Games development company Crytek is having problems holding onto key staff following its inability to pay some employees for more than two months.
Crytek is best known for its games like Crysis and Timesplitters, but has put more effort towards free games and VR in recent years. According to KitGuru citing an unnamed employee in the company’s Frankfurt office, some staff haven’t received wages for October or November, and July and August’s payments were received increasingly late.
Unsurprisingly, that’s led to a position where staff are reportedly refusing to work if all owed money hasn’t been paid by the end of next week. Employees in the Budapest studio have already stopped working until it’s resolved, the report claims.
All of this is potential bad news for the company’s upcoming titles, as well as the staff involved. According to the source, there’s no official cancellation of projects like ‘Hunt: Horrors of a gilded age’, but it’s unlikely to see the light of day anytime soon.
What’s most distressing for the employees is that there was apparently no hint of impending financial troubles for the company before June, and many developers have reportedly abandoned the company in search of new jobs.
Indeed, while Crytek hasn’t responded to our queries regarding the story, a quick peek at the company’s current vacancies shows that Crytek is looking to recruit 45 staff. 21 of those positions are in the Frankfurt office and many of them are key developer/engineer roles. Whether or not those roles are still looking to be filled is in question, as the company’s also reportedly considering selling some of its studios to raise cash and cut costs.
We’ll let you know if Crytek responds to our questions.
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Do you think Crytek games have lost their way recently? Let us know in the comments below!
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
