Crytek: new source of capital has secured its long-term future

[JAW96]

Good for them i guess, curious what they come up with and if their businessmodel holds on this time 

umm, here is a word from a former employee (makes me sad as a crysis fan)

 

Finally, Crytek has admitted the problems but noone knows the future. Its probably unclear even for the Yerlis. Communication from upper management is basically zero as it has always been. Crytek is one of the worst companies in this respect. Leaking context sensitive information from upper management usually results in "fucking hard" some key people so its not a surprise that most people and the public media don't know much. In fact, as worker bees (as "slaves") we have nothing to do with how the owners spend their money as long as we get paid. The strategy of the company is often clouded. Sometimes I feel that the reason is simply that there is no strategy... Most of the workers were not getting their paychecks and we were not told anything for a very long time before the current "solution". This generated a very-very unpleasant atmosphere and destroyed morale and almost everything that was valuable here. The result is maximum doubt and zero trust. Will the employees receive the next pachecks? Of course the Yerlis expect all of these problems to evaporate in a moment and workers should continue things as if nothing happened but it simply doesn't work that way. In my opinion it takes at least half year to recover from such a situation even if you deal with it properly (by compensating people for the uncomfortable situation, not like this: by wondering why people don't work after two or more unpaid months). For many people it was quite tempting to spread our pain and these bad news to the world but as an employee at crytek I had a strong feeling of ambivalence: not getting paychecks affected a lot of people quite negatively and accumulating bad news just made it more probable that those people don't get their money.

There are too many lies and even the workers and middle management have only a blurry vision of what goes on. Zero communication from upper/middle management, unequally treated studios, rumors spreading within a single studio and between studios, etc... Now its up to your imagination how you interpret "transitional phase" and "long term". They lied to you and many others in the past and you have no reason to trust their words. I'm afraid that "transitional phase" means a dirty "survivor game" and getting rid of some studios and people (hopefully not the dirty way but I expect this from the bros). Long term: half year, a year, one and a half? We will see, this depends on a lot of factors but the lack of vision/projects and the disturbance caused by the previous months encourages a lot of people to go (and the bros may be happy to get rid of people the cheaper way as they probably don't want to waste money on proper layoffs.). My decisions (as those of most other people here) are often based on rumors spreading across the studios (but they tend to be very reliable) and I've heared that (some) of the people who left haven't received their money from which I wouldn't expect crytek to have that much money in order to claim having a "secured future". There are rumors that even the financing of (some) studios were only partial compared to the usual despite the cash the bros got from the dark. Its time to leave for those who work for some other reasons besides "doing hobby" with expected enthusiasm. I loved working with the team that has already been destroyed. For a long time I was full of hope but its too late. Besides this, there is life after crytek.

They are playing an unfair game with workers and they've just stepped over the line for many (including myself). Its time to leave as this is not anymore a good place to work for many reasons. Over the years they have proved to be too incompetent in leading a large company and they seem to be unable to learn from their mistakes. I understand the role and importance of holding back info from higher management layers but they are too dishonest with employees (including many layers within the company) and this is the least of the problems. From my own experience and from what I've heared from different sources they don't have a bit of respect towards employees of the company. As an employee you are just a negative number (financially) in their eyes and you are treated according to that. Of course you are still expected to show full respect and loyalty to the company by working hard (you know the motto of crytek: "disrespect the impossible"). Even if the company was not profitable it wasn't the fault of the individual and often quite talented employees. It was clearly the fault of their bad business decisions. Despite the lack of success: the existence of the company enabled them to get a lot of money from different sources over the years and they could live a life with high standards. If they don't respect and value all this then they don't deserve the life they could live thanks to the existence of crytek. For this reason I don't anymore support the existence of this company. For some this may sound like a good reason for a laughter, words of a... There are actually leaders who honour and value human life, invested work, and the existence of a company much more than these people. Don't misunderstand, I don't expect the Yerlis to come over to drink a beer with me but money made them too blind and they are in need of a big lesson to learn from.

I don't recommend joining crytek unless you get an offer with extraordinary superb salary (if that is attractive to you at all) because you really don't anymore have another reason. Unfortunately I doubt that they would offer a good salary for you in this situation unless you are a John Carmack and even if you plan working for this company you should wait for a half or a whole year to let the storm settle. If crytek survives it will probably do so as a smaller company and noone knows yet how will that look like. Even if the company survives I wouldn't be surprised of projects done in haste spiced up with crunching to finish in time and to show the muscles for some... I'm afraid some people without adequate info will still get trapped by this. Hopefully this whole thing gets flushed down the toilet quickly before the employees start paying hard for the mistakes of the owners. Please, respect the impossible and do yourself a favor: apply for a job at a company that respects your invested time, has successful projects, and pays the bonuses for your hard work.

[Derangel]

If they make crysis 4 in 2015, it will be the best graphics game until 2018 or 2019 lol.

 

They know how to make best looking game and optimize it!

 

They are real game developers not like other bitches like UBISOFT!

 

fuck you ubisoft!

 

While I have issues with some of the things Ubisoft does as a company I'd say Far Cry 3 is better than EVERYTHING Crytek has ever put out.

[Sharkyx1]

Not really. I've watched the gameplay. There's nothing similar about them beyond a few points in the gunplay. I am expecting Crysis-level visuals though.

There's gameplay out?

 

i was talking Crytek open world shooter with less linearity to it.

then again its not german crytek, its Cry UK, aka Free Radical Games

[Imaginaerum]

Meh. Crytek's current business model seems to be based around creating a generic product in an over-saturated market. While their games have a bit more polish then some others, I doubt that's going to be enough to save them in the long term. Unless Crytek return to their old style of innovative gameplay and graphics technology as exibited by Far Cry and Crysis 1, I expect that they are just putting off the inevitable.  

I don't know when they ever had innovative gameplay - Crysis 1 sure didn't, that felt like a chalked up Battlefield 2 - but the graphics were the only reason they even became famous. I guess it's kind of hard to make them better right now because better seems to be photo realistic.

[Vacsol]

Could it be... The German mafia!

 

Does Germany even have mafia?

I don't think it was the German Mafia, and I'm not going to go around saying it was aliens. but it was probably aliens.

[Sammael]

imma guess it's amd, gotta have that mantle supported third party engine

[Derangel]

imma guess it's amd, gotta have that mantle supported third party engine

 

AMD doesn't exactly have tens of millions of dollars to throw at a developer that is dying due to their own mistakes. It is most likely venture capitalists or some other private funding groups. Alternatively it could be one of the big Chinese free-to-play companies.

[samuel]

Offtopic: Watched The Amazing Spiderman 2 and at a certain scene there was an "remember me"  with a very similar Prophet voice and Crysis audio puns.

[Mister Snow]

imma guess it's amd, gotta have that mantle supported third party engine

Nah, it's Valve, they are preparing for hl3. 

[warpig]

What exactly about Crysis 1's gameplay was remotely innovative? Outside of the suit everything was an advancement of what they did on Far Cry and the suit was just a way to implement super powers in the game. Crytek's business model is try to copy Epic without understanding why people license Unreal Engine. Crytek also vastly overstepped their bounds and went crazy with buying IPs, studios, and opening tons of offices around the world. Crytek has more studios then DICE or Bioware.

 

 

Crysis' gameplay was of course not in any way groundbreaking. However, it did successfully build on Far Cry's formula, introducing a few new gameplay mechanics that kept the game feeling fresh in comparison to it's predecessor. In addition, Crytek pushed the limits of graphical fidelity as far as they were able to, creating a game that next to nothing available at the time could run at maximum settings, which is something few developers are brave enough to do. Compare that to Crysis 2 and 3, which devolved the gameplay to something nearly indistinguishable from Call of Duty clones to better fit in on consoles and moved fewer copys on PC then the original. I understand that this is not the direct cause of Crytek's current financial woes, however I can't imagine they have particularly good prospects for putting themselves back in the spotlight in the future.

[Hawx]

Crysis' gameplay was of course not in any way groundbreaking. However, it did successfully build on Far Cry's formula, introducing a few new gameplay mechanics that kept the game feeling fresh in comparison to it's predecessor. In addition, Crytek pushed the limits of graphical fidelity as far as they were able to, creating a game that next to nothing available at the time could run at maximum settings, which is something few developers are brave enough to do. Compare that to Crysis 2 and 3, which devolved the gameplay to something nearly indistinguishable from Call of Duty clones to better fit in on consoles and moved fewer copys on PC then the original. I understand that this is not the direct cause of Crytek's current financial woes, however I can't imagine they have particularly good prospects for putting themselves back in the spotlight in the future.

The story in Crysis 2 and 3 was far more deep and inventive than anything CoD has pushed out. The nanosuit integration in multiplayer was very well balanced and added a depth to it. The range of weapons, from microwave emitters to rall guns, added an extra skill level from standard.

 

If you treat Crysis 2 and 3 as its own series, separate from Crysis 1, then they become quite excellent.

[totjup5]

Making a good game would also secure their future....