I know that a lot of PC gamers hate Crytek for what it did to the Crysis series but let’s face it; this studio had a lot of potential. And when we say a lot, we mean A LOT. German videogames magazine “Gamestar” has reported that Crytek is in big trouble and that it may go bankrupt.
According to Gamestar, the adoption of CRYENGINE is not going well and the word-of-mouth at GDC was negative. Strangely enough, CRYENGINE is currently one of the most optimized engines, so Crytek should really look into its subscription prices otherwise this amazing engine may never be used by other triple-A developers.
Not only that, but Gamestar claims that the development of Ryse was catastrophic for the studio. Just mere months before its release, the game was severely behind and Crytek was able to complete it with additional manpower. And from what we’ve seen thus far, Ryse did not sell as well as Crytek hoped (especially for a console exclusive).
Things are definitely not looking good for Crytek and while Avni Yerli claimed that a cash injection for the company is finally imminent (with a contract to be signed really soon), a lot of big publishers are waiting for a possible bankrupt in order to sign the talent and shop the IPs from Crytek.
For what is worth, Wargaming is listed as a possible buyer of Crytek. If Wargaming does buys Crytek, we can kiss goodbye to all of the studio’s single-player games (as Wargaming is best known for its Free-To-Play games). In short, this may be the end of the Crytek we knew.
But what has happened and the team is facing this major financial issues? According to Yerli, there were “dramatized rumors” from disgruntled ex-employers, something that obviously had a negative impact to Crytek’s public image. Additionally, Crytek has more than 800 employees (a number so huge that explains the company’s possible financial issues). Moreover, Gamestar reported that salaries were paid late and leading employees were sending applications to other studios at home and abroad. And if that wasn’t enough, Warface was only successful in Russia and Crytek’s G-face platform was a big flop.
In short, Crytek is currently in deep trouble and we don’t know whether the studio will be able to recover. And yes, PC gamers can now say to Crytek “We told you so, you had to keep Crysis exclusive to the PC and keep pushing the graphical boundaries.”
So yes, today you have the right to say that you told them so. And let me conclude this article with a small tribute to Inon Zur’s amazing score for the first Crysis game!
[UPDATE]
As anyone would expect, Crytek denied Gamestar’s report. As Eurogamer reported, the information in the GameStar article is a rumor which Crytek denies.
Now let me remind you what happened with Gametrailers a while back. Michael Pachter tweeted one day that Gametrailers would be sold to another company. Gametrailers denied those claims, but shortly after E3, the website got sold to Defy Media just like Pachter claimed. Moreover, a lot of GT’s staff was laid off during that transition.
For the time being, Crytek denies the claims so we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. Still, we remain a bit skeptical about this whole thing. After all, where there is smoke there is – usually – fire.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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