Crytek may soon go bankrupt

[Klumpen]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Crytek-May-Soon-Go-Bankrupt-Due-to-Poor-CryEngine-Adoption-Ryse-Flop-Report-447854.shtml

Here some insider opinions (from guys working there):

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Crytek-RVW3413555.htm

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Crytek-RVW4176589.htm

“There's a producer somewhere saying "I think we can go dumber!"


 

Developer (Current Employee)

Frankfurt am Main (Germany)




Pros – There are lots of talented people to learn from. Some of the smartest people in the business work here. I plan to work with some of them again in the future after I'm safely away.

The Crytek name will still get you some attention from other studios. At least it's a stepping stone. Be quick, exploit it now before the whole mess goes public.

Cons – The usual story: Grew too fast, lowered hiring standards, threw inept "producers" and managers at projects. Chaos and ass-covering ensues. Vultures are circling.

The founder and real CEO is too hands-off and appears to have left Crytek to the other two 'founders' who are highly risk-averse and lack vision. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but Cevat has completely lost control to the point that people just nod their heads and pretend to listen, then proceed to do the opposite of what he asked as soon has his back his turned and he's flying to L.A.

The Kiev and Sofia studios have completely gone rogue at the expense of the vision.

I absolutely cannot recommend this company to anyone from now on. There is no real upside and I see them closing some studios in 2014. They could even collapse completely, or be bought out by a Far-East megacorp.

Advice to Senior Management – Congratulations on killing your visionary self-publishing business. What were you thinking? Merry Christmas! I won't be crunching this holiday.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

“Tries to be Epic, Valve and Facebook, all at once. Fails miserably.”


 

Anonymous Employee (Current Employee)

Frankfurt am Main (Germany)




Pros – Crytek used to be a nice place to work at, long, long time ago. Things were not perfect, but Far Cry & Crysis were great games made by great people. It was a time when taking risks and being bold were possible, a time when people were proud to work for Crytek.

Cons – The 3 Turkish owners seem to have abandoned the ship long time ago. No one really knows where the company's heading. Are they too busy driving their Ferraris? Or just overwhelmed and embarrassed by the monster they created? Where are they hiding?

The CEO seems to ignore what games are being developed in his studios or he's just being a very sloppy (self-proclaimed) creative director. Oh yeah, Crytek has a dozen of studios across the world (most of them in third world countries): that's the so-called "world domination"... There are like 1 billion projects developped at the same time. Focus level: 0%. Cancellation rate: 99%.

In Frankfurt, every single creative idea will be systematically ignored. Original projects pitched by capable people are regularly cancelled and teams are randomly shuffled. Instead, the company will now only work on generic f2p copies of existing games. Warface is the pinnacle of this new risk-averse strategy. Creativity level: 0%.

After the Ryse disaster, you might expect the company would rethink it's entire creative process, build a proper structure for reviewing projects and let people work on a project they could be proud of... You fool! You might at least expect better communication from upper management... Nope!

Results: the company is inexorably bleeding talents and cannot recruit senior staff. The Crytek I used to know is nearly dead, replaced by some giant soulless f2p factory.

Advice to Senior Management – Restart the whole thing? Sell? Fire half the staff and keep the members who can actually make a great game? Ask your employees how to improve the company?

Does it even matter anymore?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Indies growing, big companies crashing.

 

[klapse]

The video game industry is brutal and difficult. Looks like they need to reboot with a small core team of their best talent.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

The saddest part of this is they bought the remainder of Free Radical Design a few years back which became Crytek UK, I had really hoped they would do a new Timesplitters title at some point but that is extremely unlikely now

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Increasing focus on technical stuff, "wow look at those blades of grass"(walks outside and breathes in real garden) all at the expense of gameplay or fun.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

Apparently 50% of UK video game developers have fewer than 10 employees, in recent times it seems that too many cooks really do spoil the broth.

Free Radical was formed from 14 people or so people who left Rare who worked on Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, here's hoping a few of the guys get together and create a smaller, more manageable studio.