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.
Moreover, and according to the contract, Cloud Imperium was meant to use all of Crytek’s logos everywhere. However, and after changing engines, Cloud Imperium removed them. Now we don’t know whether Crytek and Cloud Imperium settled things when the latter decided to move to the Lumberyard. If they did not and Cloud Imperium violated their contract – by simply moving to another engine – then the company is in big trouble.
What’s also interesting here is that according to the suit, Crytek actually “invested significant time and expense in creating impressive demonstrations and proofs-of-concept that were used to persuade the public to contribute financially to a “crowdfunding” campaign to support development of the video game.”
Furthermore, we don’t know whether their contract allowed Cloud Imperium to re-use all assets that were created in CRYENGINE in other engines, like the Lumberyard.
The suit filling is online and everyone can read it here.
In short, Crytek may have a case here as its contract with Cloud Imperium stated that Cloud Imperium would only use CRYENGINE as their engine (we all know that the game is now using Lumberyard), they removed mentions the CRYENGINE mentions and logos (the game now refers to its engine as Star Engine, that Cloud Imperium should not share proprietary info on CRYENGINE (however Cloud Imperium has a youtube series detailing elements of CRYENGINE) and provide Crytek with annual bugfixes and optimizations of CRYENGINE (which they didn’t do).
It will be interesting to see whether Cloud Imperium and Crytek will settle things out of court or not. We are also interested to see whether Cloud Imperium will counter those allegations and whether Amazon will step in!
UPDATE:
Cloud Imperium got in touch with us and commented on the story.
“We are aware of the Crytek complaint having been filed in the US District Court. CIG hasn’t used the CryEngine for quite some time since we switched to Amazon’s Lumberyard. This is a meritless lawsuit that we will defend vigorously against, including recovering from Crytek any costs incurred in this matter.”
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.”
Contact: Email
crytek is just desperate for some money
Or you know, they actually broke the contract and deserve to be sued.
Remind me again, how many years has it been since they announced Star Citizen and Squadron 42 as separate products?
Oh, that’s right. Obvious cash grab is obvious. Besides, they’re not even using CryEngine any more, which makes this even more pathetic.
Quite a spot on comment.
It wouldn’t matter when they broke the contract, only if they did. It might be a scummy move to wait this long before filing, but it is by no means illegal.
In fact, after reading the complaint, Crytek actually has a few contentions of substance.
Exactly PB we should wait and see what the hell happens before people blow a lid on acting like one party is in the right or one party isn’t. What I’ve come to understand is what you said, Crytek has a leg to stand on after reading somebody explain the lawsuit on another forum.
Some of the things they’ve mentioned (like giving Crytek bug fixes) seem plausible, sure, and quite interesting, as well, but this thing is just far too strangely timed to come off as anything but a desperate cash grab.
Maybe the think CIG is about to go under, and they want a piece of their Chapter 11? Or perhaps Crytek is about to crash? Hell if I know. Either way, the timing is very suspect.
Whats pathetic is when someone got on a side just because they just hate the other side, even if that side is right…
I don’t like Crytek, sure, I wish they’d be smarter with their money, sure, I wish they wouldn’t hate Crysis so much, sure, but I also wish they’d shape up. If they insist on refusing to, however, then so be it, it’s their choice. Regardless, I don’t hate them, I just find their management to be quite….. pathetic? Ungodly stupid? Moronic beyond description? Ridiculously facepalmable? All of the above? Yeah, definitely.
How would you know how to be smart with money as a corporation ?
You don’t and you are therefore an arrogant fool.
Okay?
2011 and was originally planned for a release in 2014.
Don’t go there, fans will r*pe you literally. They’re so feisty nowadays. Had two d*uches last week that didn’t even have their facts right.
Joe Blobers and Stalker420. Huge pr*cks. Watch out for ‘dem.
No the huge pr**k is you with the namecalling. Your propaganda is futile little tool
blow me little b*tch. Haters call it propaganda, believers call it truth.
Projection young boy.
Wanna play?
Haters call it a scam, believers call it the BDSSE.
See the positive affirmation?
The projection is over 9000 with trolls and goons.
Motherf*cker you’re a fanboi that loves to get scammed. How the f*ck do they brainwash you? How do you sheep follow one another so blindly?
When insults is all you have left… dad.
Is it bad being a fan of something? What are you fab of? Or do you hate everything?
funny! i was about to say the same thing haha
They need a ton to dump into their insane virtual currency scam idea of theirs.
exactly.
Aren’t we all? What would you do given the chance? I’m not defending them
Irrelevant even if true which of course it isnt.
“just” ?
No..no not at all.
Crytwc is running out of money and star citizen is a scam game whit lots of money.
Its good to see someone to call things by its name.
Glad people like you won’t be playing Star Citizen anyway, I guess employing over 300 people and making 3 new studios and 3.0 having nearly every feature asked for is a scam. LOL
How mutch u spend on that game ?
I got it for free and I’ve seen the game since it was just a crappy hanger, 3.0 will have more gameplay than some finished games. I paid less than a AAA game on some ship upgrades to better ships as I see poltential in this game, shame people like you only see a scam.
Ok so you have s*it so far . Now image some guy who paid 30 000 target you . . . Have fun in that pay to win scam game what never coming out.
You know nothing about the game, why should I entertain your stupid opinion anymore? You seem to think it’s pay to win, which shows you know nothing, you don’t even get the simple concept of funding the game with money via ships, this will not be the final game, but idiots like you seem to think so because you’re either thick or ignorant.
Also, what do you win? It’s not even a game you can play to win anything, you mostly test. How about when CIG give everyone all the ships to fly for a while, how about buying an OP ship is meaningless in terms of pay to win in this game at this time. Have you ever played Eve Online, this game will be like that, you buy ships with in game credits which you earn, so you see how much you know, nothing.
Yes i know nothing and nether do you. But i have more brain cuz i dont spend money this scam game .
Except I just explained more than you know, so clearly you know nothing. Next time you spend money on a game that I think is a scam(like a lot of AAA now) I will remind you.
I believe no one will be playing Star Citizen anyway. To play it, it would have to be finished and you have to be absolutely clueless about development process to believe this is going to happen anytime soon.
People are playing it now, maybe you’re just uninformed like the other idiots who think you can’t play the game now, anyone can play it NOW. You can even get a code to play it for free with starter credits and fly all ships for a time.Why are you so bothered about it being finished if you don’t even think people will play it, again people like you don’t want to play anyway, we don’t care about you, when it’s finished we can laugh at you, we can laugh now while playing 3.0 release hopfully this month after PTU.
I’m original baker, and I can run the demo and so on, but it is hardly ‘playing’. I have it on my PC and coming back from time to time to see if it is actually playable – and hotas support is still crap.
And yes, please laugh on me when it is finished.
and yes, I know ‘you’ dont care about me, or reality at all, you can play the Best Game Ever ™ in your imaginary world. But hey, Roberts never finished a game from WC2 so yeah, you willingly prefer playing it in your head. Don’t worry, I was big pnp rpg fan so I know it is fun anyway;)
You seem to be bad at comprehension as I said nothing about the game being “best game ever”, you can enjoy, play the game somewhat(plently of streamers do)but at the moment it’s primary for testing. Call yourself a backer when you quite clearly don’t seem like one with that attitude, I mean why would you back a game with your attitude, you seem like a fraud yourself.
I’m a fraud, because in 2012 I backed game which was supposed to be released in 2014?
I’m a backer, not a clueless fanboy.
I have reservations concerning Star Citizen due to Chris Roberts denial that “Feature Creep” is in play with this game a couple of years ago but I’ve seen it posted quite a bit that Star Citizen was to be finished by 2014. I haven’t been following the project very much so I may be wrong on this but I believe I saw something years ago where Roberts told the backers that he had acquired a great deal more funds than originally anticipated and asked them to vote on whether they wanted to expand the game with those funds or just stick to the schedule and the majority voted to expand the game. I believe he also offered refunds to those that were against the idea.
CIG’s response:
“We are aware of the Crytek complaint having been filed in the US
District Court. CIG hasn’t used the CryEngine for quite some time since
we switched to Amazon’s Lumberyard. This is a meritless lawsuit that we
will defend vigorously against, including recovering from Crytek any
costs incurred in this matter.”
Well…they kinda have a point on the engine switch, since that happened around December last year, where was Crytek when they announced it?
Not to mention the countless number of mods CIG openly admitted on doing to vanilla CE (to fit their needs) for the past 3 years, plus trying to fit a couple of middleware in there and also the open “exchange of knowledge and technology” with Warhorse Studios…! I mean where the f*çk was Crytek when all that went down?! Mushroom hunting?
It looks like the perfect time for Crytek to just jump in and make a claim for more money. It seems especially perfectly timed with them having recently mentioned their idea for virtual currency and “funding back into it”, but for that to work, they’d need a nice “lump” of money from somewhere.
This seems like that perfect opportunity for them.
Please don’t tell me that Crytek engineers can’t download the available game code and identify if the game is using branded Lumberjack engine, or actual Crytek engine. They are good enough to be able to do that and after confirming it they simply took action.
CryEngine is really quite amazing if you know how to use it! I certainly don’t…
CryEngine have huge network limitations, if you going to connect more than 20-30 people. So it is great for small multi or single, for mmo is not this good and CI spend a lot of resources to customize it and make it so-so working.
RIP Crytek.
CIG commented on this a while back; Unreal 4 was a joke when they started development, which made CryEngine 3 the far smarter choice.
The tools were not good like they are now.
Yeah, and I think some of the systems were still preliminary, or missing, or something like that. I think Roberts took issue with the lighting system, specifically, amongst other problems? Though I’m not sure.
Well, it was a joke in its 4.0 state because it was still so preliminary, now it’s just a joke because it’s antiquated, so….. take your pick ^^
Wouldn’t they have had to actually sell a game?
the game code is available, and people already playing it – and Crytek already identified contract breach. Why wait any longer? it’s not as they believe this game will actually be released.
Depends on how the contract is laid out. You’re buying a license to play the game, not the game itself. Also thats considered Alpha or Beta access. If the court is able to find thats its super broad or very specific language they’ll be able to make a decision based off that.
Nah, you simply cant develop a code using that engine if you dont have licence. Selling a game is irrelevant. Crytek is years on market, they know what they’re doing.
Weren’t they just going B-rupt? A sign they didn’t know what they were doing. Star Citizen moved over to lumberyard quite a while ago.
But for a year forgot to switch to branded libs? Cool.
“we don’t know whether their contract allowed Cloud Imperium to re-use all assets that were created in CRYENGINE in other engines, like the Lumberyard.”
Assets can NOT be created in Cryengine (Unless you are referring to the designer tool, which no serious artist uses). They are merely imported into the engine from a 3rd party modeling tool like Maya or ZBrush or 3dsMax. (This is the general procedure for all engines)
For Crytek to claim that assets imported into Cryengine by CIG, are Crytek’s property, is idiotic.
HOWEVER, upon reading the complaint, they do have a few contentions that make sense and hold up:
“Section 2.1.2 of the GLA contained a critical promise from Defendants that they would not develop the Star Citizen video game using any other video game engines”
CIG directly violated this if they hadn’t settled prior to doing this. That alone is enough for Crytek to win the lawsuit.
Furthermore,
“Section 2.1.2 of the GLA expressly states that CIG has a license only to “embed CryEngine in the Game and develop the Game.” The GLA limits the use of the CryEngine computer program to a single video game called Star Citizen.”
These two reasons actually hold weight. It all comes down to whether or not CIG settled with Crytek prior to doing said things. However, given that this was not just a simple GLA contract but also a full scale partnership, a lot of the things in the GLA are negotiable. So it may not be as clear cut as it seems.
We got a lawyer here, please offer Robert your services, maybe you can get some money from those 150 million…
Your opinion about how designer tool is bad is irrelevant, if they used to draw a line is all they need to make the lawsuit.
I’m no lawyer lmao.
Also I didn’t mention the designer tool to say that it was bad. My point was that they didn’t use it. Because nobody uses it.
It’s $173 million.
Assets created by an individual are 100% owned by that individual/corporation regardless of what tool was used. There hundreds of mods out there which have been shut down for using other creator’s assets. There 3D object marketplaces where you pay for the right to use someone else’s creations. So I think you assertion regarding what is Crytek’s property is incorrect.
Exactly. So the assets belong to the artists of CIG
Great post.
glad this scam game is getting called ut yet again. isnt this like the 100000 checkmark against it? yet people still support this meme game? oh they do because they got scammed out of hundreds-thousands of dollars (((crowdfunding))) this game and dont want to seem like idiots so these fanboys support it and even give these jokers more money with all there dlc/microtransactions and selling of land in a virtual game……….
uuuuuuuuugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
more cancer thats killing the games industry
triggered much?
Why do you care about other people’s money so much? It seems people like you hate other people for having so much disposable income and get triggered by it. I mean John reports microsotranstations do get click and you believe it and it’s no different to what’s happening. People like you know nothing about costing of a game like this, the company and game is from scratch, this is not Ubisoft who have been around for 30 or so years and put out massive AAA games every year with their own in house engine, you’re just clueless like alot of people in the comment section and I mean CLUELESS, you know nothing.
So crytek wants to scam Scam Imperium? Be my guest.
If only one asset was done in Crytek for Scam 42 before changing the game engine, they are right, that is how law works, your ethics has nothing to do here.
And dont take me wrong, but I expected big things from this project, but then things got delayed and delayed, making this project another DayZ and then microtransactions, it seem 150 million of dollars isnt enough to even finish one game properly, how do you expect from them to finish two?
There will be a debate about what was reasonable or unreasonable. I imagine that Crytek will have to make an argument for damages but whether there were any at all or if there were, what that amount was and whether it is substantial is something we’ll just have to wait and see on. In any case, depending on the competence of the legal teams, it could all be over in short order, especially if there’s a settlement.
With the amount of money that the had, and the unprecedented scope of what they were trying to do, why didn’t they build their own engine? It used to be fairly common.
They picked up CryEngine long before it got to this scope and scale, by which point I guess they figured “f*ck it, might as well just keep modifying this instead of starting over.”
Another thought to consider is the guy that was brought over from Crytek to help Start Citizen as he is a Cryengine genius/enthusiast and was supposed to know the engine inside and out. I know he still works at Cloud Imperium because he is at all of the events, but maybe that has something to with the lawsuit.
If they used Crytek assets without permission, that’s another matter entirely, but that’s not what they’re alleging, as far as I’ve understood it.
Regardless, we’re talking about events that occurred years ago, making the timing of this lawsuit extremely suspect. If Crytek took issue with his ship jumping, they should have filed at least a year ago.
You are a naive and arrogant.
Assumptions based on nothing, but okay, I’ll just assume this is a bad attempt at trolling and leave you to choke on your patheticness by yourself.
Amazon’s Lumberyard is Cryengine spinoff. did I miss anything?
When two terrible companies have a legal battle the world wins.
Assets created by an individual are 100% owned by that individual/corporation regardless of what tool was used. There hundreds of mods out there which have been shut down for using other creator’s assets. There 3D object marketplaces where you pay for the right to use someone else’s creations. So I think you assertion regarding what is Crytek’s property is incorrect
glad this scam game is getting called ut yet again. isnt this like the 100000 checkmark against it? yet people still support this meme game? oh they do because they got scammed out of hundreds-thousands of dollars (((crowdfunding))) this game and dont want to seem like idiots so these fanboys support it and even give these jokers more money with all there dlc/microtransactions and selling of land in a virtual game
one of the claims made by Crytek that bug-smashers shows the coding of Crytek, having watch many of bug-smashers the raw code that makes up crytek, (the game) is never shown as they’ve used short cuts.
by what Crytek is stating that the whole engine Star Citizen should be given to Crytek for their use as that in the contract, for free (they haven’t released the contract to prove their point which will have to be done before it even goes to open court the full contract not one or two words as they’re doing at the moment to make their statements), who would agree to making a game them agree to give it to-another for free? thing about it carefully before commenting, that would be like you using Microsoft word to write a book then Microsoft saying that book now is their property and all profits are theirs after you’ve made 100million in sale,
the other thing they’re saying that the game SQ42 something that is not even released, as stated by Star Citizen it’s still part of the game for a single player experience, which still operates in the same verse as the PU think about that for one moment, still part of the same game,
Crytek statement a game that been released it’s not released it’s still in alpha, and the said SQ42 where’s that it’s not released or even per-alpha release,
Crytek were meant to delivery coding to make the game which did they keep their part of the bargain will all find out from court,
developers left the company cause they didn’t get paid so how was Crytek going to delivery on that promise?
if they sell a product cheap to keep going cause they’re going broke and some person company make a ton of money out of that game, then try claiming it of them cause they made more than the they every thought possible.
if Cryek broke the agreement first in not delivering said workable content the word is “workable” not broken, for everyone playing the game know that even in the beginning star ctiizen was broken crytek were meant to be helping fix these issues did they? this will come out in court as will.
claim Crytek that star citizen change the name to star engine which was a name given by backers to start with that’s easier enough to find if you do a google search.
Crytek claim that Facetek Faceware and star citizen are in breach Star Citizen had already left Crytek at that point in time and using the Amazon Lumberyard so grasping at straws
Star citizen and their lawyer could be in breach of neutral laws where there could a conflict of interest, did he write the contract for SC or did someone else? Will all find out in court
Yet, even as funding for Defendants’ campaign reached new heights, Defendants breached several promises they made to Crytek in the GLA and infringed Crytek’s copyrights in the CryEngine computer program.
A. Defendants Are Developing a Separate Game Using CryEngine Without Permission
So this would mean that if Star Citizen used Amazon Lumberyard, to create SQ42, this means Crytek are still claiming rights over Amazon use of Cryengine then yes Star citizen and Amazon are in breach of copywrite, this would also mean that Amazon hasn’t sole rights to use and on-sell.
Star Citizen may be in breach of some point of their contract, Crytek may also have breached their part of the contract. all will come out in court
The idea that Amazon will ” step in” seems fanciful.