Gamestar confirms SemiAccurate’s exclusive about Crytek

Big problems but not new problems as we previously said

Crytek logoIt looks like SemiAccurate’s story from last March about Crytek’s problems are finally making it into the public eye. German magazine Gamestar now has news about Crytek’s financial problems.

You might recall that SemiAccurate said Crytek was having severe financial problems and had a grim outlook. If you don’t recall it, it was because we said it almost exactly three months ago so it has been a while. While we don’t have access to the Gamestar article, what they do say publicly is that the game engine maker is having severe financial problems.

You might recall at the end of our March piece we put in the following note, “Note: We are specifically not publishing what we heard to avoid causing Crytek more problems than they already have. We really don’t want to compound their issues in reporting the news, details won’t help anyone at this point.” We still feel this was the right thing to do to not cause those affected more problems.

Now that it is public, we can shed a bit more light on the subject. Three months ago at GDC 2014, SemiAccurate saw a large number of high level Crytek personnel applying for jobs at rival engine makers. This wasn’t one or two but lots, and senior talent at that, it was way out of the normal churn. Once friends at various companies confirmed our suspicions that it was a flood rather than a trickle. Once we were aware of the situation we saw much more of it in back rooms, waiting lines, and some other non-public venues.

Some of the Crytek personnel we talked to reported that payroll was not being regularly made, something that Gamestar suggests has now been rectified. In any case many Crytek folks were so worried at GDC about Crytek’s future that they were acting on those fears, voting with their feet. It wasn’t just idle chatter. We really hope Crytek makes it, it would be a shame to lose such an innovative company.

In short Gamestar likely has a lot of new news on the situation at Crytek but since we don’t have a subscription we can’t say for sure. That said SemiAccurate knows the underlying situation is real and deadly serious, and that is exactly what we said three months ago. Once again, told ya.S|A

Have you signed up for our newsletter yet?

Did you know that you can access all our past subscription-only articles with a simple Student Membership for 100 USD per year? If you want in-depth analysis and exclusive exclusives, we don’t make the news, we just report it so there is no guarantee when exclusives are added to the Professional level but that’s where you’ll find the deep dive analysis.

The following two tabs change content below.

Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate