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Crytek Moves on Cloud Imperium Games
- Thread starter FrgMstr
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CIG's lawyers and the judge must be pretty stupid then, since they failed to see something so clear to you.
You're quite a little goalpost shifter, aren't you.
NoOther
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How so? The original post to which I replied was wondering what the damages were going to be. I wasn't the one shifting goalposts from that. Damages are hardly ever exact in these cases, there are many factors that go into them. I answered the post with that in mind. Then people came out of the woodworks to attack it for who knows what reasons. I guess they are butthurt about anything that isn't a CIG 100% loss.
If they're found liable for infringement then it'll only be calculated damages now that punitive damages are off the table. That means if the offending material was like 1% of the total then damages would be 1% of the revenue-not much.
NoOther
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Yes, but then what is the offending material and how much is there? Given that the game has not even been released yet, where do you make the assessment? Even in cases where you have a lot of units sold, some units may not be the same as others. Just think about the situation between Apple and Samsung and how many times that has gone back and forth and adjusted.
You were shifting the qualification of the amount of money raised.
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They haven't sold anything, that portion of the game isn't even complete, yet. The offending portions at issue are the code snippets that were allegedly leaked during promo videos. Some of these damages are limited or outright precluded by the GLA. There are well established formulas for this kind of cases and, as I wrote yesterday, there isn't a whole lot of money at the end of this road anymore. The big wins you are thinking about come in the form of punitive damages.
Well, the whole game existed because of their engine and support during that time period. Either way, the amount will be determined in court, but it has the potential of hurting CIG even without the punitive damages. They aren't doing that great since they're burning most of what they're receiving quite fast. I doubt there's a lot of cash in the bank.
NoOther
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No, I didn't. The fact is, no matter what CIG publicly said, that isn't necessarily the exact amount. This is the reason for discovery. The amount may be more, it may be less. During the trial they may also determine that CIG started the switch to lumberyard earlier and factor that in. That could be either good or bad for them. What we do now, is they have continued to sell pre-orders and early access well after they announced the shift. They have averaged around 30mil the last few years.
My contention was they had pulled in some money while using CryEngine, because of the engine, how much that is I have no idea, nor do any of us really. What I do know is they have pulled in money since the switch, so it is not nearly all of the money they have raised, especially considering they have raised about 70+ mil since the announced switch. Show me where I have deviated from that or shifted goalposts.
What whole game exists? The game at issue doesn't exist yet. Crytek still has to prove in court the game was developed, that there was a violation, and that soldit's been sold, two of those three we know don't even exist yet so proving the second will prove moot. Regardless, any damages awarded will be structured to not damage the company for a violation like this. Also, crytek wouldn't want a licensee to be harmed... their business model is revenue stream from CIG. Normally they would not going to ask the court to put their licensee out of business.
And the guy you quoted and started correcting on that never made that claim, and it continued rolling from there.
Not whole as in finished game, whole as in whatever existed at the time existed on the Crytek engine.
Oh, I think there's so much blood between the two that Crytek would like nothing more than to burn CIG to the ground.
The way damages would be calculated would be some percentage of code (1% of the code presented in a published slide, for example, was protected) becomes that percentage of the sales during that time. Keeping in mind there hasn't actually been any sales of it, beyond proving the violation even occurred (even ignoring the GLA expressly authorizing development of this module, the engine became free to use during this time period) there isn't a whole lot of money under this rug regardless.
The point is the court will view any such damage request as punitive and hostile and won't grant them. Crytek can't simply be like oh we hate them we want all their money. It runs counter to the judgements intent. This is all assuming this even makes it to trial and that's not likely under normal circumstances and even less likely after what happened in regards to the mtd
Since it's about the engine the game is built on, there's probably a non-trivial percentage of code at stake. Whether there were sales or not will be interesting to see what is decided as it will affect the industry going forward.
Module, yes, separate game, no.
That's not how the damages are calculated. They're based on the percentage of code that was leaked to the public. The code that has been alleged to have been leaked in the videos is a trivial amount relative to the entire code base. These aren't mysterious numbers.
There also is no legal mystery regarding the sale issue. There is no sale until a product is delivered.
I don't think it's that simple. "Hey, here's these two games we're building on an engine whose licence we've [potentially] breached, here are some demos you can try and videos you can watch about what you get, so please preorder now and give us millions."
I'm not sure what you think that paragraph is supposed to illustrate, but it's not relevant to this case. The facts you wrote on that hypothetical are not accurate and calculated damages are figured exactly as I've described.
Calculated damages are for the violations in regards to leaking proprietary code to the public ( not in releasing a demo, that never happened) during the promo videos.
It's a long shot, but if you want to discuss the license violation that'd be capped at about 2 million, roughly what the first license cost. The court might not even allow that given the engine is free now and may have been during the alleged violation (i haven't checked the dates).
Calculated damages are for the violations in regards to leaking proprietary code to the public ( not in releasing a demo, that never happened) during the promo videos.
It's a long shot, but if you want to discuss the license violation that'd be capped at about 2 million, roughly what the first license cost. The court might not even allow that given the engine is free now and may have been during the alleged violation (i haven't checked the dates).
M76
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You were trying to make claims that they used cryengine only in very early stages of the campaign, and that almost the entire early access was lumberyard based. After we corrected you on both accounts, you decided to switch to this "yeah but you don't know the exact amount owed" thing. Just sit down and accept you were wrong. Nobody ever claimed to know exactly how much cig owes crytek. But they're unwilling to pay anything and as such they are being sued with reasonable grounds.
NoOther
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No, you changed the meaning of what I said. You made it what you wanted it to be and responded. My point was that if they included pre-order early access games, it would only be for the amount that was sold during that. I accepted that the switch to lumberyard wasn't as early as I thought, but that did not change the fact that there was still a large amount of money made after the announced switch. Also, you still have to prove that people bought the game because of Crytek to even issue some damages from that. If people play an early access without most of the features in the game, does that constitute an actual sale because of CryEngine when the final version won't even include it?
I am not the one shifting the goals. There was plenty of discussion about this issue and my point was merely to explain the complexities involved. If you want to continue to debate goal shifting or whatever, do it elsewhere, it is tired and not helpful to the thread. If you want to continue to discuss what the actual damages are, then show proof of what would be considered as part of a legal case and not by fanboi or hater opinions.
Not sure how people are claiming a victory for either side, really. All this means is that Crytek can take things to court, not that they won. On top of that, as mope54 has stated, punitive damages are out the window, which means any possibility high value payout is eliminated. This really does weaken Crytek's position in terms of judgement. As much as people may malign CIG, whether justified or not, they're not in any huge danger here as much as doomsayers may proclaim.
M76
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This is just getting weirder and weirder. This is an exercise in futility you'll just shift focus again. I didn't change anything. You stated things that were demonstrably untrue. And I called those things out as such, nothing more nothing less. Then immediately you shifted to "we don't know the exact amount"
Again for the last time, nobody disputes that they have taken money after they switched to lumberyard. But it remains completely irrelevant. If I go to work for 2 years after robbing a bank do I get a free pass? CIG used cryengine and they heavily promoted their game using cryengine, and they developed using crytek resources. Claiming that the service was shit after the fact doesn't mean they don't have to pay for it.
Also irrelevant is the fact that we don't have an exact amount that they owe crytek. That is for the court to decide if and when they win the lawsuit. But I doubt this will go that far, a more likely outcome is a out of court settlement.
More drama for the gossip machines. The CIG lawyer, Ortwin appears shady with the conflicts of interest going on. I think D.Smart has it right though, CIG is going to lose and go bankrupt or sell out to Crytek, while blaming Crytek for ruining the dream. Crytek then might actually release a game of some sort in 1-2 years to get something out of it. So essentially it repeats the story of Freelancer all over again.
aaronspink
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That's not how MTDs work. An MTD judgment has to read everything in the most favorable light for who the MTD is against. And MTD clause being granted is basically saying that there is no possible reasonable world in which said claim could ever possibly win.
AKA, the judge hasn't agreed or disagreed with any of the lawyers, he simply said that some of the Crytek claims have no basis in law or fact. The other claims are to be decided in court and may or may not have any standing but under the most favorable viewpoint to crytek, they can't be dismissed.
aaronspink
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The rumors that went around when lumberyard was announced was that it was basically a hail mary by crytek to secure funding so that they could continue operations and the terms were very very favorable to amazon. AKA why else would you basically give away your entire code base to another company to give away for free. Crytek was basically bankrupt at the point they licensed to amazon. It is also why/how CIG ended up hiring rather large portions of the Crytek dev team (Crytek simply couldn't pay them).
aaronspink
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Eh? Crytek from most reports is on life support. They aren't likely to release anything anytime soon if ever again. CIG is worse case going to be on the hook for a couple million if that because of the granted clauses in the MTD.
So, apart from CIG<->RSI (distinction of which is some first class legal/financial shenanigans by that known shady partner of Roberts) obligations question, every other decision was justified in his opinion.
M76
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Yes, the judge messed it up, not cig, who 4 years after deadline still seems to have the game about 15-20% complete.
Lizard Testes
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They've been delivering "products" since 2013. Is "lol it's not the final product so it doesn't count" really a legal way to perpetually screw people out of IP?
You can't simply argue that they've been delivering "product" and therefore they've been screwing anyone out of IP. That sentence of yours demonstrates a total lack of knowledge regarding the elements of this complaint.
Crytek is alleging that they developed the single player Star Citizen game in violation of the license. The "product" that has been delivered since 2013 is the MP, persistent universe, which has always been licensed and never been at issue.
The legal problem Crytek has is that will have to prove CIG sold the single player Star Citizen game, which hasn't even been coded yet.
LightsOut41
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Crytek already filed their second amended complaint. Derek's take:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1030420136250040320.html
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1030420136250040320.html
But they have been selling SQ42, just not shipping it.
In colloquial terms, one could say to another person that CIG has been "selling" the game, but by our law standards no sales have occurred. Additionally, it's not that important or at least not as important as some are making it out to be in this situation. There exists different grievances and remedies for them will vary, which is why it's important not to toss all of the issues into one bucket like Lizard Testes was inadvertently doing.
At best, CIG and Crytek both understood how the game was going to be built out and this shared understanding will come out during discovery resulting in that portion of the claim resolving in CIG's favor. At worst, CIG and Crytek somehow conducted their required due diligence before entering the contract but unfortunately one party thought the license covered what they were doing and the other did not. The remedy for that is to license the unlicensed material retroactively, which would cost roughly what the other license was (about $1-2 million dollars based on what I've read).
That's a separate issue from the copyright violation.
At best, CIG and Crytek both understood how the game was going to be built out and this shared understanding will come out during discovery resulting in that portion of the claim resolving in CIG's favor. At worst, CIG and Crytek somehow conducted their required due diligence before entering the contract but unfortunately one party thought the license covered what they were doing and the other did not. The remedy for that is to license the unlicensed material retroactively, which would cost roughly what the other license was (about $1-2 million dollars based on what I've read).
That's a separate issue from the copyright violation.
Lizard Testes
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To be fair (to me) i'm mostly doing that via a moral viewpoint rather than a legal one. I.e. Chris Robberts is an incompetent boob with regard to game development so I assume he's also an incompetent boob with regard to IP and contract law.
I don't give a shit what the legal definition of "selling" is, Roberts has made millions of dollars using CryTeks engine and I suspect he's being a dick about giving them their proper due.
Lizard Testes
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And to say SQ42 "hasn't even been coded yet" and nothing more is some mealy mouthed lawyer bullshit. They've coded massive amounts of it, mostly using CryEngine, it was supposed to be delivered years ago, and they've sold somewhere in the neighborhood of a million copies of it.
https://www.docdroid.net/Jv5BRif/031129522308.pdf#page=3
CIG weren't "engaging in the business" of selling StarEngine, so Crytek have no grounds to say that they were "designing, developing, creating or promoting" an engine which competes with Cryengine.
Their GLA permits adapting Cryengine to suit CIG's needs.
The GLA only prohibits CIG from licensing to a third party. Not licensing from another party i.e: Lumberyard
CIG aren't obliged to promote Cryengine. The promotion of Lumberyard is not sufficiently evidenced.
Crytek can file a third and final ammended complaint addressing these issues, but until then the MTD is granted.
That sure fire win is circling the drain.