Crysis Developer Crytek Hasn’t Paid Staff for Months

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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I’m sure you all remember the Internet catch phrase of “can it run Cyrsis”. Well, now it is a proven fact that even Crysis can’t run Crysis, or rather Crytek Studios in this case. Reports have been circulating from past and present staff members that Crytek is falling woefully short on its payroll commitments.
 
WTF?

How in the hell does this happen, and no lawsuits has happened? Oh right... not in America... but still.
 
I really doubt the company doesn't have the money to pay it's workers. Even though they considered Crysis a failure, they game did sell 3 million copies. Compared to other games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which sold 3.7 million. Not including games like Far Cry 3 which sold 9 million copies.

Crytek has got to be one of the shadiest companies next to EA.
 
You would think that employees that did not get paid after a extreme 2 weeks, people would be raising hell with the accounting department. People work for money and not getting paid after a couple months is slave labor. Do this amount of worth for this amount of time and maybe we will pay you for the time and effort.
 
With CoD: AW coming with its 'game changing' exosuits I expect Crysis to be done as a series. I think the writing is on the wall that Crytek is done. Real shame though as Crysis, especially the first game, was graphically years if not a whole decade ahead of the competition.
 
management of crytek are stupid, they enetered a deal with microsoft, for new exclusive IP for their console, they did ryse son of rome, the game sucked and didnt sell, and costed too much, then in the middle of developement of it's sequel, microsoft and crytek broke up for some reason, and now ryse 2 was canceled.
again they opened cryengine for subscription, and they didnt put out guide and documentations for it, so ppl dont buy the sub, they have to figure out everything by their own.
it's too bad crytek is a good company for PC gaming, would be a shame if it goes down.
 
Ashbringer said:
I really doubt the company doesn't have the money to pay it's workers. Even though they considered Crysis a failure, they game did sell 3 million copies. Compared to other games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which sold 3.7 million. Not including games like Far Cry 3 which sold 9 million copies.

Crytek has got to be one of the shadiest companies next to EA.
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Developmental costs could be completely different, pretty hard to make a comparison like that unless you know how much each company spent to make the game and the engine/platform and advertising for each project.
 
Ashbringer said:
I really doubt the company doesn't have the money to pay it's workers. Even though they considered Crysis a failure, they game did sell 3 million copies. Compared to other games like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which sold 3.7 million. Not including games like Far Cry 3 which sold 9 million copies.

Crytek has got to be one of the shadiest companies next to EA.
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What have you done for me lately?

Seriously, all those other sales as great as they were, depending upon the business model and what is legal where they're at that money could be gone and into the owner's pocket. What was their latest bit? Ryse or whatever the flop was... that's why they can't pay their employees now.
 
It became evident that they are woefully mismanaged. I just hope someone buys the IPs. But who? Microsoft is the only major player without its own engine IP, I think. EA has Frostbite, UBI has snowflake.
 
Spidey329 said:
It became evident that they are woefully mismanaged. I just hope someone buys the IPs. But who? Microsoft is the only major player without its own engine IP, I think. EA has Frostbite, UBI has snowflake.
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Do you think Valve might pick them up, with their new linux based steammachines and steam os?

Maybe merge Crysis and Half-life? Gordon freeman in a Nanosuit anyone!!!:eek:

...haha only joking that would be terrible.
 
HardLiner said:
Do you think Valve might pick them up, with their new linux based steammachines and steam os?

Maybe merge Crysis and Half-life? Gordon freeman in a Nanosuit anyone!!!:eek:

...haha only joking that would be terrible.
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I don't think they have anything Valve wants. Unless Source2 is a fabrication or totally a flop. There's probably nothing in CryEngine that Valve doesn't have in S2. Heck, S2 probably already has proper documentation, something that has hurt CE.

I tried out UE4's engine toolkit, it was easy because it's well documented with videos and tutorials. From what I have heard, CE isn't. When two relatively comparable engines cost about the same amount of money, but one has better documentation/support, people tend to flock to that one.

Only other person I can think of is Ubisoft, for the right price. Considering they already do a few games with CryEngine (Far Cry), they may just pick it up or infuse it with capital (take partial ownership to keep the doors open) to prevent having to pay engine fees.

Other contenders would be a billionaire looking to get into the games market. It's a longshot, but you never know. Mark Cuban was actively seeking to get into the phone-game market (think "King"), so he started buying up a bunch of small studios. One got funded just by sending him an email, which he apparently reads.
 
Spidey329 said:
...
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And as to my prior speculation. Only reason I'd consider Microsoft is because of their prior XNA platform and Project Spark. They wanted to create an Xbox360 / PC cross-platform toolkit, but failed to keep it current so they shut it down. It had no real-value compared to UE3 (a very popular alternative) and other toolkits. CryEngine would be a good fit for that. I could see them rolling it into an Xbox One / PC development suite and backing it with proper support.
 
Spidey329 said:
CryEngine would be a good fit for that. I could see them rolling it into an Xbox One / PC development suite and backing it with proper support.
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Oh please god no. Better to let it die with dignity than Microsoft getting its greasy paws on it and turning it completely to shit.
 
So CryEngine hasn't sold well, added to the fact that their game Ryse was expensive and didn't sell well (making it multiplat would of help imo).

Microsoft wanted to buy Ryse, but Crytek didn't want to sell it.

Bad times over there
 
Spidey329 said:
It became evident that they are woefully mismanaged. I just hope someone buys the IPs. But who? Microsoft is the only major player without its own engine IP, I think. EA has Frostbite, UBI has snowflake.
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Microsoft doesn't sell an engine correct, but they do have the Halo engine if they so wished to sell it.

And with that I don't see them really wanting to buy CryEngine as they have years invested in their own engine for Halo and that would be a massive step back to learn how to redo everything in a different engine.
 
I'm not sure how big Crytek is but 3 million units only seems like a lot. Assuming they cleared $20 a copy after considering the falling retail price over the lifetime, the publisher which deducts their cut, marketing, and corporate tax. Then you have european developers. Let's say 100k for salaries and benefits, another 20k in equipment, software licenses and office space per employee. Yeah, if they brought in lots of staff for a game that tanked, those 3 million units can only sustain the company a year or two if they sized their teams for a second major title. One bad release can really hurt.
 
Crytek: I'd gladly pay you on Tuesday for a completed game today!
 
Sertis said:
I'm not sure how big Crytek is but 3 million units only seems like a lot. Assuming they cleared $20 a copy after considering the falling retail price over the lifetime, the publisher which deducts their cut, marketing, and corporate tax. Then you have european developers. Let's say 100k for salaries and benefits, another 20k in equipment, software licenses and office space per employee. Yeah, if they brought in lots of staff for a game that tanked, those 3 million units can only sustain the company a year or two if they sized their teams for a second major title. One bad release can really hurt.
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Supposedly they have 800 employees and Ryse (the XBone game) ate up whatever they had in the bank.
 
Microsoft offered to buy the Ryse IP and in doing so would fully fund development of the sequel. Crytek refused and that was a really bad move.
 
bpmurrGT said:
Microsoft offered to buy the Ryse IP and in doing so would fully fund development of the sequel. Crytek refused and that was a really bad move.
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Not like microsoft could do any worse to the Ryse IP than crytek already has, that game was horribly shallow.
 
They're probably not getting enough "payroll rebates" from the local government. I'm sure the owners are doing just fine.
 
HardLiner said:
Do you think Valve might pick them up, with their new linux based steammachines and steam os?

Maybe merge Crysis and Half-life? Gordon freeman in a Nanosuit anyone!!!:eek:

...haha only joking that would be terrible.
Click to expand...

Valve doesn't make games anymore.
 
bpmurrGT said:
Microsoft offered to buy the Ryse IP and in doing so would fully fund development of the sequel. Crytek refused and that was a really bad move.
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I think that Cevat Yerli is wary about letting other companies take control of their intellectual property. Crytek's deal with EA to develop Crysis may have given them a much needed influx of cash, but part of that deal gave all rights of the IP to EA.
Dwango said:
Supposedly they have 800 employees and Ryse (the XBone game) ate up whatever they had in the bank.
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I think this is more the source of the problem. Crytek has been expanding too much and too fast, opening studios around the world. As a result, their resources are spread too thin for their big ambitions.
 
Armenius said:
I think that Cevat Yerli is wary about letting other companies take control of their intellectual property. Crytek's deal with EA to develop Crysis may have given them a much needed influx of cash, but part of that deal gave all rights of the IP to EA.
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I though Crytek was an EA Partner, not a directly funded developer from EA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#EA_Partners_Program

The EA Partners co-publishing arm is dedicated to publishing and distributing games developed by third-party developers. Notable publishing/distribution agreements include:
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Sertis said:
I'm not sure how big Crytek is but 3 million units only seems like a lot. Assuming they cleared $20 a copy after considering the falling retail price over the lifetime, the publisher which deducts their cut, marketing, and corporate tax. Then you have european developers. Let's say 100k for salaries and benefits, another 20k in equipment, software licenses and office space per employee. Yeah, if they brought in lots of staff for a game that tanked, those 3 million units can only sustain the company a year or two if they sized their teams for a second major title. One bad release can really hurt.
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LOL 100k for a developer... 100k is bottom of the barrel developers, at least here in LA. Anyone with skill/experience is making way more than that. Contractors are making more than 100$/hour... It's seriously making me rethink my career path.
 
Biznatch said:
LOL 100k for a developer... 100k is bottom of the barrel developers, at least here in LA. Anyone with skill/experience is making way more than that. Contractors are making more than 100$/hour... It's seriously making me rethink my career path.
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Are you serious?! Is this specific to LA game developers only, or in general?
 
Coldblackice said:
Are you serious?! Is this specific to LA game developers only, or in general?
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For good developers yea. Even at that rate we are getting crappy developers, and having to let them go after a week or 2. We don't do game development though, it's web applications. I think this is partially specific to our area, but I think most software development companies are concentrated in larger cities.
 
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