Crytek may go bankrupt

[HMBR]

I liked Far Cry1 and Crysis1 a lot, good gameplay and pushing the limits at the time.

Crysis 2 was good looking but hardly with the same impact, and gameplay was poor, it felt like a totally different game, I couldn't even bother with trying Crysis 3, watching some videos was enough...
but it definitely looked like they were using a lot of money with Crysis 2, 3 and Ryse.

the failure to have high adoption of their engines is a shame, but I'm not going to be unhappy for not seeing another Crysis 2.

 

[Npl]

how did the they manage to get big anyway? they had only a couple of games, always complained about piracy and still got bigger than most teams, save EA and Ubi (and cost of labour aint exactly cheap in germany).

Never added up for me.

 

[dobwal]

Its sad that one game can take down a company these days, and its not like Ryse sold less than 100k or something terrible like that. Selling a million units use to be a milestone, but these days it often doesn't come close to the cost of many of these game development budgets. Im sure one of the console manufactures would buy them up before they would simply close the doors, the game engine would be an incredible asset to have when looking to entice third party developers to your platform.

I seriously doubt Ryse was the biggest factor in Crytek predicament (if it is in one).

Its not like Heavenly Sword or Lair where you have second party companies mostly living off funds provided by a 1st party pub. Only to find themselves on the outs because their titles performed poorly and they had no new takers of their services.

2013 was the first year Crytek managed to push out more than on IP in a given year. So it might be a temporary cash crunch where they haven't pushed production and revenue to a level that warrants the number of studios they have now.

A cash injection may be all they need. I guess its all dependent on how well their titles perform.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Its sad that one game can take down a company these days...

That's the story, but it doesn't mean it's true. Having said that, the protracted development of Ryse probably did wipe out the profits from 1 million sales. We've heard before of AAA games requiring a million sales to break even. A AAA game that's gone through two AAA cycles would, by extrapolation, require 2 million sales to break even.

But we've no idea of the deal with MS. Could be Ryse did just fine for Crytek but everything else they're trying has drained their coffers.

 

[AlNom]

how did the they manage to get big anyway? they had only a couple of games, always complained about piracy and still got bigger than most teams, save EA and Ubi (and cost of labour aint exactly cheap in germany).

Never added up for me.

Their east European and far eastern studios are probably not too expensive (although I can see it adding up considering how many studios they have).

There are/were also licensees outside of the gaming industry that might have been fairly lucrative.

 

[dobwal]

That's the story, but it doesn't mean it's true. Having said that, the protracted development of Ryse probably did wipe out the profits from 1 million sales. We've heard before of AAA games requiring a million sales to break even. A AAA game that's gone through two AAA cycles would, by extrapolation, require 2 million sales to break even.

But we've no idea of the deal with MS. Could be Ryse did just fine for Crytek but everything else they're trying has drained their coffers.

Unless Crytek owns the Ryse IP, I seriously doubt Crytek rolled the cost of the development themselves.

 

[Rangers]

Seems like they grew too much. Which was their own stupidity/the Yerli brothers. Anyways this isn't surprising, people have been wondering how they support so many employees for a while now, the only answer seemed to be "military simulator contracts" which sounded a bit urban legend-ish.

At this point will we end up with just Ubisoft, EA, and Activision? Anybody got a rough list of big triple A core gaming publishers? Microsoft and Sony too I guess... Take Two?

Honestly this makes me wonder a bit about Epic too. They have a fairly similar profile to Crytek in some ways. Went fairly dark in terms of triple A dev, trying to get into F2P/MMO type stuff, etc. Difference is I guess Epic has many less employees (but more expensive?). UE is more popular as an engine ( I guess, third party engines seem a bit out of favor anyway, there's less need if each of Ubi/EA/Acti roll their own internal engine EG Frostbite). One assumes Epic was/is better managed bussinesswise? Looks like by their wiki Epic also has a major investment from Chinese firm Tencent as well.

 

[Ike Turner]

Seems like they grew too much. Which was their own stupidity/the Yerli brothers. Anyways this isn't surprising, people have been wondering how they support so many employees for a while now, the only answer seemed to be "military simulator contracts" which sounded a bit urban legend-ish.

At this point will we end up with just Ubisoft, EA, and Activision? Anybody got a rough list of big triple A core gaming publishers? Microsoft and Sony too I guess... Take Two?

Honestly this makes me wonder a bit about Epic too. They have a fairly similar profile to Crytek in some ways. Went fairly dark in terms of triple A dev, trying to get into F2P/MMO type stuff, etc. Difference is I guess Epic has many less employees (but more expensive?). UE is more popular as an engine ( I guess, third party engines seem a bit out of favor anyway, there's no need if each of Ubi/EA/Acti roll their own internal engine EG Frostbite). One assumes Epic was/is better managed bussinesswise? Looks like by their wiki Epic also has a major investment from Chinese firm Tencent as well.

Epic went through a similar dilemma 2 years ago and that's why Tencent practically owns them now and why they are no longer actively developing games besides FrontNite which was started before the Tencent takeover.

 

[AlNom]

Curious...

 

[Pixel]

Seems like they grew too much. Which was their own stupidity/the Yerli brothers. Anyways this isn't surprising, people have been wondering how they support so many employees for a while now, the only answer seemed to be "military simulator contracts" which sounded a bit urban legend-ish.

At this point will we end up with just Ubisoft, EA, and Activision? Anybody got a rough list of big triple A core gaming publishers? Microsoft and Sony too I guess... Take Two?

Honestly this makes me wonder a bit about Epic too. They have a fairly similar profile to Crytek in some ways. Went fairly dark in terms of triple A dev, trying to get into F2P/MMO type stuff, etc. Difference is I guess Epic has many less employees (but more expensive?). UE is more popular as an engine ( I guess, third party engines seem a bit out of favor anyway, there's no need if each of Ubi/EA/Acti roll their own internal engine EG Frostbite). One assumes Epic was/is better managed bussinesswise? Looks like by their wiki Epic also has a major investment from Chinese firm Tencent as well.

http://www.vg247. com/2011/05/27/us-army-spending-57-million-on-military-simulator-using-cryengine-3/

 

[Rangers]

I'm sure they have contracts, what I'd wonder (and doubt) is if those have the ability to sustain them financially.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Assume that having really cool technology alone will sell your engine because OMG GRAFX, expand your studios without a care in the world for profits and sales, don't worry about hitting target dates, and target your games almost exclusively at enthusiasts…sounds like a company run exactly the way most forum dwellers think a company should be run.

 

[itsmydamnation]

I'm sure they have contracts, what I'd wonder (and doubt) is if those have the ability to sustain them financially.

unless you have worked on military projects before dont try to judge them by commercial/enterprise metrics. in my experience most defense contracts are very lucrative but when they go bad.... boy they go bad.

 

[Rangers]

I saw on another forum the idea of "Microsoft should buy Crytek"**.

Unlike the Capcom thing I'd like that. A least they are good at one thing, pushing graphics to the limit. And MS could use more 1st party developers like that. Hey, it's not my money so why not. With 800 developers (MS might have to slash the payroll realistically) they could do several games at once you'd think.

**of course this will not happen.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Crytek denies everything. Possibly has financial deal in the works. Maybe they've been hard-up but have a potential buyer/investor already?

Sounds like the whole thing with The Last Guardian. One magazine/website says something and suddenly the whole internet thinks it is the truth without any proof.

Except in this case, Sony denies it and everyone believes them. Crytek denies it and people still believe the original article.

Considering how many games are in developement and coming out using CryEngine and how popular the engine is in China (potentially going to be the largest single market on the planet) and Asia (especially Korea) I'm not sure why many have put so much stock into this report.

That's not to say it isn't true. Just like it may be true that The Last Guardian is in fact cancelled or on hold. But at this point there's no way to know other than to take a companies word for it.

I just find it interesting that the internet at large is so quick to believe unsubstantiated rumors just because it is published in a gaming magazine/gaming website. I can fall for it from time to time as well, but once the company actually speaks up I'll tend to believe them over some magazine/website.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

Sounds like the whole thing with The Last Guardian. One magazine/website says something and suddenly the whole internet thinks it is the truth without any proof.

Except in this case, Sony denies it and everyone believes them. Crytek denies it and people still believe the original article.

Considering how many games are in developement and coming out using CryEngine and how popular the engine is in China (potentially going to be the largest single market on the planet) and Asia (especially Korea) I'm not sure why many have put so much stock into this report.

That's not to say it isn't true. Just like it may be true that The Last Guardian is in fact cancelled or on hold. But at this point there's no way to know other than to take a companies word for it.

I just find it interesting that the internet at large is so quick to believe unsubstantiated rumors just because it is published in a gaming magazine/gaming website. I can fall for it from time to time as well, but once the company actually speaks up I'll tend to believe them over some magazine/website.

Regards,
SB

Probably the most damning, concrete, thing though is repeated claims that employees haven't been paid lately. The rest of the stuff could be nonsense, but that one has been repeated enough by reputable outlets to probably have truth (several employees reportedly told this to Eurogamer, etc).

 

[eastmen]

I saw on another forum the idea of "Microsoft should buy Crytek"**.

Unlike the Capcom thing I'd like that. A least they are good at one thing, pushing graphics to the limit. And MS could use more 1st party developers like that. Hey, it's not my money so why not. With 800 developers (MS might have to slash the payroll realistically) they could do several games at once you'd think.

**of course this will not happen.

the engine would be very worth while for ms. They'd be able to move all their first parties to it and tailor it even more so for the xbox one (i'm sure a lot of work was already done with ryse)

But I think Capcom has the better ip which is why that would appeal to me more.

 

[Cjail]

the engine would be very worth while for ms. They'd be able to move all their first parties to it and tailor it even more so for the xbox one (i'm sure a lot of work was already done with ryse)

But I think Capcom has the better ip which is why that would appeal to me more.

Why should 343 Industries move to CE when they already have their own proprietary engine in which they invested years and millions?
CE, but also UE, make sense if you don't have an engine of your own but AFAIK no MS 1st party studio is in this situation.

 

[Rodéric]

Why should 343 Industries move to CE when they already have their own proprietary engine in which they invested years and millions?
CE, but also UE, make sense if you don't have an engine of your own but AFAIK no MS 1st party studio is in this situation.

It may be less expensive to have a studio dedicated to game engine tech while others make games, like EA is doing with DICE.

 

[betan]

I'd think, for MS or any console manufacturer, engine itself is less valuable than the tools around it.