Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
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Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#2CryEngine is amazing technology and CryTek is a great company. I believe there must be merit to this. Star Citizen is also a very cool project and so I hope they work things out together. I want both companies to be very successful.
Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#3tl;dr if you can't be bothered reading through all the legal fidgey widgey - Crytek is claiming CIG breached their contract by doing the following:
- Publishing Squadron 42 as a seperate game (licence was only for one game, Star Citizen)
- CIG fiddled with/remove Crytek's branding in loading screens etc (they weren't supposed to)
- Cryengine was not exclusively used for Star Citizen (apparently it also leverages Lumberyard)
- CIG did not provide bug fixes and optimisations for Cryengine (they were supposed to)
- CIG disclosed Cryengine "secrets" without permission via online videos, and also via collaboration with a third party
Not sure on the amount, the only dollar figure quoted is 'in excess of $75,000'. Not sure if that means $76,000 or $1mil though - IANAL!
Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#4>22.
On December 16, 2015, Defendants announced that "Squadron 42," a single-player video game involving space combat, would be sold separately from Star Citizen.
>25. On February 14, 2016, Defendants moved forward with their plan for Squadron 42 notwithstanding their failure to obtain a license and began offering the video game for separate purchase. As a result, Defendants are intentionally and willfully using CryEngine without a license and in violation of copyright laws.
This seems to be the main point. They're claiming Star Citizen is using CryEngine for their new game, and haven't licensed it out to do that, along with the company behind Star Citizen distributing assets of Cryengine in various ways. They were also supposed to help in developement of Cryengine in way of bug fixes, and did not comply.
Crytek's GLA appears to be pretty far reaching.
>38. On December 23, 2016, Defendants announced that they were using the Amazon Lumberyard video game engine for Star Citizen. The GLA did not permit Defendants to use any other video game engine in Star Citizen except for CryEngine.
>50. On May 6, 2015, Defendants began posting a series of videos online titled "Bugsmashers." The videos contain excerpts of information from CryEngine that were confidential, in breach of the GLA, and should not have been shown to the public. The series continues today.
Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#5CryEngine is amazing technology and CryTek is a great company. I believe there must be merit to this. Star Citizen is also a very cool project and so I hope they work things out together. I want both companies to be very successful.
The engine used to certainly be impressive. The company, though, had quite a bit of trouble paying their employees in the last year or two:
https://www.polygon.com/2016/12/10/13908156/crytek-employees...
They're more of a struggling company. But hey, at least they deliver a product.
Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#6tl;dr if you can't be bothered reading through all the legal fidgey widgey - Crytek is claiming CIG breached their contract by doing the following: - Publishing Squadron 42 as a seperate game (licence was only for one game, Star Citizen) - CIG fiddled with/remove Crytek's branding in loading screens etc (they weren't supposed to) - Cryengine was not exclusively used for Star Citizen (apparently it also leverages Lumb…
Interesting to note that Lumberyard is a licensed Cryengine fork.
Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#7CryEngine is amazing technology and CryTek is a great company. I believe there must be merit to this. Star Citizen is also a very cool project and so I hope they work things out together. I want both companies to be very successful.
I don't think they're that great. The engine is great, certainly, but crytek as a game company not so much. They were at their best when Crysis 1 was made, where you could have your own servers and mod things and communities were built. But the second they could get into the Call of Duty userbase, they actually deleted all their mod forums, which included hundreds of thousands of posts and thousands of mods and configs for servers. All to 'make room' for Crysis 2 'modding', which was non-existant because you could not own your own servers, and server sizes were tiny.
Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#8This suit seems a bit weak in places.
For example they are sueing that they only licensed cryengine for one game, and yet RSI was planning on using it for two games. However the second game has never shipped, and RSI has switched both games over to the Amazon Lumberyard engine. This particular claim seems like it’s going to get thrown out.
My guess is that we’ll see a settlement in this. It doesn’t seem like this going to hurt RSI very much.
Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#9This suit seems a bit weak in places. For example they are sueing that they only licensed cryengine for one game, and yet RSI was planning on using it for two games. However the second game has never shipped, and RSI has switched both games over to the Amazon Lumberyard engine. This particular claim seems like it’s going to get thrown out. My guess is that we’ll see a settlement in this. It doesn’t seem like this goi…
There's a reasonable point that from the time they started developing Squadron 42 to the time that they switched to Lumberyard, they were illegally using the engine. Additionally, it's been suggested that the "engine switch" was in name only/an attempt at evading the license fee.
If in discovery, they can prove CryEngine is still in use, as opposed to actually being properly rebased on Lumberyard...
There's a lot here, and Crytek has a lot of different claims. They only need one or two of the claims to stick for it to hurt.
Re: Crytek sues Star Citizen devs for copyright infringement, breach of contract
#10This is the first time I've seen something amid all the wolf-crying about CIG and Star Citizen that could actually kill it. Crytek has a lot of claims, very likely reasonable merit for them, and more importantly: Crytek is desperate and needs the money. They have no reason to settle or back down.
As a "concierge-level" backer (I'm embarrassed about it too, don't worry), I have a lot of concerns Crytek may end up with some or all of my money. That being said, I've never assumed a "purchase" with CIG was more than a crowdfund, and if it dies, that's how things go sometimes. I'm not angry, I'm not panicking, and I'm not joining the "demand a refund from CIG" party that a few people like to obsess about.