After a long hardship filled year, Crytek is closing its game studios in Hungary, Bulgaria, South Korea, China, and Turkey, the developer stated today. Crytek mentioned that they plan to “refocus on its core strengths of developing innovative games and game-development technology.”
This news has come after months of late and missing employee paychecks at the multinational developer, which will now be retaining only two of it’s game studios, in Frankfurt, Germany and Kiev, Ukraine. In an official press release, Crytek stated that they’ve “put plans into action to secure jobs and to ensure a smooth transition and stable future” for all of those who will be losing their jobs as part of the studio shut downs.
Crytek is best known for its titles like Crysis and Ryse (and, more recently, VR games like Robinson The Journey). And as stated earlier, It has been late to pay its staff since May, sending their pay checks weeks or at times even months late throughout 2016. Last week, they finally paid the staff for the month of October, according to employees who work there. But Crytek staff have been leaving in the dozens, sick of these late payments and poor communication—Very similar to what happened in 2014.
Crytek’s managing director Avni Yerli said in a press release:
Undergoing such transitions is far from easy, and we’d like to sincerely thank each and every staff member – past and present – for their hard work and commitment to Crytek, these changes are part of the essential steps we are taking to ensure Crytek is a healthy and sustainable business moving forward that can continue to attract and nurture our industry’s top talent. The reasons for this have been communicated internally along the way. Our focus now lies entirely on the core strengths that have always defined Crytek – world-class developers, state-of-the-art technology and innovative game development, and we believe that going through this challenging process will make us a more agile, viable, and attractive studio, primed for future success.
