390°

Crytek sues Cloud Imperium for violating their CRYENGINE contract

DSOGaming writes: "Things are not looking good for Star Citizen and Squadron 42. Crytek has sued Cloud Imperium and Roberts Space Industries for violating their contract. According to the suit, Cloud Imperium was to develop only one game with CRYENGINE (Star Citizen) and not two (Star Citizen and Squadron 42). And while some may say that Squadron 42 is just the single-player mode of Star Citizen, the game is being sold as a standalone title, thus giving the impression of a second, separate game."

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dsogaming.com
fluxmulder2346d ago

Somehow I don't think "pay for legal fees in future lawsuit" was something backers signed up for.

badz1492346d ago

I don't think those money poured to them all went into development either. at like 150mil now? I think they pocketed a good 20-30mil for their own

bluefox7552346d ago

$170 million last I heard.

Silly gameAr2345d ago

Of course they did. People keep giving the money though.

spicelicka2345d ago

That's a shit ton of money. Even pocketing a million from each exec would be unnoticeable!

Kleptic2345d ago

In no way a lawyer, and in no way pretend to be (an engineering degree)...but work in IT and we're constantly 'informed' through various continuing ed requirements about the legalize surrounding crowd sourced software...

and it's a joke. A single attorney can write up some off the wall licensing, and it basically can give the receivers of crowd sourced funding freedom to do whatever they want with it. Typically crowd sourcing is funneled through some sort of middle-man like agency (kickstarter, gofundme, etc.) that puts their own requirements in place, takes a cut, and overall keeps things on the up and up so that all parties are better off. To my understanding, everything related to Star Citizen's development budget is in house, right?

Crowd funding allows group(s) of people to do some amazing things that they couldn't otherwise do, but also can illustrate why a certain 'idea' wasn't funded in a traditional way in the first place. Start Citizen falls into the latter imo. Over half a decade, approaching 200 million in funding, and it's still not a product...or a service...in any tangible sense. The biggest question i've had for a while is what do the backers get, exactly? They get some online content and access to the 'game', but do they have to outright buy the 'real' title later on? A primary problem with situations like this is that the development budget flips into just revenue when everything is said and done, because backers get the game at release...and no one else ever cared to begin with.

Just under 200 million in development is crazy...200 million in 'sales', most of which already having been expensed, is...well, that's why it hasn't been picked up by any traditional publishers. But they're spending it, that's for sure. Every couple of months a few 30 minute videos show up with some extreme concept art, relatively underwhelming test footage of gameplay, and Chris Roberts w/ a girl talking in front of what seems to be a very expensive camera.

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kevnb2345d ago

If they got the money from a publisher would you say the same thing?

Cobra9512345d ago

If they got the money from a publisher, there would be lawyers and accountants protecting its use. How much protection does a crowd of unrelated strangers funding a game get?

kevnb2345d ago (Edited 2345d ago )

class action lawsuit? Publishers arent really all that protected unless they can prove they were getting screwed over.

UltraNova2345d ago

Yep! Great supporting character!

As for this lawsuit I was expecting it the same day I watched that developer progress diary that mentioned the issues they had with CE3 and why they wanted to switch.

Bhuahahaha2345d ago

hehehe, i wonder if all his fingers are intact here

xX-oldboy-Xx2345d ago

Watch HARRY BROWN for a different side to Sir Davos

Bahamut2345d ago

In GoT it's "Ser". Not that it matters.

NotoriousWhiz2345d ago

Didn't see your comment. Now mine feels redundant. Oh well lol.

Pantz2345d ago

You got the Ser part right

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bluefox7552346d ago (Edited 2346d ago )

Don't worry, I'm sure the backers will happily fork over a couple million more to settle the legal battle.

frostypants2345d ago (Edited 2345d ago )

Crytek could conceivably demand that they receive an ungodly percentage of every copy sold for eternity, in exchange for not killing the games outright. They are in a position to rake Cloud Imperium over the coals here.

rainslacker2345d ago

Kind of. More likely, given that it was done on the commercial license, they'd just have to purchase another commercial license. It kind of depends on the level with which the game was developed on the unlicensed game. That'll be something for the courts to decide, but I doubt the courts would award the standard freebie license fee which I believe is something like 50% of the game's revenue(not profit).

I haven't read Crytek's license, but there is probably something in there about fines should something like this be done. There's also the matter of if the code in the release is actually the same as from the unlicensed version because of the development schedule, or because LY is actually the same as the CryEngine in most ways.

Zeref2346d ago

I think Crytek should chill, This is the only major game that is using Cryengine, why are they trying to piss them off? they could have worked out a deal.

SunnyZ2346d ago

Apparently they are no longer using cryengine, That seems to be the whole problem here.
They are using assets that they made in cryengine in another game engine made by Amazon.
That's why they are butt-hurt

watchem2345d ago

But didn't Amazon buy up the Cry Engine?!

Mulando2345d ago

The Lumberyard engine is the cryengine, Amazon bought it from crytek. They are just trying to get some money because crytek was missmanaged the last years. If that doesn't work crytek is bankrupt (I think).

frostypants2345d ago (Edited 2345d ago )

"Butt-hurt"? It's called theft. Are you in the habit of doing business deals for free?

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120°

Square Enix Is Going Multiplatform; The Layoffs & Its Past Don't Inspire Confidence

After its latest games didn't meet sales targets, Square Enix is going multiplatform but the company's track record isn't convincing.

Scissorman7h ago

Square Enix been multiplatform for decades, a few exclusively-deals doesn't make them any less multiplatform.

fr0sty6h ago

Nor is selling their games on a console with only 25 million install base going to bring their sales to where they hope they will be... Unless they somehow manage to dumb down FF7 trilogy to work on switch, they aren't going to have much luck. They already released it on PC, after all.

SegaSaturn6696h ago

It kind of does, giving preference to a certain platform by timed exclusivity. Console ports generally feel superior. Legend of mana PC port extremely broken

neutralgamer19926h ago

Sega

It doesn’t when square themselves didn’t want to fund the development of remake. It’s only after the success of the 1st they realized their mistake but now contract is signed. If it wasn’t for Sony there would be no FF7 remakes. Same goes for silent hill 2 with Konami. They don’t want to fund AAA budget. Companies like PlayStation and Nintendo get blamed when in reality they are saving some of these franchises

Remember sega didn’t want to fund bayonetta and epic games didn’t want to fund another gears of war. It’s easy to blame console makers but they are the ones taking the risk and paying huge upfront costs without seeing the final product. FF7 remake trilogy won’t be coming to Xbox now or in the future. PlayStation and PC is what square signed up for. Sony paid them more than they would make from Xbox sales.

ravens526h ago

I just wonder when everyone is going to demand that the Square Enix exclusives with Nintendo come to PS and Xbox. Or it's just the PS exclusives that matter lol

phoenixwing6h ago(Edited 6h ago)

I'd love for the nintendo exclusives to come to pc or ps5. They'd actually be playable then.

neutralgamer19926h ago

Raven

Exactly and that’s where square enix does more exclusive than any other platform. Gaming is square has always been very unrealistic with their sales expectations. Remember when tomb raider reboot sold 7.5 million and square said it wasn’t enough. They need to spend less on development and have more realistic expectations from sales.

And those thinking games being not on Xbox makes a difference don’t understand we have a decade plus of data showing square enix games having less than 20% of their multiplatform sales on Xbox (final fantasy series) and Nintendo consoles aren’t strong enough to run any current games. Nintendo switch should be as strong as Xbox one x atleast but we all know that’s most likely won’t happen

RoadRacer5h ago

@raven

thing is, as neutral said in their comm, the switch isn't strong enough to run flagship SE games
i think what SE does is, it makes unique games for switch only so that it has something for that console too. Thats where all the "underlined sans" rpgs go to mostly

maybe things will change when Swtich 2 drops cuz that's gonna be as strong as ps4 afaik from the rumors flying around

TheGamingHounds6h ago

@Scissorman

Your point is valid enough but when the icon of this company is limited to one console in timed-exclusivity, it means the company has crossed the line. By some degree at least

All things aside, Square itself stated "aggressive multiplatform strategies" so we all know what it's talking about

Scissorman3h ago(Edited 3h ago)

Then the headline should read "Square To Drop Exclusively Deals in Pursuit of A Sweeping Multiplatform Strategy". I don't recall this argument when Square Enix released Bravely Default, Octopath Traveler, and Triangle Strategy on one platform. And even if FF is the icon, not all of its titles have gone to one platform. We're talking about three games, one of which is already on PC. Did Square suddenly go 'multiplatform' after it released subsequent Tomb Raider sequels on more than just the Xbox? It's just a silly way of putting it.

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TheGamingHounds6h ago(Edited 6h ago)

SE needs to go all in optimization. Broken PC ports won't help its case, especially with big releases like mainline Final Fantasy

Asterphoenix5h ago

It's actually simple. What doesn't inspire confidence is Square allocating their budgets on the wrong projects such as Forspoken, Avengers, Babylons Fall and Foamstars.

Square has always been multiplatform since PS3/360 days which 80 % of their games are. People kick up a fuss over PS exclusivity but not Nintendo which has more exclusive projects console exclusive from Square.

FF16 has done ok but not enough to fix the blunders that the past mistakes Square has made with some of their projects. FF7 Rebirth is unclear we'll see a PC release for sure so it's hard to say so far not as good as they would of liked.

Then again unrealistic expectations. If it weren't for Sony these games would at least had another 2 years development time. So some people need to be realistic in that regard.

Scissorman3h ago(Edited 3h ago)

It's the blunders that set those expectations so high. If you remove those from the equation, I bet the sales numbers would be more than stellar. Square believes it's okay to release a pile of risky, middling, garbage because the big boys will ultimately subsidize the cost. Don't worry if Forspoken sells poorly, FF16 will surely sell 10 million copies to balance that right out. Oh wait, it only sold like 4 million. Well that's a disaster. Meanwhile games that sell 2 million units with comparable budgets are deemed successful.

RoadRacer5h ago

Square Enix just really need to revise its expectations. Maybe consider a change in strategy on dev end as well. Multiplat will help for sure but only good games that are marketed well will sell

70°

How the names Arrowhead Game Studios and Helldivers 2 came to be

Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Johan Pilestedt explains how the studio name comes from a name translation, plus the background on the game title “Helldivers.”

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blog.playstation.com
100°

Rockstar Games Founder's New Studio Is Working On AAA Open World Action Adventure Game

Rockstar Games founder Dan Houser's new studio, Absurd Ventures, is currently working on a AAA open world action adventure game.

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twistedvoxel.com
porkChop1d 10h ago

I'm really curious to see what he's going to do. It seems like a GTA-style game, but I wonder how it'll differentiate itself.

Goodguy0122h ago(Edited 22h ago)

A new studio making a AAA game. Yea, that'll go well. I still think new studios should only make small games for a few years to build up teamwork and trust within.

shinoff218321h ago

That's a good point but if they have the talent it may not be needed

Mr_cheese20h ago

And the industry experience like this guy clearly does

anast19h ago

If it weren't one of the founder's of one of the most prolific open-world game studios, I would agree.

EazyC16h ago

That is an interesting point. They should gun for something akin to a great PS3 game imo. The resource cost of say RDR 2 would only EVER be possible by a monolithic titan of an organisation. It would be crazy to even try and compete straight away.