Robert Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games VS Crytek Lawsuit Update: Crytek forced to put up $500,000 USD bond because they're broke

[AlTech]

Previously on Crytek trying to sue the living daylights out of Robert Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games, aka the makers of Squadron 42 and Star Citizen:

 

Original lawsuit filed (Part 1). Topic by @SC2Mitch:

 

Cloud Imperium Games tries to dismiss the lawsuit and it's not looking good for Crytek (Part 2):

 

Cloud Imperium Games tried to get Crytek's first ammended complaint dismissed (Part 3):

 

And now the new update:

 

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

 

In this lawsuit of Robert Space Industries (RSI) and Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) VS Crytek, Crytek has now been ordered to put up a bond "security" of USD $500,000 .

 

The court ordered Crytek to pay this money after RSI and CIG asked the court to do it because Crytek ultimately is very broke and there are supposedly concerns about whether Crytek actually can pay all the damages and fees etc that they may be forced to pay later on.

 

And so basically this bond or "security" is being ordered to make sure that Crytek ultimately pay the amount owed if CIG and RSI win the lawsuit which it looks like may actually happen and Crytek might have just really committed seppaku on this one by not settling or dropping the lawsuit.

 

Crytek is fairly lucky in one sense that the court didn't order them to pay the originally asked for bond "security" of 2.2 Million USD that CIG and RSI requested and that the court "only" asked for $500K to be put up.

 

However what are the chances that Crytek has 2.2 Million USD lying around? I really don't think they have or have had great liquidity in the past few years so asking for that amount couild possibly result in bankruptcy.

 

I am surprised that this is where the lawsuit headed. The original press media which did very heavy coverage of the narrative that CIG and RSI being the bad guys Crytek was fighting seems to have died down and even abandoned ship almost and now it's a ghost town outside of non-traditional media.

 

Edit: And also I just wanted to point out now that Crytek continuing the lawsuit and not settling makes even less sense considering that they sold a copy of their game engine to Amazon (which they modified and rebranded as Lumberyard engine) and considering that their engine source code is open source, available for free, and has been for a while.

 

Quotes are from the news article source, Above information is from the video source and my thoughts are included above as well.

Quote

Welcome to some more Star Citizen News, with an Update & Recap of the CIG vs Crytek Lawsuit.

 

The Court has ordered that a bond of $500k be put up by Crytek to protect CIG in the event that CIG are the prevailing party.

This was actually a lot less than CIG wanted, the original bond requested was for $2.2 million. So why did the court award the bond BUT for much less than CIG requested.

The bond is to protect CIG from having to be fully liable for their lawyer’s fees if they are the prevailing party & was made available to CIG as Crytek are a foriegn entity and have a History of Financial Troubles… but these troubles and way CIG argued them may have been overly convincing to the court

 

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Basically CIG arguing that Crytek were in dire straits financially helped get a bond BUT the court won’t put it to $2.2m as they don’t want to stop Crytek from being able to continue litigation.

 

Sources:

https://www.boredgamer.co.uk/2019/07/25/crytek-ordered-to-pay-500k-bond-star-citizen-lawsuit/

 

 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Well, at least the lawsuit will eventually be finished.  The game on the other hand ...

 

 

 

 

[mr moose]

I remember discussing this case in great detail.  Although I don't remember the details themselves I do remember being annoyed that RSI had leveraged Crytech's resources, technology and reputation to launch SC and SQ42 and get the funding only to ditch them once they were able to swap over to the free version and avoid paying for the rest of it.

 

 

 

[Doobeedoo]

Oh this still dragging on, shame. Well SC to be finished now. Also, I'd really like to see the new Crysis game though... 

[Syfes]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

I remember discussing this case in great detail.  Although I don't remember the details themselves I do remember being annoyed that RSI had leveraged Crytech's resources, technology and reputation to launch SC and SQ42 and get the funding only to ditch them once they were able to swap over to the free version and avoid paying for the rest of it.

Well what did they expect would happen when they licensed their engine to Amazon? 

[mr moose]

9 hours ago, Syfes said:

Well what did they expect would happen when they licensed their engine to Amazon? 

Companies to adhere to their contracts.

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Companies to adhere to their contracts.

As far as I’m aware, RSI paid a lump sum (multiple millions, if I recall) to get access to the CryEngine that they ended up using. 

 

There was no continual fee being paid to CryTek. 

 

There was also no obligation that RSI had to use CryEngine. 

 

Amazon came in in with a better offer - basic business sense means RSI did the right thing. Plus they probably saw the writing on the wall and were worried that CryTek would go under before the game was released. 

 

I wouldn't quite go so far as to say RSI were the “good guys”, but to me it mainly seems like CryTek were hoping to score some easy money since their business is slowly dying. 

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

As far as I’m aware, RSI paid a lump sum (multiple millions, if I recall) to get access to the CryEngine that they ended up using. 

 

There was no continual fee being paid to CryTek. 

 

There was also no obligation that RSI had to use CryEngine. 

 

Amazon came in in with a better offer - basic business sense means RSI did the right thing. Plus they probably saw the writing on the wall and were worried that CryTek would go under before the game was released. 

 

I wouldn't quite go so far as to say RSI were the “good guys”, but to me it mainly seems like CryTek were hoping to score some easy money since their business is slowly dying. 

 

This will be for the judge to decide,  so far as I can tell Crytech believe their contract means that RSI have to continue to use their engine and that there is a cost to it and RSI believe the contract is resolved and they can use any engine they want.

 

 

[dalekphalm]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

This will be for the judge to decide,  so far as I can tell Crytech believe their contract means that RSI have to continue to use their engine and that there is a cost to it and RSI believe the contract is resolved and they can use any engine they want.

 

 

Agreed, that sums it up fairly well. 

 

We should wait for the court to review all evidence and make a judgement before we condemn one or the other. 

 

Though the original contract as pretty shitty (not that well thought out) so who knows what the truth is. 

[Silver3lement]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

This will be for the judge to decide,  so far as I can tell Crytech believe their contract means that RSI have to continue to use their engine and that there is a cost to it and RSI believe the contract is resolved and they can use any engine they want.

 

 

The court had already dismissed this claim a few months ago. Crytek cannot bar CIG from switching engines, As per a previous motion to dismiss. This is in part why the bond was granted as CIG now has a reasonable possibility that they will be the prevailing party in the lawsuit as a whole.

 

There are still some remaining claims to go through the court system but the lions share of the contract and copyright dispute has been worked through thus far. I believe there are still some breaches Crytek is seeking relief on but those may not qualify for monetary judgements as Crytek would have to show "actual damages" which they seem unable to provide.

[mr moose]

12 minutes ago, Silver3lement said:

The court had already dismissed this claim a few months ago.

 

 

Some of their claims yes, but that was before they had the chance to request more evidence in the form of emails etc.  I'll wait and see.

[Silver3lement]

38 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

Some of their claims yes, but that was before they had the chance to request more evidence in the form of emails etc.  I'll wait and see.

Yea same here, its an interesting case. Sparked something in me that enjoys reading all the public legal documents lol. Though I believe that particular claim has been removed from Cryteks second or third amended complaint because of prior proceedings.

 

So they unfortunately cant request emails or documents because of the Judges decision to strike that particular accusation and are no longer able to argue the engines usage.