Wargaming to buy Crytek?

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Thanks to Mesotronik for this one.

Hello everyone,

an article appeared on DSOGaming portal about the bad prognosis for the developer of Cryengine, Crytek. Apparently, Crytek is in deep trouble, with its latest game (Ryse – console exclusive) not doing as well as they hoped and with the danger of bankrupcy looming over the developer, the proverbial sharks smelled blood in the water and are starting to close in, expecting to get intellectual property and manpower out of the failing studio soon. Allegedly the studio is already in the stage of paying some of the salaries late and with employees senting applications to other companies.

The article has one very interesting part for us though:

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.

Hmmm, Wargaming buying Cryengine? That would be actually cool for World of Tanks 2.0, wouldn’t it…

119 thoughts on “Wargaming to buy Crytek?”

  1. Isn’t Obsidian Entertainment’s Armored Warfare going to be run on the Crytek Engine?

    Interesting to see how this pans out.

      • “Armored Warfare will be published by Russian My.com and uses Crytek’s game engine CryEngine. You can get a taste of the MMO’s action in its announcement trailer below.”

        Sauce: http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/20/5528438/obsidian-entertainment-unveils-tank-centric-tactical-military-mmo

        I’m not really into economics but maybe Ryse was their last chance at breaking even or making a profit and with that doing not so well it put some minuses in their payroll. I don’t think selling rights to an engine really makes that much of a profit margin however since all the major game developers already have their own engines which they license to smaller developers who cannot afford making their own.

        • Well, I’d say the CryEngine is more spread than idTech these days. Unless I am forgetting some (which admittedly feel like I do), it’s probably 3rd most used engine after Unreal and Unity.

          Regarding Ryse, I was kinda under the impression that Microsoft was paying for it? I mean it was supposed to be kinect-only FPS. Although maybe that might be the reason – maybe MS payed for KinectFPS and CryTek went for it thinking they can actually make one. Then they found out that kinect fps is fantasy bullshit and money went poof.

          • Ryse suffers because it is tied to the Xbox One and thus to a limited market. They would have done better if they had made the Xbox 360 version that they wanted but it is hard to say no to Microsoft when it fans 100 bills under your nose when proposing something.

          • Just to nit pick, Ryse was never going to be a FPS (first person shooter) for the kinect, it was supposed to be a first person hack and slash for the kinect.

      • Crytek’s engine allows for beautiful graphics and physics, but they are horrible with optimisation, multiplayer and actually making the game as whole product, i.e. plot, writing and so on.

        I think that Obsidian can make it work.

        • Tbh I’ve really enjoyed Crysis 2. And Far Cry.
          Crysis 1 and 3, not so much.

          • But the optimisation of Cryses 2 & 3 was done at the price of cutting corners and turning them much more corridor-like than Crysis 1, loosing the slight sandbox feeling of a first game, what make it stand out from other shooters.

    • It doesn’t matter, you can buy FULL RIGHTS to Cryengine for 20 bucks on Steam.

      • No, to use the CryEngine, you have to pay 10$/month and you don’t get everything with that subscription.

  3. You have problems with your engine ? Dont waste money buying a new one when you can usurpe all crytek.

  4. honestly ? i don’t care who owns Crytek, i care only about future of the Cryengine developement (because crytek’s games are not games but only technological demos, every singleplayer game they released :) and if it will be still obtaiable on the market by other companies.

  5. I belive CryTek people already mentioned in the past that they are about to focus on f2p market (after Ryse?), so the “the end of the Crytek we knew” would come either way. Their main priority always was showcasing the engine anyway.

    Perosnaly I wouldn’t mind at all if WG bought CryTek, as long as they don’t fuck with projects using the CryEngine.

    • AND that they get to keep making awesome games. wouldn’t want that beaut of an engine to go missin or make them Crytek fans rage.

  6. They are too lazy to rebuild the game on CryEngine.

    The BigWorld “useless” engine ftw !!!

  7. If WG buy Crytek, what happen with WOT Bigworld Engine? Rebuild it? i don’t think so, hm.. maybe others games have cryengine, not WOT, and we will always complaint about the fck engine

    • mhh maybe they will find a way to use bigworlds hackproof servercode/networkcode with cryteks graphic engine

  8. Plot twist: WG buys CryTek -> Crysis 4 announced, will be using BigWorld engine.

  9. ” (Ryse – console exclusive)” This sounds silly. You have financial trouble and your solution is to develop a game for only a part of the market, completely ignoring the PC???

  10. RYSE. Shit name, shit game, shit scripted gameplay. Someone must have been really naive to think that kind of game could be a hit. It was a complete waste of time and money IMO.

    I hope Xbox One is next. Shit console.

  11. Great work, Crytek. Releasing Ryse has to be the dumbest move they’ve ever done. The bland game was dead before they even launched it.

    • Isn’t every Crytek’s game so far bland. FarCry, Crysis… They are good shooters, but they don’t go beyond that.

  13. So if WG buys Crytek we will have 0 improvement on the WoT engine whatsoever.
    Or we will have some (2 FPS on NASA computers LOL).

      • Woras!
        A., you don’t know me. I usually scout at our cap-zone…
        B., It’s WG… I can buy that they will send their programmers to Crytek.

        • A. You’re stealing my job.
          B. Do you see that WoT programers are sent to other studios, working on non-BigWorld engine, owned by WG?
          B is quite interesting.

          • B is because of “WG logic”.
            A is because if the heavies and mediums are camping then why should i go to die first?

            • A: Clearly you can’t into passive scouting :P
              B: Can’t argue with that point.

  14. I doesn’t necessarily point that WG would use Cry Engine for World of Tanks – it could end up like Activision Blizzard – one company with two totally separate development branches, or just using Crytek know-how and resources to improve BigWorld incrementally.

  15. Noooo, I wanted to start studying programming to work someday there :(((

      • Have you looked at the picture? They had a 96mil income last year. Just from Warface.

        • Income is not profit. They could have $96mil income and $97mill costs thus having a $1mil loss.

          • From the article “And if that wasn’t enough, Warface was only successful in Russia and Crytek’s G-face platform was a big flop.”

            So it seems that Warface (the $96mill earner) belongs to Crytek even if it is distributed by mail.ru

          • lol wut? how do you know only a bit of money reaches crytek? are you nuts? triple AAA games have been developed with less than 90mil. Warface is a F2P title. What you guys are describing is Crytek wasting more money on Warface than they are earning. LOL!

  17. No it wouldn’t be cool. My notebook computer is too slow for Cryengine. :-/

  19. As a CryEngine user, I’d have to say

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO……..Shit…..
    Crytek is developing new titles and they are updating the Engine, ….

    I am afraid WG will come in like a an elephant in a glass shop……
    CryEngine SerB edition is not something i think i can handle…Unless i start making stronk russian assets i guess.

          • 0.7.3 ? Whichever it is, you know what i mean…

            And yes, if being scared about the future of software I’m invested in is bias then i’m super biased

    • “I am afraid WG will come in like a an elephant in a glass shop……”
      Don’t worry… EA happens only once in a lifetime!

  20. I just realised that Crytech is in partnership with AMD, but WG has a good relationship with Nvidia. It would be awesome if Crytech would not continue this partnership with the evil AMD. :P

  22. Tbh Cryteks engine usage is on the downfall. Especially with all the new great ones popping up such as the Frostbite engine for example. Times from around Crysis 2 where their engine was used alot are long gone.

  24. I think wargaming is indeed planning ahead for a wot 2.0 or so. When reading FTR i sense a little sign of whats to come in Storms comments from time to time.

    The concern they have with the size of the game,various little comments about what can and can’t be done, planned features not coming and so on and so forth.

    I don’t really have the time to sift through all of SS’s articles from the forumanswers, but atleast i read between the lines that they are close too or have passed the breaking point with the engine. Would be fun if someone would look through all the articles and gather those comments, and see if it is so indeed. Although they might be out of context then.

    /Lepr0n

    • Storm only says that the SERVERS would not handle the bigger game and not the engine. BTW look at LoL… it’s a really old engine and the guys at Riot are milking every BIT out of it!

  25. WoT with cry engine will kill off all hopes for baddies who think Warthundurr is an escape from badness(with excuse such as bad graphics for WoT and bad optimization making their fps low thus can’t play game well).

  26. Crytek? LoL who cares, they made only a “good” game, Crysis 1, the rest is shit for me, they deserve to fail like the company who makes CoD, I can’t wait to see its bankrupt one day

  27. CryEngine is free, so making WoT on this engine is not a problem even today. Unless thay want to make it on CryEngine 2 or 3. I think it’s more about obtaining good programmers.

    • I doubt that CryEngine is free to use from a commercial point of view. If you want to market a game based on CE then you will have to purchase a commercial license. This is Crytek’s bread and butter.

  28. here’s one fucked up scenario: since CryEngine doesn’t return revenue as CryTek wants, WG would end future development

    on the positive side, since they would completely control CryTek, they could develop the transition tools from BigWorld to CryEngine and one day .. WoT on CryEngine – wishful thinking

  29. Soon CryEngine will be like this:

    WG, Y U NO MAKE BOOTYFUL UPDAITS FO CRYENGIN?!

    ”When it’s done it’s done.’

    *5 years later*

    Q: CryEngine still did not get updated, I don’t like this. A: ‘How Terrible.’

  30. Crytek, glorious Master Race software developer backstabs their race and does a filthy console exclusive that risks them with bankruptcy? Fucking well deserved.

  31. I don’t know.
    It’s always sad, when a game developer goes shekel-less, but in this case…meh.
    They’ve always been a mediocre developer studio and their games were pretty plebby and not really creative.
    Apart from the fact, that they were graphic showcases.
    But the games did look good at least. Maybe WG can use some of their graphic designers to good extend.

  32. WG wont buy them it makes little to no sense to do so. Why buy crytek and leave franchises like Crysis to rot. Also Crytek is not in trouble because of Ryse (which par from popular belief is actually a good and is worth picking up) Crytek issue is they have a too big of a cap between their game releases the next game is HomeFront 2 which will do well.

    • Best bet is Microsoft buy Crytek to secure the Ryse IP which they currently tried to do but Crytek wouldn’t sell it to them. Also looks like the Cry engine is selling really poorly

  33. Examples of stronK text editing by SS:
    senTing
    does buyS (should be DOES BUY)

    P.S. Can you please start calling Stronghold mode as it should be called? It’s StronGhold, not StronKhold! FFS

    Greeting from Ajsich the Grammar Nazi.

    • Letter ‘K’ in Stronkhold is obviously intended as much as ‘K’ in Mortal Kombat.
      Get over it.

      • K makes the same sound as the hard C in Combat. Thus pronunciation is unchanged.

        However “k” as in “stronk” does not make the same sound as “g” in “strong”. It makes you sound like you learned English from a highschool dropout.

        That, and the official term is *Stronghold*.

  35. I have yet to see a good game with the Cryengine apart from the Crysis series. From there its mostly a bunch of techdemos, aka Star Cititzen, or really crap games, like MechWarrior Online (which I pre-ordered for 60 USD :( ). I would advise WG against it and rather seek cooperation with Bohemia and their ArmA III engine.

    • To be fair to Star Citizen: It’s very much unfinished. We *just* got the ability to dogfight in it, and the eventual goal is to make something akin to EVE in it.

  36. >> Hmmm, Wargaming buying Cryengine? That would be actually cool for World of Tanks 2.0, wouldn’t it…

    You are mistaken, SS, it will be World of Jungles…

  37. I’m not sure I trust Wargaming’s dev team with CryEngine. Their dev team hasn’t exactly been proven to be top talent.

    Also, with the changes and investment they’re putting into the BigWorld engine, the timing seems pretty odd to pick up an entirely new engine like CryEngine. They’re already straining their resources enough trying to implement Havok, optimize graphical rendering, and convert all of their tanks to HD models, could they really afford another team to work with CryEngine?

    I am skeptical of this.

    • It seems rather likely that the World of Tanks dev team is not the same one that originally put the game together. My guess? The original Devs are probably working on World of Warships or some other project entirely.

      Remember: Wargaming also owns Gas Powered Games and Total Annihilation. I would not be surprised if Total Annihilation 2 comes out at some point.

  38. This speculation is fun but we have to remember that WG is one of the sharks that is circling Critek. How big a shark, well quite big but there are bigger ones out there like EA.

  39. God i hope not I would like to have Homefront TR released before those fucknuts at WG try to dick with the series in their own little way or pull an EA

  40. There goes a chance to have Crysis made. If War Gaming did make it and produced it, it would suck in a new way of sucking. Man, this is sad news for all the Crysis fans out there, including me.