Crytek mistreating employee's? Am I the only one not surprised?

G

Godmachine

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 7, 2003
Messages
10,472
http://www.develop-online.net/news/38564/Crytek-battles-crunch-layoffs-and-lawsuits-claims

A detailed and malicious assessment of working conditions at Crytek has been disputed, condemned and in some cases disproved by the company’s co-founder.

The German independent studio has been subjected to onslaught of accusations from what appears to be a single individual, likely a former employee, who has anonymously published a hate-filled blog post now in circulation.
Click to expand...

And Yerli's retort :
One of the report’s allegations – that the company’s relocation to a new Frankfurt studio would result in the redundancy of some 70 people – was described as “bullshit” by Crytek managing director Avni Yerli.

“The new Frankfurt office is larger and has more desks than the old Frankfurt office,” Yerli (pictured) said in an interview with Develop.

“Our new office is laid out for growth and not for reduction.”

Another suggestion – that there had been “several successful” lawsuits from staff who had been “unlawfully fired” – was also strongly challenged.

Yerli confirmed that his company had been thrown into two legal disputes with former staff over their redundancies, but said the courts had ruled in Crytek’s favour on both occasions. He said it was judged that the company had not issued layoffs unlawfully, nor had it offered illegally meagre redundancy packages.

“I don’t want to make glory out of this. We are not proud of ‘winning’,” he said.

“This is something sad that happened between us and people we used to work with. We haven’t been found to have unlawfully fired these people, but we don’t want to go to court with our co-workers either. Respecting our staff is crucial at Crytek.”
Click to expand...

The blog in question : http://hireandfirecrytek.tumblr.com/post/9622551111/hireandfire

The atmosphere in the office for a couple of years now has meant that staff feel uncertain of their futures within the company and either jump ship, or get fired unlawfully and are forced to legally settle their dispute in the courts. Several ex-Crytek employees have already been successful in mounting legal battles and won settlements, yet Crytek still treat staff as disposable pieces of meat to be discarded at will. We fully understand that a games company needs to make a profit, and this site isn’t going against the great work that the current employees have made in the past or are currently working on. We are merely trying to notify the world that the current amazement bubble surrounding Crytek is unjustified and severely out of sync with other games companies who treat their staff well and continue to create great pieces of work.
Click to expand...

Looks like all that "guaranteed" success Crytek was pinning there hopes on is biting them on the collective ass.

Thoughts?
 
pretty sad read... and going to leave such a sour taste in those peoples mouths.

the firing of a concept artist is a real dick move on their part too, I presume he'd already created the vision/artwork, most of the time concept artists actually do 90% of the Art Direction too, though of course, that it isn't their title, they are the ones who make the game look how it looks, and aren't really paid that much, and they should be.

Fact is whenever that artist looks at his work that's advertised all over the internet/ on billboards, tv etc etc that he's spent hours creating - He wont be proud of it, he'll feel bitter and sad. And that's a massive shame.

I've had a similar experience working in an Advertising agency a few years back as a Junior Illustrator, I created a fuck tonne of artwork used in a pitch and advertising campaign for a Big Brand that I'd prefer not to name, it was plastered around the whole of Europe, from magazines, bus stops, you name it they probs made Hundreds of thousands out of it, of course they let me go when I finished the project.

Cool story bro.
 
I wouoldnt be surprised if these people got fired because they did something wrong/didn't do their share of work/weren't on time. Its useless without the whole story.

Lemme ask you this, if you got fired wouldn't you try to look at every situation as possible mistreatment?

Or they just didn't like the way the company is going, and I don't think a company needs employees that don't agree with the company.
 
jadams said:
This has to be taken with a giant grain of salt.
Click to expand...

Why? 3 former employee's have already taken them to court , pretty sure the "salt" is dissolved at this point.

If it was just one angry guy (such as the douche that posted his rant on Bioware and SW:OR) than yea grain of salt confirmed but people are flooding out of Crytek and its not because of the usual game finished release cycle.

Something is going on there and while we might not have the whole truth there is no denying there is something there.
 
Godmachine said:
Why? 3 former employee's have already taken them to court , pretty sure the "salt" is dissolved at this point.

If it was just one angry guy (such as the douche that posted his rant on Bioware and SW:OR) than yea grain of salt confirmed but people are flooding out of Crytek and its not because of the usual game finished release cycle.

Something is going on there and while we might not have the whole truth there is no denying there is something there.
Click to expand...

Similar stories happen all the time in the software industry. Game development simply isn't the best career choice for long term stability, regardless of the position. People are trying to make something out of this because Crytek is one of the Industry whipping boys, but this is just par for the course.

Also some people are complete clowns pretending to be Internet Nostradamus like they saw this coming. Really? Were they all like, "Yeah Crytek made a game I didn't like, so I KNEW they were mistreating employees. Duh."
 
After the way they mistreated gamers with Crysis 2,why should the employees expect a break?:mad:
 
DeathPrincess said:
Maybe with the new desks they can hire some people to make enjoyable gameplay? :D
Click to expand...

i know a few people that were hired by crytek purely to work on the game play and AI aspect of crysis 2.. they got hired and then promptly sent to do graphic coding and never saw one line of AI coding the entire 2 years they were there. the problem is crytek not the developers they hire. crytek doesn't give a rats ass about game play.
 
ocellaris said:
Similar stories happen all the time in the software industry. Game development simply isn't the best career choice for long term stability, regardless of the position. People are trying to make something out of this because Crytek is one of the Industry whipping boys, but this is just par for the course.

Also some people are complete clowns pretending to be Internet Nostradamus like they saw this coming. Really? Were they all like, "Yeah Crytek made a game I didn't like, so I KNEW they were mistreating employees. Duh."
Click to expand...

Crytek's CEO deserves the whipping boy status as far as I'm concerned , he's been a douchebag from day one and regards PC gamers as thieves based on more than one interview.

And regardless of how Crytek spins the out come of the court proceedings , they settled. Settling doesn't mean losing but it also doesn't mean winning. It may not be a different kind of story considering the instability of the industry but Crytek has gone out of its way to blame PC gamers at each turn. We get blamed for supposedly poor sales with Crysis 1 and accused of piracy numbers to the degree of "1/400" and that's a quote from the CEO.

But there is no doubt that the industry as a whole is pretty shady on how it treats its employee's at times , the glamour that is sold to gamers is slowly thinning in its bullshit. There will also be disgruntled former employee's that attempt to publicly vilify former employers but hearing more and more about those same stories from entirely different teams with legal processes enacted it begins to make you consider the possibility of the sensationalism from the view point of the disgruntled blogger , disregarding that individuals emotional objectiveness.
 
While I have no particular interest in defending Crytek, that whole blog post reeks of wilful misrepresentation and sensationalism, and historical revisionism based on a small number of people's bad experiences.
It's hardly in the same league as the Team Bondi shenanigans, for example.
 
As a gamer I can't really bring myself to care about this. I mean I do. I feel bad for the employees, but this isn't like a hazardous work environment we can go out and protest. Just sounds like a shitty place to work. I don't buy crytek games. I'm not sure if protesting Crytek helps or hurts these guys.

Ok, how about this. "I no longer just not buy Crytek games because they are shitty I also won't buy them until they're good and they treat their employees better."
 
Last edited:
Well they are constantly complaining about their sales and how they are disappointed. These people just strike me as vindictive scumbags. Their game isn't as good as they think it is... and in the scheme of things it's just an effin video game...
 
Godmachine said:
We get blamed for supposedly poor sales with Crysis 1 and accused of piracy numbers to the degree of "1/400" and that's a quote from the CEO.
Click to expand...

Playing devil's advocate (Yerli needs to STFU):

The correct quote is:

"the ratio between sales to piracy is probably 1 to 15 to 1 to 20 right now"

He also seems to be advocating a different model for publishers/developers, although he doesn't go into specifics:

http://www.developmag.com/interviews/456/Interview-Cryteks-Cevat-Yerli

Frankly, piracy is the reason why retail games are falling in popularity. Right now there is a mental shift in people about how they consume media, and if you think about the problems with piracy in light of this, inevitably you find that there needs to be a solution that requires people to look at PC gaming differently.

The fact that I can illegally download a game right now, for free, faster than I can buy it, is truly an issue. There’s a whole chain of problems there, and a business model change is needed for this.

Piracy has been a problem for years, but what we are seeing now is more and more people looking at buying and consuming media online. These people want to be served their content differently, and I think you have to cater to that.
Click to expand...

*scrubs self with lye*
 
You didn't read it the post did you? Three former employee's have already taken Crytek to court and settled over the issues the blogger was ranting about. So its beyond one guy's rant...
 
I see just as many articles today 100% contrary to what he is saying.

And in the link provided:
"The German independent studio has been subjected to onslaught of accusations from what appears to be a single individual, likely a former employee, who has anonymously published a hate-filled blog post now in circulation."

Single person - check
anonymous - check

Sounds like just another angry ex-employee looking to stir shit up, unless further evidence is surfaced.
 
Crysis 2 reflected the lack of passion and focus by Crytek.
This only brings some of their misguided ambitions to light.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top