News Crytek sues CIG, RSI over Star Citizen

I think CIG/RSI have a pretty good case for saying they have no games using Crytek IP.

/burn

 

Well I suppose that's one way for Star Citizen to implode, in the style of Too Human.

Unfortunately/fortunately I expect this is more likely the final desperate roll of the dice by the Yerli brothers as their business slides off the cliff. If it does make court it will be interesting to see how the court defines Star Citizen containing or not containing code from Crytek. I would hope they have at least done their homework better than Silicon Knights did or things could get very messy indeed.

 

Aren't there actually two issues being litigated here, one of which isn't mentioned in the article (as far as I can see)? Crytek are arguing that the contract CIG signed tied them exclusively to the use of CryEngine for Star Citizen, so moving to Lumberyard was a breach of those terms. But they are also arguing that CIG have also breached the terms of their contract because they used CryEngine for two games, Star Citizen and Squadron 42, when the contract only permitted licensing of CryEngine for a single game.

 

It's not only the two-for one thingymabob, apparently there was an agreement to use the CryEngine platform exclusively so by switching to lumberyard it's possible they broke contract.

 

Unfortunately the article brushes some headlines, found on third party site.
Please read the the court documents which can be found here

https://www.scribd.com/document/367101474/Crytek-v-CIG


See the second count. Copyright infringement, because they gave the source code of the CryEngine, which was exclusive for CIG to third parties.
Bigger companies have collapsed when broke copyright laws, CIG is in a big pile of poo.

 

Yeah, the fact that SQ42 and SC are sold separately does give weight to the idea that they are separate, albeit connected, games. I think that if you bought into SC before a certain date then you got both products, but after the cut-off then you had to buy SQ42 separately.

 

Hmmm at first read it doesn't look good, but I have some questions:

- Do the contracts forbid CIG from dropping CryEngine?
- Did the persons who licensed CryEngine to Amazon for Lumberyard, benefit from any dealings with CIG?
- What the timings of when they stopped using CryEngine and announcing solo sales for squadron42?
- Does Crytek believe that Freyermuth & Jones negotiated a deal to favour them in their current/future work with CIG?
- Crytek claims about copyright infringement seem pretty slim, will the courts see them that way?
- If CryTek loses and folds, what happens to CryEngine? What about Lumberyard?
- If CIG loses and folds, that's an awful lot of very expensive virtual space ships that are never going to fly again.
- How may new super expensive limited edition space ships will CIG have to sell to pay for this?

 

I note that Crytek want to go for a jury trial.

What are the odds their lawyers will want absolutely no gamers on that jury?

 

And on top of THAT, while Crytek were collapsing and filing to pay their developers CIG brought the engine to use in the event the collapse was total, setting up a new license that superceded the original license Crytek are now waving about. Subsequently, CIG hired most of Crytek to continue engine development (as Crytek were unable to do so), hilariously resulting in the lawyer who drafted the original Crytek license that is being disputed now working as CIG's legal department, then subsequent to that switched development from Cryengine to Lumberyard (a Cryengine fork that is actively developed).

It mostly boils down to 'who breached first' on the initial contract (Crytek by failing to keep their engine maintained, or CIG by acting as maintainers themselves by hiring third party bugcheckers to view the engine source) and/or whether the first contract was somehow not superceded by the later contract.

 

If the Court ruled entirely based on common sense then the lawsuit would get thrown out as the benefits of the bugfixes CIG did for the engine far outweigh the alleged damage.

But given that contract and IP laws are hideously complicated it seems nearly impossible to predict what will happen if the case ever went to trial.

 

Possibly, it depends how much work Crytek did for CIG - it may well have been a lot of those early demo's that started the hype and secured all that funding were actually done more by Crytek then CIG, being as no one would be able to knock up a good looking Crytek demo as Crytek themselves. Almost certainly it'll drag on for years and the only real winners will be the lawyers.

 

At least Crytek didn't file in East Texas

 

Lets go back to last year. Many here were writing the same you did, with the Zenimax case against FB for the Rift technologies.
And the Zenimax VR lawsuit was not clear cut. Was very technical and muddy, unlike the Crytek lawsuit which is crystal clear. Four breaches of contract, and a copyright infringement.

Ironic, the law firm Crytek is using, is the same firm which grabbed the $500,000,000 from Facebook regarding the Zenimax VR lawsuit.

In addition Crytek demands an injunction, until the trial, for CIG to scrap all work they have done with the CryEngine over the past 5 years, and stop using the CryEngine completely.

That alone, at best case, will push SC back 5-6 years if not longer due to money issues.
And lets not forget, according to the lawsuit, Crytek made all the content for the kickstarter campaign, including the demo client, as abided by the contract. Roberts/CIG hadn't done anything until years later!

 

Why go to court now? Why not go to court this time last year when CIG/RSI announced the engine change...

Also did CryTek do [or not do] things that caused CIG/RSI to tell CryTek to do one, breach of contract can cut both ways.

 

I'm starting to think some of the initial backers may not live long enough to see the finished game. Anyone know whether you can you bequeath kickstarter rewards?

 

If the allegations made by Crytek are true then yes, it would be clear cut.
But all we have to go by is essentially Cryteks interpretation of the agreement they signed with CIG, which is about as far away from a neutral assessment of said original agreement as possible.

 

I'd love to have a read through the GLA (Game licensing agreement) myself just for curiosity reason.