It seems like Crytek has been aimlessly meandering without any clear focus or direction for some time now. A couple of counterpoint though- I loved the original Crysis, if only because it looked incredible (not to mention the fact that it wasn't nearly as bad gameplay-wise as everyone says). Farcry was an astounding game; the bad voice acting and cheesy story were not the point - the beautiful island was. A huge, mostly seamless,open world with gorgeous graphics... Nothing like that had ever been done before.

Yerli is an idiot but I would still like to see him get his company's shit together - Crytek makes great tech and good games.

Beamer wrote on Jun 23, 2014, 15:50:
A lot of piling on here. Far Cry felt like a tech demo? Crysis? A lot of grudge carrying, maybe?

I can't get behind that. Quake 3 arguably felt like a tech demo. Gore felt like a tech demo. Far Cry and Crysis had fairly intricate single player plots and gameplay.

Calling the plot in either of those games intricate is being very generous. Far Cry felt like a game, that one I can agree with. Crysis felt more like an advanced tech demo. I enjoyed it for what it was but it hasn't really evolved since then which really describes Crytek as a whole too.

Wesp5 wrote on Jun 23, 2014, 04:13:

dizave wrote on Jun 23, 2014, 01:53:
lack of efficiency meaning poor performance?

If you are talking about the CryEngine here, certainly lack of efficiency meaning poor performance! Compared to idTech or Unreal, Crytek always took the brute-force approach in that if your graphics card wasn't top, the games would run poorly. And in my opinion they made the same error as id in that they ignored the licencing market. Now lets hope the Chrome engine will stay with us for some time...

To be fair to id, I don't think they've ever really been that interested in licensing their engines. Studios came to them asking for this or that license, not the other way around.

A lot of piling on here. Far Cry felt like a tech demo? Crysis? A lot of grudge carrying, maybe?

I can't get behind that. Quake 3 arguably felt like a tech demo. Gore felt like a tech demo. Far Cry and Crysis had fairly intricate single player plots and gameplay.

If you were to make a tech demo, multiplayer only is the way to go.

Couldn't agree more with allot of comments here. All games that come from CryTek feel like Techdemos. I was never excited about any game they put out. I've always seen them as overambitious guys, which is a tricky trait indeed.

Mach10 wrote on Jun 23, 2014, 09:53:
Crytek was lying to all customers about DX10 requirement since they were paid by Microsoft to push Vista on those who were still using Windows XP. I say let Crytek burn, reap what you sow.

Remember that 64bit version of Far Cry 1? Exclusive only (!) for owners of the AMD64 chipset? With big marketing bruhaha from Herr Yerli? Guess what ... all additional effects were later recreated by modders for 32bit systems.

Crytek was NEVER a consumer friendly company. All of their games to date were tech demo's trying to sell their engine to other companies.

In addition to the above, Crytek has OUTRIGHT LIED to customers. When Crysis was released they maintained that the end user MUST have DX10 to experience "Time of Day" and other physics bells and whistles. Our mod team was given a dev kit access to create our mod and I was privy to conversations from other companies about DirectX and these options. The response from Crytek was that there was just one variable to set to true/false to enable these extras.

Crytek was lying to all customers about DX10 requirement since they were paid by Microsoft to push Vista on those who were still using Windows XP. I say let Crytek burn, reap what you sow.

Crysis set the bar for FPS sandbox shooters, but the decision to go multi-platform set the bar so low, they became jack of all trades and master of none. Crysis 2/3 sold mostly on the hype from the original PC title rather than the merits of the sequels, which were mediocre linear shooters.
It's sad to see them in trouble, but hardly surprising when they opted to jump on the console bandwagon and make 'em cheap and sell 'em by the ton. Which in a crowded marketplace is not easy, unless you've got a unique property, which Crysis 2/3 were not.
Epic are giving away the Unreal SDK. You cannot compete with that and stay in business, unless you have another revenue stream, but by sacrificing the PC market for the consoles, they pissed in that particular well. They then followed that bad decision with the next one, by developing an XBOX One exclusive "Ryse" which was linear and repetitive.
They took all their eggs (and expertise) out of the PC basket and put everything in one console basket and now they are going under.
Might I suggest making a moddable sandbox PC game? Before you go bust...

If they go under I wonder how/if that will effect the development of Star Citizen.

It would suck if they folded. Crytek has been a huge part of the PC gaming market as far as engines go. They gave us titles that we could show off our PC gaming rigs to friends and point out just how superior the PC was to consoles.
If they go under and we don't get technology the way they pushed constantly to make it better and better, then it's not a good thing.
I remember when Far Cry 1 released prior to Doom 3 and after Doom 3 had everyone's attention, all a sudden Far Cry 1 stole most of it's thunder with it's superior graphics. It also came out of nowhere.
I liked the way Crytek functioned in that they didn't give a shieet about any other company's reputation or graphic engine and would just put out theirs when it was ready with no reputation and it took everyone by surprise.

Any company associated with EA in any shape or form is subject to just straight fold at anytime.

I liked Far Cry and Crysis was ok but these guys branched off into weird directions with future games. Bizarre storylines, odd games (A Kinect exclusive really?) and a lot of rapid expansion in terms of satellite studios which is a classic management mistake in the gaming industry.

KilrathiAce wrote on Jun 23, 2014, 06:46:
Maybe crytek should ensure all their titles including latest Crysis are sold on Steam and not be exclusive to EA crappy store,

Unfortunately that is not Crytek's decision. It is their publisher's which in this case is EA.

Also I hope this doesnt impact a fanbase made w40k animation which is being created by senior Artist for 3D and Cinematics at Crytek on his own time for past 2 years ( http://youtu.be/JjaYW5Cnr5k ) so in a way I hope things work out for Crytek, but they definitely need to look at shaking things up away from what they been doing gaming wise lately(influenced by EA).

Maybe crytek should ensure all their titles including latest Crysis are sold on Steam and not be exclusive to EA crappy store, thats the first step, next step is to have their own vision and not do what EA tells them to do, thats where their problems started.

Lord Tea wrote on Jun 23, 2014, 03:59:
Haven't played a Crytek game since their decision to develop for/focus on consoles....

You didn't miss much. I lost respect for them when they released the consolized garbage that was Crysis 2. Long narrow linear corridors with enemies so stupid even an old fart like me could beat it on the highest difficulty using nothing but stealth and one-shot stealth kills. A gigantic slap in the face to PC fans everywhere.

I smiled so wide when I read this news. Good riddance, Crytek.

Don't blame CryEngine for Star Citizens performance. Chris Roberts was responsible for Strike Commander and Wing Commander III, games that were absolute beasts that most mere mortals couldn't touch until a cpu generation after release. But they were very awesome.

In fact, Origin was notorious for it in the day. Got a really bad reputation for it. Now we are all like PCMR come back! Make us cry and divorce our wives and take out loans for upgrades again!

And then the studio will shut down because they catered to a niche market of people who spend more on GPU's than entire mid range systems/consoles cost.

Careful what you wish for!

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Jun 23, 2014, 01:59:
To put things in perspective, Valve has just over 300 employees and is infinitely more successful.

They have 1 the rest is BOTS

dizave wrote on Jun 23, 2014, 01:53:
lack of efficiency meaning poor performance?

If you are talking about the CryEngine here, certainly lack of efficiency meaning poor performance! Compared to idTech or Unreal, Crytek always took the brute-force approach in that if your graphics card wasn't top, the games would run poorly. And in my opinion they made the same error as id in that they ignored the licencing market. Now lets hope the Chrome engine will stay with us for some time...

Haven't played a Crytek game since their decision to develop for/focus on consoles....