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Lawsuit update from Bored Gamer
- Thread starter NaffNaffBobFace
- Start date
Radegast74
Space Marshal
lol, this is the best Crytek's new lawyers can come up with?
Hahaha
To me, this is Crytek trying to claw back the bond. at this point, CIG can use the bond as leverage...dismiss all claims with prejudice and keep the bond (or a good portion of it), dismiss without prejudice and pay our fees to date, or go to trial. this is not a case of no harm, no foul. CIG expended money for the legal fees and discovery.
this is a case of Crytek having unforeseen consequences of the sale of its engine to Amazon. They did not expect companies already working with Cryengine to move to Lumberyard, and they had an improved version in the works, so new games would still come to them too. In other words, selling to Amazon was free money to them. Unfortunately, they did not look at Amazons history of being really aggressive with the stuff they acquire, often pricing it at deep discounts so they can build a brand. Heck, how many years did Amazon burn investors cash without making a profit? It was building the brand and gaining market share by spending money. That very aggressive plan worked and they are continuing to push it with new divisions.
To me, this is Crytek trying to claw back the bond. at this point, CIG can use the bond as leverage...dismiss all claims with prejudice and keep the bond (or a good portion of it), dismiss without prejudice and pay our fees to date, or go to trial. this is not a case of no harm, no foul. CIG expended money for the legal fees and discovery.
this is a case of Crytek having unforeseen consequences of the sale of its engine to Amazon. They did not expect companies already working with Cryengine to move to Lumberyard, and they had an improved version in the works, so new games would still come to them too. In other words, selling to Amazon was free money to them. Unfortunately, they did not look at Amazons history of being really aggressive with the stuff they acquire, often pricing it at deep discounts so they can build a brand. Heck, how many years did Amazon burn investors cash without making a profit? It was building the brand and gaining market share by spending money. That very aggressive plan worked and they are continuing to push it with new divisions.
Yes, I really see them wanting that bond money back. They may have switched to a newer, better (see: cheaper) legal team, but those lawyers still need to get paid. This isn't one of those late night commercials where they are claiming that they don't get paid unless you get paid.
On the other hand, they may be starting to drum up new business despite their current reputation and some of those contracts might require there be no outstanding legal actions pending. I've seen it before, even where I work.
On the other hand, they may be starting to drum up new business despite their current reputation and some of those contracts might require there be no outstanding legal actions pending. I've seen it before, even where I work.
I personally am withholding judgement - there were a few redacted statements there which we as laymen don't know the concealed content of.
The part that gets me is the thing about waiting for s42 to launch that makes it all fairly weird to me. There is still a lot of chat about it being a separate game which is explained in the first few lines of the GLA. They licensed Cryengine for the use of making SC and s42 single player "Hereforth referred to as the game". It's been pretty much moot since day one. How the end party distributes those parts of the game it builds is not under the engine makers control - the license is for the creation, not the sale, of the two aspects of "the game".
My assumption now is they may now want X percent of profits from from it, as their free-to-use model now is they get royalties from games sold rather than an up front license fee. Problem for them is there are no profits as yet. Almost 100% of sales of s42 have gone in to making it. That's not profit, that's development cost. Until they can see the first months sales figures, they can't base a claim on nothing.
That's my thinking. Probably wrong but since when did that matter?
I was going to pontificate further but realised I don't know shit. I expect some noise to happen after s42 launches and either Cry finds some old code in the background somewhere that they can try to claim s42 is still using their engine for, or when they finally find out how much dolla it made to put in a claim for royalties damages.
I notice that they state they let CIG use CryEngine for below market value. What exactly was the market value? I know it's free now, so how much did they save off the ticket price?
The part that gets me is the thing about waiting for s42 to launch that makes it all fairly weird to me. There is still a lot of chat about it being a separate game which is explained in the first few lines of the GLA. They licensed Cryengine for the use of making SC and s42 single player "Hereforth referred to as the game". It's been pretty much moot since day one. How the end party distributes those parts of the game it builds is not under the engine makers control - the license is for the creation, not the sale, of the two aspects of "the game".
My assumption now is they may now want X percent of profits from from it, as their free-to-use model now is they get royalties from games sold rather than an up front license fee. Problem for them is there are no profits as yet. Almost 100% of sales of s42 have gone in to making it. That's not profit, that's development cost. Until they can see the first months sales figures, they can't base a claim on nothing.
That's my thinking. Probably wrong but since when did that matter?
I was going to pontificate further but realised I don't know shit. I expect some noise to happen after s42 launches and either Cry finds some old code in the background somewhere that they can try to claim s42 is still using their engine for, or when they finally find out how much dolla it made to put in a claim for royalties damages.
I notice that they state they let CIG use CryEngine for below market value. What exactly was the market value? I know it's free now, so how much did they save off the ticket price?
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Saw that video yesterday...
Well for what we know now and considering the past of dismissed accusation CryTech have done seeam to me that, since all the claim they have done has fallen one ofter the other they are trying to pull back whit this metod: postponing a new claim at a (to be defined date" so they can go away whitout paying legal feethey should give GIC if the loose the lawsuite.
From CryTech side, in theory, is not a bad move, but considering CIG didn't want to go as far as they are now (the discovery part an so on...), turn out to be kind of ridiculus expecting now CIG will let it go now.
Sad the next eppisode will be at the end of february, I'm expecting this will be fun...
One thing is sure, even if CryTeck should gat out from this lawysuite as a winner (witch I seriusly dubt), I don't expect them the receive any more work... theyr reputention as a company seams to falling a part with every new update on this case...
Well for what we know now and considering the past of dismissed accusation CryTech have done seeam to me that, since all the claim they have done has fallen one ofter the other they are trying to pull back whit this metod: postponing a new claim at a (to be defined date" so they can go away whitout paying legal feethey should give GIC if the loose the lawsuite.
From CryTech side, in theory, is not a bad move, but considering CIG didn't want to go as far as they are now (the discovery part an so on...), turn out to be kind of ridiculus expecting now CIG will let it go now.
Sad the next eppisode will be at the end of february, I'm expecting this will be fun...
One thing is sure, even if CryTeck should gat out from this lawysuite as a winner (witch I seriusly dubt), I don't expect them the receive any more work... theyr reputention as a company seams to falling a part with every new update on this case...
Interesting that that Crytech had to put up the bond. Says a lot about the judge's view of their position. But cash is king. I'd want the cash for that bond back too.
Im on the side of ppl saying crytek just wants the money back and run. They have absolutely no legs to stand on.
They could potentially wait for SQ42 so they can put a number to the damages.
After SQ42 is out, they might try to look for code that is the same as their code... really?? That doesn't mean anything, since they Sold every single fucking line of code they ever put into cryengine to Amazon! Amazon licenced it out to CiG, so of course it's the same fucking line of code!
Yes, CIG is still using Cryengine (at least the parts they didn't change) in a sense because they are using Lumberyard, which is CryEngine!!! God, how can there still be a case about this?? How is this oat not dismissed at this point??
From this point onwards, the argument that CIG is not allowed to release two games with CryEngine, only one, is meaningless, cos they are not bound by that agreement anymore!
Those are the only two serious points not dismissed yet right? What else can there be they could sue over later?
There has to be something sensible we can't see here, or they clearly just want to dismiss this for the money and never sue again, but ofc they can't say that cos then it would be too obvious, that's why they are sticking to the without prejudice part...
Anyways, at this point I just hope CiG can make them pay for just teach em a lesson about doing silly lawsuits lol
They could potentially wait for SQ42 so they can put a number to the damages.
After SQ42 is out, they might try to look for code that is the same as their code... really?? That doesn't mean anything, since they Sold every single fucking line of code they ever put into cryengine to Amazon! Amazon licenced it out to CiG, so of course it's the same fucking line of code!
Yes, CIG is still using Cryengine (at least the parts they didn't change) in a sense because they are using Lumberyard, which is CryEngine!!! God, how can there still be a case about this?? How is this oat not dismissed at this point??
From this point onwards, the argument that CIG is not allowed to release two games with CryEngine, only one, is meaningless, cos they are not bound by that agreement anymore!
Those are the only two serious points not dismissed yet right? What else can there be they could sue over later?
There has to be something sensible we can't see here, or they clearly just want to dismiss this for the money and never sue again, but ofc they can't say that cos then it would be too obvious, that's why they are sticking to the without prejudice part...
Anyways, at this point I just hope CiG can make them pay for just teach em a lesson about doing silly lawsuits lol
On the other hand, the could want the money back and run because they are getting leaned on by Amazon. That megacorp probably doesn't like the negative attention being ladled all over their newly acquired engine. Potential users could be looking at it warily and worried if we use this, will Crytek scream we stole their code?
They are a foreign corporation suing in the american legal system. They should have done their homework and registered some sort of subsidiary in the US (probably DE, NY, or CA) and then said they did have a US arm and that they should not have to put up money for it.
I don't think this is much of a consideration personally. It's not open source, but you can use it like it was until you publish something - then you owe 5%.
CRYTEK/CRYENGINE
CRYENGINE is a powerful real-time game development platform created by Crytek. - CRYTEK/CRYENGINE
github.com
No, it's more about Amazon saying "hey, you sold up this engine telling us we could do anything we want with it, including licensing it to other developers. Now you are suing a developer for using it claiming it's "your code"" In fact, it's not. Amazon owns the rights to that fork....and they have the right to make money off of it...if Crytek is successful in suing CIG for use of the code, it could make Amazon's code worthless because everyone else that develops a game using Lumberyard could now be sued for using CryEngine. Amazon has a definite interest in keeping the value of the purchase they made, and they have deeper pockets than CIG and Crytek combined....many times over. It would not take much in the way of percentage of assets to squash Crytek flat...and it probably wouldn't even keep more than a few percent of their existing legal department busy.I don't think this is much of a consideration personally. It's not open source, but you can use it like it was until you publish something - then you owe 5%.
CRYTEK/CRYENGINE
CRYENGINE is a powerful real-time game development platform created by Crytek. - CRYTEK/CRYENGINE
That's where I was going with it, I figured Crytek could only poke so much before they woke up the sleeping dragon with a vested interest in keeping the value of the hoard up.