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Crytek sues Star Citizen dev Cloud Imperium Games

Crytek alleges breach of contract over use of CryEngine in one game, and not using it in another.

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German developer Crytek, makers of the CryEngine and creators of the original Far Cry and the Crysis games, are suing former partners Cloud Imperium Games.

The background is that Crytek and Cloud Imperium Games entered into an agreement back in 2012 over the use of CryEngine for the development of Star Citizen. A lot of events have come to pass since, most significantly perhaps that Star Citizen has split into two projects, the multiplayer game that is Star Citizen and the standalone singleplayer experience Squadron 42. Cloud Imperium Games announced late last year that they'd switched engines from CryEngine to Amazon Lumberyard (an engine based on an older version of CryEngine that's optimised for use in online games). Now, Crytek is of the opinion that Squadron 42 is not included in their initial agreement and that Cloud Imperium Games agreed to exclusively develop Star Citizen with CryEngine.

Between the lines in the complaint, you get the feeling that Crytek has their eyes on a piece of the $150 million+ crowdfunding pie that Star Citizen has amassed. They're only looking for $75,000 in direct damages, but clearly, the real prize here is a cut on all the funding that's gone into Star Citizen. Furthermore, Crytek is seeking an injunction to prevent Cloud Imperium Games from "using, possessing, or infringing on Crytek's copyrights". If awarded this could potentially slow development down, but presumably it's been a while since Cloud Imperium Games moved over to Amazon Lumberyard.

What makes this interesting is that a clause to exclusively develop a game with a certain engine is a pretty insane one. A developer that feels forced to switch engines for one reason or another is doing so at great cost, even if presumably the switch to Lumberyard was relatively painless given the shared origins.

Cloud Imperium Games has issued a statement of their own:

"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."

This won't likely be settled anytime soon. Do you think Crytek is owed money?

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