More Layoffs Hit Crytek

[Steven Bogos]

More Layoffs Hit Crytek

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/774/774255.jpg
Reports are suggesting as many as 15 employees at Crytek's Frankfurt studio have been let go.

Eurogamer is reporting that back in 2014 [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-02-01-layoffs-at-crytek] where the company was struggling to pay its employees.

In a statement, Crytek managing director Avni Yerli stated that the company was scaling down the business to focus on game development and technology. "Unfortunately, one of the inevitable effects of this process has been the redundancies we are announcing today," he explained.

"We are extremely grateful for the hard work and dedication of each and every person at Crytek, and the team members we now have to say goodbye to will receive comprehensive support that reflect that gratitude."

In December, Crytek said it was selling off multiple studios, including its Budapest (Hungary), Sofia (Bulgaria), Seoul (South Korea) and Shanghai (China) developers. Reports coming in from the company are that morale is quite low, and some employees reportedly haven't been paid since December.

It looks like things aren't looking so great for the studio that gave us Crysis.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-02-01-layoffs-at-crytek]

Permalink

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Well at least we got Crysis 1 DRM Free on GOG.com so no more SecuROM.

 

[MCerberus]

Do you know who published Crysis 3? EA.
The curse lives on!

 

[J Tyran]

I never understand it when I hear stuff like "I haven't been paid in 2 Months but I totally still go to work."

Why? Do you really have anything to lose when your Job isn't actually paid?

Often its a case of a mix of hope and lies, at least from my experience when working for a dying company. Word comes down from higher up "if we can get through these next for weeks/months we can save the company! Lets just fulfil this project/order and everything will be okay!" and things like that. When there is uncertainty about getting a new position elsewhere the hope of keeping the one you have is fairly powerful.

 

[bjj hero]

I feel for them. Its not nice to see anyone out of work.

 

[QuiteEnjoyed2016]

Shame, Crysis was just great, real bleeding edge tech and fun (until aliens). Then the studio head stomped off in a huff moaning about piracy, brought out the much worse sequels which were hamstrung by console tech and ushered in the slow demise of his company. Sigh.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Shame, Crysis was just great, real bleeding edge tech and fun (until aliens).

What are you saying? Because Crysis was amazing, Warhead as well...

 

[QuiteEnjoyed2016]

Shame, Crysis was just great, real bleeding edge tech and fun (until aliens).

What are you saying? Because Crysis was amazing, Warhead as well...

Oh, that's definitely what I was trying to say, it drove tech forward and was a great game. I was just referencing when the aliens appear at the end of the first one, it goes from sandbox playground to very pretty corridor shooter and the aliens have odd movement patterns and the fun drops (in my opinion!). Warhead was actually arguably better, I felt.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Oh, that's definitely what I was trying to say, it drove tech forward and was a great game. I was just referencing when the aliens appear at the end of the first one, it goes from sandbox playground to very pretty corridor shooter and the aliens have odd movement patterns and the fun drops (in my opinion!). Warhead was actually arguably better, I felt.

That makes sense, I read it as anything after Farcry 2 was not fun due to aliens, because the standard (for the whole game) fell after they were added.

 

[QuiteEnjoyed2016]

Oh, that's definitely what I was trying to say, it drove tech forward and was a great game. I was just referencing when the aliens appear at the end of the first one, it goes from sandbox playground to very pretty corridor shooter and the aliens have odd movement patterns and the fun drops (in my opinion!). Warhead was actually arguably better, I felt.

That makes sense, I read it as anything after Farcry 2 was not fun due to aliens, because the standard (for the whole game) fell after they were added.

I remember spraying gun fire around and... a tree fell over! Sounds silly now but was amazing at the time, up there with the cooling Tower falling in Half Life 2.

 

[Kahani]

scaling down the business to focus on game development and technology

So... what else were they doing exactly? Because as far as I was aware, game development and technology were the only things Crytek ever did in the first place. They make Cryengine and games that use Cryengine. How much more focussed can they get?

 

[gigastar]

Do you know who published Crysis 3? EA.
The curse lives on!

In that case we should be putting Isomniac on a watchlist.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Every time I see an update to this story I'm still surprised at how many studios they had operating. Why would you need all that real estate and man power when all they've done recently is maintain CryEngine and make Rise: Son of Rome?

 

[47_Ronin]

Every time I see an update to this story I'm still surprised at how many studios they had operating. Why would you need all that real estate and man power when all they've done recently is maintain CryEngine and make Rise: Son of Rome?

scaling down the business to focus on game development and technology

So... what else were they doing exactly? Because as far as I was aware, game development and technology were the only things Crytek ever did in the first place. They make Cryengine and games that use Cryengine. How much more focussed can they get?

I had similar questions along those lines, so I took a look at their catalogue. It seems that after Crysis and Ryse they invested quite a bit into Online Multiplayer games (The Collectables, Arena of Fate, Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age, Warface) and some VR stuff. That might explain multiple studios. My guess is they will focus more on their core franchises in the future. Too bad about Seoul, though, Crytek offered an in-house gym to their employees:

"What we offer:

Gym membership (or other sports activities support)
Internal English language class
External language class
Fruits, beverages, and snacks
Flexi-time
Congratulatory & Condolence Allowances
Full health examination once a year
Christmas week vacation"
(From the Crytek website)

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

snip

Ahh, I see. Well, this is the first I'm hearing of all of those titles. I can't speak for everyone but I'd see that as evidence that whatever they were doing wasn't working out. Good luck to all those Crytek employees though. Such a shame.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Shame, Crysis was just great, real bleeding edge tech and fun (until aliens). Then the studio head stomped off in a huff moaning about piracy, brought out the much worse sequels which were hamstrung by console tech and ushered in the slow demise of his company. Sigh.

I keep getting the sense that Crytek fell into a pretty substantial trap. They saw they'd made one decent PC juggernaut, realized optimization doesn't matter if a lack of it fuels the average hardware E-Peen of a subset of the PC gaming populace. They then opted to make some money off of the console market, presumably after being in talks with EA. That gives us a set of equally poorly-optimized console games that didn't even run properly on their intended hardware. Remember: Crytek has never cared all that much about optimization.

Crysis 2 and 3 weren't terrible, but they also weren't runaway successes. Ryse would be Crytek's other big title, and it also didn't turn out to be the console-selling blockbuster they'd expected. Despite that, Crytek developed its roster as if they'd struck it big, and kept trying to push the CryEngine as being a decent alternative to UE4 or Frostbite. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was one such attempt, and it didn't quite pan out.

Look at the incentives for the Shanghai studio: that's not something a struggling dev promises. You don't get to play on the same level as EA's core studios or Ubisoft's if you aren't financially stable. Considering, piracy bothers me a whole lot less than poor management. Cevat Yerli's more or less killed his golden goose and spent a few years acting like he hadn't.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I actually recently just played through the first Crysis, and even to this day, I have to say, it is one polished fucking game. It's so slick in gameplay, graphics, response, UI, console... The only thing it didn't really have was solid multiplayer (and even then, that got changed with Crysis Wars) and MAYBE the AI wasn't all that great. But still, at launch, this game was just AMAZING. THE PC game to have for that year. And even today, graphics still look gorgeous as ever for it. If the Unreal Engine ever met a solid challenger, it was definitely in the CryEngine 2.0 without a doubt.

But then the years passed, and the Unreal Engine was soon like, "No. [https://www.destructoid.com/epic-games-debuts-unreal-engine-4-229158.phtml]"

Warhead was actually arguably better, I felt.

The only problem with Warhead as compared to the first Crysis is that the maps were not as big. Especially in the first few levels. Otherwise yeah. It was better in pretty much every way.

 

[47_Ronin]

I'd see that as evidence that whatever they were doing wasn't working out.

Warface was garbage, of you ask me. I can only speculate as to the quality of the other titles. I think Crytek overestimated the demand for MMOs.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I don't understand how Crytek got to this situation. Their main brands, Crysis and Far Cry have now been absorbed by other publishers, EA and Ubisoft respectively. The Cry Engine isn't as popular as Unreal and maybe not even Unity, perhaps relating to the business model? I'm not going to mention Ryse...

Crytek once made one of the best PC games of a generation. Now I don't know what they're up to and other people have run off with their best known properties. They need to market the Cry Engine better, like Epic does with Unreal 4, then fund games development with those proceeds and make a new franchise or two.