Star Citizen Discussions v7

Red Anders

Red Anders
Severe lulzbucket shortages reported across the UK, I assume Asp Explorer has been shopping.

The fascinating thing about this, at least based on the complaint, is that there are three or four possible courses of action that could in theory describe what CIG have actually done here but it doesn't make much practical difference which is the truth of things because they're all breaches of contract.

I do think it's very telling that this has been rumbling on in the background for just over two years now, at least in the case of the failure to release data on optimisations and bugfixes to CryTek. 12 months since CryTek notified them that they were in breach of the agreement according to the complaint and yet we still end up in court. The other side of this is going to be fascinating to read, as is the eventual judgement.

From a negative publicity perspective alone, I'd have thought CIG would have moved hell and high water to avoid this ending up in court because trust and confidence are pretty important when your company's principle revenue stream is selling imaginary spaceships for future use in what is currently a largely imaginary game. Yet here we are.
 

AJW

AJW
Asp Explorer said:
As soon as that was served, there will have been a blanket order from Genuine Roberts himself to completely avoid mentioning it absolutely anywhere in his corporate empire.

Lawyers cost a lot of money, and for that they mostly tell you to shut up, for a very good reason.
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How good is Chris Roberts at listening to advice?
 

DLewth

DLewth
Cosmo said:
Silicon Knights had to pay about $4.45 million to Epic Games for the counterclaim. Lets say worst case is CIG has to pay Crytek $10 million? They should have more than enough to cover that. CIG will prob drag this lawsuit for as long as possible so the payment would be 3 to 5 years from now.[/url]
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More to the point, Silicon Knights had the destroy all copies and ditch all derived code. $4.5M is nothing, they lost the whole game: SC would be reduced to nothing but jpegs if the same happened here, and there do seem to be some similarities...

Here is the text for the Silicon knights case. A long read though.
 

Cosmo

Cosmo
What's your take on this?

Erin Roberts said in June 2014: "We did an outright buyout of the engine last year and have the source code, so while we hope all the noise about Crytek blows over, as they are great partners and friends to the project, if the worse happened we would be ok, as we’ve already branched the engine and have a large team that is adding features and supporting it every day here at CIG. So even in the worst case scenario we should be fine, but obviously we hope it does not come to that."

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/2895381/#Comment_2895381
 

DLewth

DLewth
Cosmo said:
What's your take on this?

Erin Roberts said in June 2014: "We did an outright buyout of the engine last year and have the source code, so while we hope all the noise about Crytek blows over, as they are great partners and friends to the project, if the worse happened we would be ok, as we’ve already branched the engine and have a large team that is adding features and supporting it every day here at CIG. So even in the worst case scenario we should be fine, but obviously we hope it does not come to that."

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/2895381/#Comment_2895381
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I'd say I'd 'bought' Windows 10 (if I had), not go into the EULA details, just for brevity. It's understandable, really.
 

AJW

AJW
Cosmo said:
What's your take on this?

Erin Roberts said in June 2014: "We did an outright buyout of the engine last year and have the source code, so while we hope all the noise about Crytek blows over, as they are great partners and friends to the project, if the worse happened we would be ok, as we’ve already branched the engine and have a large team that is adding features and supporting it every day here at CIG. So even in the worst case scenario we should be fine, but obviously we hope it does not come to that."

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/2895381/#Comment_2895381
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My take on it is that nobody should take anything on it. Things Erin Roberts posts on CIG forums aren't contracts (though posting things could possibly be in breach of them).

Law firms like Skadden don't make elementary errors. They will know what contracts exist between CIG and Crytek, and if there had been an 'outright buyout' which nullified the earlier contracts, they wouldn't be making the claims they are.
 

TenakaFurey

T
Cosmo said:
What's your take on this?

Erin Roberts said in June 2014: "We did an outright buyout of the engine last year and have the source code, so while we hope all the noise about Crytek blows over, as they are great partners and friends to the project, if the worse happened we would be ok, as we’ve already branched the engine and have a large team that is adding features and supporting it every day here at CIG. So even in the worst case scenario we should be fine, but obviously we hope it does not come to that."

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/2895381/#Comment_2895381
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Since later in the same thread he acknowledges they have a license, I'd suggest "outright buyout" is a simplification that doesn't really mean "outright buyout"

CryTeks lawyers probably wouldn't have taken the case if there was any doubt....you don't get to charge $1000 an hour by taking losing cases and if CryTek had sold their engine, I'm sure someone would have noticed.

CIG probably bought a very generous license that allowed for extensive modifications of the source code....but it probably didn't buy outright freedom to ignore the GLA or do everything they wanted. And if they promised CryTek extensive promotion in exchange for a discount....
 

Tippis

Tippis
Cosmo said:
What's your take on this?

Erin Roberts said in June 2014: "We did an outright buyout of the engine last year and have the source code, so while we hope all the noise about Crytek blows over, as they are great partners and friends to the project, if the worse happened we would be ok, as we’ve already branched the engine and have a large team that is adding features and supporting it every day here at CIG. So even in the worst case scenario we should be fine, but obviously we hope it does not come to that."

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/2895381/#Comment_2895381
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They also said that they had changed engines from CryEngine to Lumberyard; that the engine change took 2 days; that Space Marine was weeks, not months away; that 3.0 would be released before Christmas; that the game was fully funded; that the game was fully funded again; that the game was not actually fully funded, but that SQ42 sales would fully fund it.

On the other hand, we have an actual high-profile law firm that would have looked through the existing contracts before levelling a 60-gun broadside for breach of contract.

The take is that Erin works for CIG and anything he says to assuage backers is worth slightly less than 2 cc:s of navel lint.
 
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Marak

Marak
Viajero said:
Unless I missed them I can’t find any thread on this over at spectrum. Probably rightfully so.
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There was a couple - but they were deleted quickly.

In the most part there was no flaming, and the posters were respectful and just discussing stuff. But they vanished.
 

DLewth

DLewth
Refill your popcorn, folks:

https://kotaku.com/crytek-sues-star-citizen-makers-for-breaching-contract-1821269577?IR=T
http://www.shacknews.com/article/10...citizen-developer-over-copyright-infringement
http://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizen-crytek-lawsuit/
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news...copyright_infringement_breach_of_contract.php
https://www.mmorpg.com/star-citizen...ndustries-and-cloud-imperium-games-1000046734

White Knights: To battle!

Edit: Kotaku has the official response:
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.
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Err, isn't that what you're being sued for, mate?
 
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Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
CIG response indicates settlement has been voided long time ago. So we will get our court case.

At least some entertainment after all.

Reading PC Gamer I realized CryTek says as Lumberjack is derivative of their IP, CIG switch over to it is subject of their contract. Which it actually might be.

If CIG would have switched to let's say COBRA, I suspect CryTek wouldn't be able to touch them.
 
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