
At the moment it's getting more important for them than the game content itself.
We need to take a step back. It's more important to get good games and more AAA games.
Still MS and Sony are both going for power as there NR. 1. priority. It will mean the end for many dev companies. Don't expect ps5 soon or a new xbox.
deriks
4-Time GIF/Meme God
PS4 can't run Crysis
bitbydeath
Member
That would have been a large part of it but still doesn't mean it wouldn't have a huge following today. I'm not a big fan of FPS games these days but would buy a new Timesplitters.
blastprocessor
The Amiga Brotherhood
Shame they didn't do a Crysis 4 and go back to their roots of Crysis. Hunt game isn't my cup of tea as it appears to have no story mode campaign.