Report: Crytek Employees Refusing to Come in to Work

[karloss01]

This is no way to treat the former staff of Free Rdical (former Rare staff) who made some of the best shooters of all time.

THIS is where Free Radicals staff ended up!? Oh say it aint so!!!

Oh well... I suppose Timesplitters 4 really was just a dream...

the majority yes, I believe the founders of Free Radical went off to form a mobile app studio. and from what Crytek stated, they never seemed to have the willingness to create another Timesplitters game; at least they've allowed Timesplitters Rewind to be produced for free by the fanbase.

 

[gigastar]

Crytek cries about piracy, and went console focused. Then thought a huge expensive launch title would "bring in the money" on the least popular console of the entire generation.

I dont think it was the popularity of the Xbone was the sole cause for Ryse's flop, but mostly because of what it was. I remember that in the grim darkness of 2013 where Ryse was announced and there was no combat mechanic at all. Just move to an enemy and QTE would take over.

I imagine its hard to win people back when you reveal a game that has no more gameplay than the old dancemat games. And at least they made a good party game.

 

[Aerosteam]

"Graphics graphics graphics" ~ Crytek

Y'know, I'd be sadder if it were another developer, one than focusses on other video game elements.

Bummer on the employees though.

 

[MCerberus]

The main studio may surprise you every once in a while, but the brand has been more noted for its flops lately. Especially Call of Duty: Roman Warfare, and Call of Duty: Now with Microtransactions. For the latter, they just couldn't match their console competition (host of f2p games on the Playstation, not beating WoT to the market on the 360, and now they're just hoping they'll appeal to SOMEONE on Steam.

What we're seeing is that they're putting a tourniquet on costs. That'll turn gangrenous soon, followed by amputation.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

it's times like this where you'd think devs would learn to manage their finances better so troubles like this would never happen. Though considering the self-destructive tendencies of companies I better not get my hopes up.

 

[Glaice]

Now I see why Crysis series is 75% off this weekend, partially because of this bad news.

 

[Yabba]

surprised about it really. i thought they are doing really well, especially sinice EA was publishing their games and even had all 3 crysis games on special on origin and last night i saw crysis 1 and 2 on special on steam. as a shooter it was alright, but i cant say it was really special besides very impressive graphics.

Crysis 1 was a tour de force at the time of release. It did things that people didn't think was possible. High end physics (shacks made of individual destructible pieces) in a huge level with kick ass graphics and reactive AI in an open ended mission structure.

They cut all that after crysis 1. You didn't think crysis 1 was amazing because you see it years after the fact.

same way people complain half life 2 is overrated when it laid the foundation for shooters now.

Crysis 1 was the GTA V of shooters. It took limited tech and did the impossible.

I still have trouble running it ultra with 60 fps with my amd 7970. Heck the destruction physics are better then most today.

 

[Weaver]

Well, good on them for at least standing up for themselves!

 

[Magmarock]

Hmmm I wander if it's the same staff from Free Radical Design (Time Splitters/Second Sight) if so then that is a whole new level of depressing news.

 

[kajinking]

Crytek cries about piracy, and went console focused. Then thought a huge expensive launch title would "bring in the money" on the least popular console of the entire generation.

I dont think it was the popularity of the Xbone was the sole cause for Ryse's flop, but mostly because of what it was. I remember that in the grim darkness of 2013 where Ryse was announced and there was no combat mechanic at all. Just move to an enemy and QTE would take over.

I imagine its hard to win people back when you reveal a game that has no more gameplay than the old dancemat games. And at least they made a good party game.

Yeah Ryse just looked so boring to me especially after that abysmal E3 reveal, I never really even considered it a contender in the console wars. It was launching against a superhero game about a guy who could shoot neon lasers to fight an army of concrete powered soldiers and a zombie game were you can do this:



And what did it offer? Guy with sword stabbing people over and over again.

 

[Ticklefist]

Crytek isn't looking to be bought by Deep Silver, Crytek UK is.

Didn't Deep Silver already have a chance to when they snatched up Volition and 4A?

 

[josemlopes]

how the hell did they do that? The crytek games are very succesful are they not? To bad. They were a good studio. I'd hate to see them go.

To make matters worse, cryengine isn't being adopted by anyone in an age of 15$ engines that include nvidia gameworks.

People keep saying this but it really isnt true, the CryEngine is being adopted now more then ever, there are around 45-ish games (not counting the indie games) since 2011 that use CryEngine. In comparison idTech 4 and 5 combined have less then that since 2004 (they have 11).

CryEngine isnt as out there as the Unreal Engine or Unity for indies (or Frostbite for EA, heh) but it is VERY out there and I bet that it is doing its financial part fine. If there is anything to blame its everything else since they never really had a hit game for some time now, all of them being just average while having big budgets.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

I can't imagine who though making Homefront 2 was a good idea. It was a shitty game that was universally panned and sold terribly.

 

[Zeraki]

Isn't this the company that is run by a guy who essentially said "single player games are dead" and does nothing but focus on graphics over everything else? I could see why they would be struggling with that kind of mentality.

I feel bad for the workers though, they're getting screwed over big time.

 

[RedBackDragon]

Hmmm I wander if it's the same staff from Free Radical Design (Time Splitters/Second Sight) if so then that is a whole new level of depressing news.

it could be good news , if those talented staff leave crytek then they could end up going out and making a good game for a change free of the shackles of being AAA.

 

[FalloutJack]

That's funny. The CEOs have ALOT of money. Guess they failed their business and economics course.

 

[Tiamat666]

Crytek has all the technical prowess which they have demonstrated with the excellent graphics and gameplay capabilities of the CryEngine. Times have changed however. This is no longer 2004 and people have lost interest in simply getting ever nicer looking textures and lighting effects. If you want people to buy your game in 2014 you need a good plot, great writers, excellent dialogue, an interesting story to tell. Crytek has practically zero competence in this regard. This is why the BioShocks and Metro's are so successful whereas nobody really cares (much) about Crysis.

I really enjoyed playing the Crysis games -even Crysis 2- from a gameplay standpoint. But the plot, the characters and the dialogue in Crysis 2 are almost unbearably, insultingly bad. Crysis does not make you think, it does not evoke emotions, it rarely makes you remember some special moment (unless you remember the shiny graphics). The idiotic, cliché protagonists of Crysis 2 are entirely forgettable.

Crytek reminds me of the band "Dream Theater". The band members are excellent musicians who have perfected their instruments, but their songs are bland, lacking depth, meaning or soul. The songs are reduced to the medium through which each band member shows off his skills.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

how the hell did they do that? The crytek games are very succesful are they not? To bad. They were a good studio. I'd hate to see them go.

No they are not very successful.
After Crysis: Warhead all their games have been market failures i.e. their production costed more than the profits they generated from sales.

The CEO Cevat Yerli was delusional - After the success of Crysis (1) which had make until then 3.000.000 sales (note that it considered a success because the money it costed them to make where less) and before Crysis 2 he said that Crysis (1) would have sold 10 millions on PC instead of 3 if there were no piracy,and that if the game was multi-platform it would have about 45 million sales.

Well Crysis 2 sold 3 million copies on all 3 platforms together. And that was the first big damage to Crytek.
Crysis 3 sold even less copies than Crysis 2,only 2 million,and up until now according to VGcharts Ryse have sold less than a million.

They have been bleeding money since 2011,and eventually it seems they are out.


All of the above happened because of a series of bad decisions,which I assume stem from the delusional state they were in. It seems that after Crysis they lost touch with what the gamers really wanted.

Crysis became big not only for graphics but also because of its fresh gameplay,which featured open-world areas,and various vehicles. It was something more akin to how Far Cry 3/4 plays,and well,Crysis did that before Skyrim that made open worlds fashion.

But what did they do in Crysis 2 ? Instead of keeping the fresh character and gameplay of Crysis,they made Crysis 2 be a COD clone. A linear walk from scripted sequence to scripted sequence. Well COD might be good or bad depending on your taste,but for other games to copy COD is BAD. These fools on Crytek thought it would be a good idea to trash originality for making their series a clone of some other popular series. Well apparently people seem to like originality and fresh ideas,and Crysis 2 didn't stole the sales of COD.

Their free to play shooter ? It's another clone. Yet again same mistake,lack of originality,and if that wasn't enough they added pay-to-win stuff that you have to spend real money for,instead of only selling cosmetic skins. And apparently players don't like that system.So here they have another failure.

Finally there is Ryse.
They really have to be delusional to think that making a game to be an exclusive launch title to only 1 platform out of 3 (PC,PS4,XBOX1),and especially the one which was the most unpopular,and was to be available in only the 1/10 of the countries of the market at the time the game ships,would be a good idea that would bring them money.
They minimized their profits to one platform out of three,and to 13 countries from PS4's 48 and PC's 147.

Decisions,decisions,decisions...

 

[Strazdas]

how the hell did they do that? The crytek games are very succesful are they not? To bad. They were a good studio. I'd hate to see them go.

and now we finally see the effect of how one bad game can ruin your whole company. That game is caleld Ryse.

But what did they do in Crysis 2 ? Instead of keeping the fresh character and gameplay of Crysis,they made Crysis 2 be a COD clone.

they needed to cram Crysis into a underpowered box we called console. console studios have been gutting features for years even back then, and so did Crytek. Had they stayed PC-only they could have continued to be leaders in what the engine can do, and maybe it would have sold more of the actual engine (which they were licensing to other game studios). Sadly, as it is now Crysis 1 is far better than 2 or 3 gameplay, story and graphics wise.