Crysis series developer Crytek may be facing significant ongoing financial difficulties. As Kotaku reports, Crytek is closing studios in Hungary, China, Turkey, South Korea and Bulgaria.
With these studios on their way out, only two will remain: Crytek’s Frankfurt location, and their studio in Ukraine. The closures come from a desire to “refocus on [Crytek’s] core strengths of developing innovative game and game-development technology,” Kotaku reports. Crytek promises to “put plans into action to secure jobs and to ensure a smooth transition and stable future” for employees who are let go, but as for how this will be enacted, no official world has been given.
Crytek previously faced widespread complaints of alleged missed payments on employee salaries. According to a post by Reddit user /u/CrytekThrowaway, who claims to be a Crytek employee, the user states that salaries have gone unpaid for nearly six months as of Dec. 9.
“I’m not sure where else to turn at this point,” the user begins. “This has happened in the past a few times, but never for this long. Management never gives anyone a heads up, and it isn’t clear to me if they are getting paid or even informed from the owners.” The poster claims that many of their coworkers “moved from out of the country to work here and are unable to leave because they cannot afford to get back home due to their wages being withheld for so long.” Meaning the studio’s employees were essentially stuck unless they could receive payment for the past year’s work. The user also alleges that payments were being delayed across offices. “This isn’t just here in Germany, this is in all of our offices as far as I can tell,” the poster states. Frankfurt’s office will remain open; no word yet on what will happen to payments for employees from the five closing studios.
Rumours on Hacker News in early November originally suggested that Crytek was facing financial difficulties. A user alleged that “there is a big german gamecompany [sic] that hasn’t paid 300+ employees in 4 months so they are bleeding employees instead of firing them.” The poster later went on to claim “people have left and more are leaving because the situation is seeing no real improvement.” Eventually, the anonymous user confessed that the company in question was Crytek.
Conditions at Crytek look stark, but no official world has been announced yet as to the studio’s internal climate. CGMagazine reached out to Crytek and /u/CrytekThrowaway for a response, but as of this article’s publication, no comment has been made yet.
