Home Gaming Crytek is suing Star Citizen developers Cloud Imperium and Roberts Space Industries

Crytek is suing Star Citizen developers Cloud Imperium and Roberts Space Industries

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Crytek suing developers of Star Citizen 2

Crytek and Cloud Imperium may hold a lot of emotional weight when you hear them mentioned. One is notorious for closing studios without paying developers, and the other seems to be working its developers on a game that just never wants to come out. So what happens when both of them collide? We don’t know yet, but Crytek definitely wants to see Cloud Imperium pay for what they claim is an illegal use of their engine, CryEngine 3.

Hold up, I hear you say. Didn’t Star Citizen move over to the Amazon-owned Lumberyard (which itself is a version of CryEngine)? Well yes, they did, and as such removed all mention of CryEngine from their marketing. Problem is Crytek are claiming that they aren’t telling the truth. In the lawsuit, Crytek claims that they have evidence of Cloud Imperium still using a modified version of CryEngine 3, while removing all mention of it from advertising. That would be in direct violation of the contract Cloud Imperium originally signed, and make them liable for the cost.

Crytek suing developers of Star Citizen

Furthermore, since Cloud Imperium has now split Star Citizen development into two projects – Squadron 42 and Star Citizen itself – Crytek claims that the studio is making use of their engine illegally twice. And will pursue damages for both.

Thing is, Cloud Imperium is disputing the claim. In a response to Polygon, a representative from the company states that Crytek’s lawsuit is meritless, and that they are willing to go to court to defend their stance.

We are aware of the Crytek complaint having been filed in the US District Court…CIG hasn’t used the CryEngine for quite some time since we switched to Amazon’s Lumberyard. This is a meritless lawsuit that we will defend vigorously against, including recovering from Crytek any costs incurred in this matter.

So there’s no real way of knowing who is in the wrong here, and legal proceedings like this tend to drag their feet (ask Oculus and ZeniMax). But it’s another bump in the road for Star Citizen, which is still delaying its modules more often than not.

Crytek wants direct damages, indirect damages and a permanent injunction to prevent CIG and RSI “from continuing to possess or use the Copyrighted Work.” What this means is that should this go any further, it could significantly delay the games even further – as people will have to go through billions of lines of code.

Last Updated: December 14, 2017

20 Comments

  1. Gavin Mannion

    December 14, 2017 at 08:23

    If by some miracle Star Citizen ever comes out it will be a massive disappointment to the fans.

    Reply

    • Francois Knoetze

      December 14, 2017 at 08:30

      Still think this is one huge scam. Reminds me of these retirement fund/hedge fund scams. This is what your money will look like! Look here are some dividends from your money you invested! see it is growing!! Sooner or later POOF! all gone with the money and the game with it.

      Reply

    • Grimsupanoob

      December 14, 2017 at 08:47

      Duke nukem forever style

      Reply

    • Allykhat

      December 14, 2017 at 08:58

      This is why Half Life 3 will never happen. It will never live up to the expectation or hype.

      Reply

    • Erelim

      December 14, 2017 at 09:03

      Have you actually watched any of their in-game footage? Probably not.

      Reply

      • Gavin Mannion

        December 14, 2017 at 09:07

        yes I have. I’ve seen it demoed, I watched it personally at Gamescom 2017 and have had hands on with most of what is built.

        But yeah don’t let the facts cloud your judgement. The game has no chance in actually living up to the hype IMHO

        Reply

        • Deceased

          December 14, 2017 at 09:43

          Smells like this is a Sky owned by No Man?

          Reply

        • Erelim

          December 14, 2017 at 09:59

          Fair enough. All I’m saying is from what I’ve seen the game looks good, what they are doing sounds great, and they are doing, or aiming to do, incredible stuff for such a large scale open world game.

          And to be honest, they pretty much just had to turn freelancer into an open world game and people would have lost their minds.

          Reply

  2. Ottokie

    December 14, 2017 at 08:50

    How do you sue that which does not exist?

    Reply

  3. Admiral Chief Silver Dragon

    December 14, 2017 at 08:50

    I think Steinhoff has a few thousand ships

    Reply

  4. Kromas Ryder

    December 14, 2017 at 09:00

    I already got my monies worth out of SC so even if it gets delayed I am still perfectly fine with it. However I think Crytek is just trying to grab as much money as they can before they declare bankruptcy.

    Reply

    • Spathi

      December 14, 2017 at 16:06

      Haven’t you heard, because you are a backer, follow development and play the current builds, your opinion is invalid.

      Reply

      • Kromas Ryder

        December 15, 2017 at 08:26

        Same can be said for me still enjoying DayZ. 0.63 (beta) is soon out and people will see for themselves how far that game has come.

        Reply

  5. Magu

    December 14, 2017 at 10:12

    Is there anything anywhere that Amazon does not own a version of?

    Reply

    • HvR

      December 14, 2017 at 10:59

      If it is not owned by Google or Facebook it is probably owned by Amazon.

      Think they buy out in the order of 20 or so companies a year these days.

      Reply

  6. HvR

    December 14, 2017 at 10:57

    Crytek just salty because everybody started asking “but can run the Star Citizen game demo?”

    Reply

  7. FAQyoumate

    December 14, 2017 at 11:10

    I hope this game never comes out. It’s been such a shit show and a scam for the last years

    Reply

  8. Geoffrey Tim

    December 14, 2017 at 11:35

    THIS GAME IS NEVER COMING OUT

    Reply

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