Crytek

WORK IN PROGRESS

Crytek is a video game and software developer.

They have developped among others Farcry, The Crysis series, Warface, Ryse: Son of Rome, Hunt: Showdown and the CryEngine game engine.

On November 20, 2012 Crytek licensed CryEngine to Cloud Imperium Games to develop Star Citizen.

“When I was making games in the past I always had to build my own engine, and there was a lot of investment because every single one of my games was made with technology built from the ground up. So a good portion of your development time was spent in actually just building the technology, and now I feel like there’s a lot of really good, mature technologies out there that you can just take and build on top of. You’ve only got so many years, days, hours, whatever – and your team is only so big, so if I don’t have to build the basics of a 3D engine I can spend more time making a great game, and just enhancing the engine to do things that are perfect for Star Citizen.”

“I made the decision to go for CryENGINE because I felt like its DNA was PC, which is what I’m focusing on. It was very powerful and expandable – so we were able to take the engine and build extra functionality for the space ships, and that’s obviously an important part of our gameplay. And then the rendering look and feel of CryENGINE is more photo-realistic, and I wanted to go for that almost film visual effect, not quite as stylized as some engines come across. CryENGINE does that really well.”

Cloud Imperium Games wasn't legally allowed to poach Crytek staff, however in 2014 after Crytek failed to pay their staff for 2,5 months, some staff came over to Cloud Imperium Games of their own accord.

CIG needed to make a lot of modifications to suit its needs, and thus it ended up developping its own engine, the Star Engine.

On the 23 of Decenber 2016 CIG announced switching engines to use Amazon Lumberyard, which is itself based on CryEngine.

Initial Complaint

 * Crytek claims that CIG was only given permission to make one game with CryEngine, Star Citizen, not two, Star Citizen & Squadron 42. However the GLA specified CryEngine use for "the game currently entitled Star Citizen and it's related space fighter game Squadron 42". Additionally, this term does not apply to any games made without CryEngine, and CryEngine is no longer used.


 * Crytek sued saying that CIG wasn't allowed to move away from CryEngine. However there was no merit to the case as the license was giving the right to use CryEngine but no the obligation.


 * Crytek claimed copyright infringement by failure to post Crytek’s copyright notices for the game engine, however CIG no longer uses CryEngine, therefore the claim was dismissed by the court.


 * Crytek claimed that Ortwin Freyermuth was employed by CryTek prior to becoming CIG's attorney and co-founder so he had a conflict of interest when negotiating the contract, however he had received a signed waiver from CryTek dismissing any conflict of interest.


 * Claim: CIG violated the GLA by switching from CryEngine to Lumberyard, they are only allowed to "exclusively" use CryEngine. Defense: The GLA says they are given "exclusive rights to use CryEngine" and the right "to exclusively embed CryEngine in the game". The established legal meaning of this wording is that the right is given only to them (and those subcontracted within the terms), not that they are only allowed to use CryEngine.
 * Claim: Confidential source code was shown on Bugsmashers and disclosed to FaceWare in violation of the GLA. Defense: No defense provided as CIG was not allowed to present any evidence on a motion to dismiss
 * Claim: CIG was required to provide any bugfixes and optimizations they developed for CryEngine up until launch. Defense: No defense provided as CIG was not allowed to present any evidence on a motion to dismiss

However the court did say there was section 2.4 which Crytek might be able to use as a basis for breach of contract.

Section 2.4
On December 12th 2017 Crytek Crytek sued Cloud Imperium Games over the misuse of CryEngine according to the General Licence Agreement both parties signed.

Crytek ammended it's complaint, saying that it no longer claims that CIG could never use another game engine but that they are never allowed to promote any other game engine. However this was in the specific context of "shall not directly or indiorectly engage in the business of designing, developing, creating, supporting, maintaining, promnoting, selling or licensing (directly or indirectly) any game engine or middleware which compete with CryEngine" and was therefore dismissed by the court as well.

Crytek also sued for the promotion of StarEngine based on the announcement of it, however this was dismissed by the court as a single announcement did not constitue engaging in the business of promoting StarEngine.

Crytek sued for the promotion of Amazon Lumberyard, also based on the announcement in December 2016, which was equally dismissed by the court since the announcement did not constitue engaging in the business of promoting Amazon Lymberyard.

Crytek claim that CIG breached the license agreement by licensing from amazon lumberyard was also dismissed by the court, as the licensing agreement prevents CIG from licensing out a competing game engine to someone, not licensing from someone.

First Amended Compaint
Crytek presented it's licensing agreement with CIG as an investment promoting CryEngine and claimed that it would "Not receive the benefit it otherwise would have have derived from defendants use of CryEngine in Star Citizen and attendant promotion of CryEngine", claim which was dismissed by the court as there was nothing in the agreement obligating CIG to promote CryEngine.

Overall the claims were conclusory with no evidence provided.

Second Amended Complaint
On August, 16, 2018, Crytek filed the operative Second Amended Complaint against CIG and RSI alleging breach of contract and copyright infringement.

On September 6, 2018 CIG filled the motion to dismiss

After dismissing every single claim made by Crytek the court allowed Crytek to come back and amend their complaint for a third time if Crytek can provide evidence that would bolster their original claims.

In the meantime, CIG motion to dismiss has been granted.

Closure
In March 2020 the case was dismissed with prejudice, with Crytek and CIG to bear their own respective attorneys’ fees and costs.

Plaintiff’s initial complaint and its First Amended Complaint alleged various theories of

breach of contract and copyright infringement against the Defendants in connection with the GLA.

Crytek’s principle allegation was that the GLA prohibited Defendants from using any other game

engine besides CryEngine in Star Citizen or a spinoff game, Squadron 42. Defendants filed a

motion to dismiss [Doc. # 20-3], which the Court granted in part and denied in part. [Doc. # 38.]

Although the Court granted Defendants’ motion with respect to Plaintiff’s allegation that section

2.1.2 of the GLA required Defendants to build their game using only CryEngine and prohibited

them from using another game engine, the Court stated in a footnote that “section 2.4 may support

Plaintiff’s theory of breach in connection with Defendants’ alleged use of another software engine

in Star Citizen.” [Doc. # 38 at 11 n. 6.] The Court did not “consider the merits of such a claim.”

Id.


 * Their GLA permits adapting Cryengine to suit CIG's needs.