SQ42 is more like a single player campaign DLC to Star Citizen and not a separate game... I am sure there are other games out there with DLC campaigns.. right?
You need to read those court documents. They lay out a very, very compelling case for it being considered a separate game using RSI's and CGI's own words and quotes to substantiate it.
SQ42 is more like a single player campaign DLC to Star Citizen and not a separate game... I am sure there are other games out there with DLC campaigns.. right?
You need to read those court documents. They lay out a very, very compelling case for it being considered a separate game using RSI's and CGI's own words and quotes to substantiate it.
They may make an argument but I would imagine all that RSI has to do is show that Squadron 42 was part of the scope of the crowdfunding campaign, because Crytek was apparently, according to the legal docs, part of the crowdfunding campaign. So they would have known that S42 was apart of Star Citizen.
I think they may be swinging for the fences with the S42 stuff. Though they got em pegged it seems for the breach of contract in switching engines...so long as the original contract does indeed make it clear they can't switch. But I'm curious why Crytek waited so long to pursue and I gotta think a judge might look at that. No DMCA takedown notices served before suit, a year or so after the very public game engine switch, even longer since the public announcement and footage of S42, and for loss profits of an unreleased game. I don't think the pre-sale ships will go far in court because you can't prove that the engine footage directly lead to those sales because consumers were not always buying an asset to use in-game made with the engine, in fact many times ships were sold before they were even made in any engine.
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
Erin Roberts states in 2014 that they did one outright buyout of the engine and all its assets.
If that is true then they didn't have to respond to Crytek if they do decide to switch to Lumberyard, or even make SQ42 its own game. But if anything that could be the terms of the sale.
Hurray for crowdfunded money being used to settle legal issues due to bad management!
That does present a whole other strand of hairy to this: if the settlement or judgement rendered does say "CIG, you folks intentionally broke the agreement and as such you owe Crytek X amount of money" ... Do backers owe that money? Should CIG and the employees responsible pony up that cash separate of backer funds?
If this does end in a settlement or judgement against CIG, it will be an important legal point for all crowdfunded projects to take note of.
Personally feel that intentionally misleading or committing acts that would create such a liability should not be assessed against the fund pool backers have contributed. If it could be reasonably decided that CIG acted out of innocent ignorance but still violated the agreement, backer money should be used to cover such settlements or judgements.
1. Backers don't owe anyone anything. They already paid when they made their purchase, and won't need to pay extra no matter what happens.
2. There is no special pool of backer money. After a backer transfers the money to CIG, it's CIG's and will be used to pay for CIG's expenses, including paying Crytek for possible damages
3. CIG's owners, managers, and employees don't need to pay anything. In some cases it's possible that owner/manager/employee must pay compensation because they've caused damages, but that's normally only when someone has committed a crime or ignored their responsibilities. Making bad decision while working - even if those decision leads to the company breaking agreements - is not serious enough that you'd need to pay for those damages personally.
I wasn't implying that backers would be required to shell puts extra cash for this. The pool I mentioned is simply the funding received, not that I think they've taken the funder money and put it in a room or account somewhere and aren't touching it. I'm saying, should the courts order CIG to pay damages, should CIG be allowed to use the funds garnered from crowdfunding to pay that (as well as the lawyer fees associated), or should CIG be expected to fund that separately?
That's why I quoted Talonsin. Should backer funding be used to support a legal defense of a company breaking contract obligations, particularly if done knowingly?
But don't they use.....Lumberyard now, ya know. Which was based off cryengine but its development was in line to SC's development so they synced up. I feel like if anybody they should be suing it would be Amazon, cause lumberyard is what replaced all their logos to begin with....
I feel like Crytek don't want to deal with big daddy amazon though and are just salty.
CIG migrated their engine from Cryengine to Amazon's Lumberyard quite a while ago, so Crytek has no case here. Lumberyard is essentially Cryengine, but fully licensed to Amazon to be modded in whatever way they choose. The direction that Lumberyard goes will be different than whatever direction the official Cryengine goes.
This seems like Crytek just crossing their fingers and hoping they get lucky pulling the slot machine handle of the legal system. I doubt anything will come from it, but getting more bad press piled on CIG's doorstep does hurt them in one way or another, even if the legal case is dismissed.
SQ42 is more like a single player campaign DLC to Star Citizen and not a separate game... I am sure there are other games out there with DLC campaigns.. right?
With a DLC the main game is required and it would be stated on the site. If SQ42 will be able to be played without SC then it's considered a stand alone game. I don't remember the site stating that SC is required to play SQ42.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Liquidity doesn't seem to be a problem given how people keep throwing money at RSI/CIG so I can see them settling this out of court to save themselves from lawyer fees.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Hurray for crowdfunded money being used to settle legal issues due to bad management!
That means nothing. Ortwin is an investor and well known Attorney. If you believe they did not read contracts, both from Crytek and Amazon you are missing the point. Crytek is dying and are seeking for cash. That will ends up without any court fight. Crytek has zero chance to win. The game is not even out... lets have some fun with this new drama
I think Crytek can win. The game is not out yet(that's the almighty excuse with online games) but CIG is making a lot of money using Crytek's engine so i think they should start paying up.
This is not the first time SC has played fast and loose with copyrighted material is it?
But this time they did it to someone who can bite back.
Curious: what was the first? I can vaguely remember something, but don't recall what specific item.
As @SBFord mentioned, if the agreement reads how the doc implies it does, there seems to be at least one serious allegation (stand-alone game Crytek never gave CIG permission to use the engineer on). If the underlying facts submitted in the document are accurate, the logo thing sounds pretty serious too, as it was an integral part of the agreement for ongoing discounted licensing fees.
Using the image of an actor (or some pre-rendered art from another artist) for an in-game character model/video/portrait without permission, if I recall correctly. Can't remember the specifics.
What actor? Gary Oldsman and Mark Hamill have both been paid. Mark Hamill is extremely excited for the project and all of the footage was MoCap'd with his permission lmao. All of the MoCap is finished
read the docs. 75k is just the direct costs, and yes insignificant. But the rest of the claim could if proven really hurt CIG financially, even cripple them. The terms if as they claim PREVENT CIG from using anything other than CryEngine, in return for the low cost Crytek offered and Crytek claim to be THE reason SC has done so well. Bullshit perhaps. But the courts... not known for their logic/fairness, but more for the letter of the agreement
This is not the first time SC has played fast and loose with copyrighted material is it?
But this time they did it to someone who can bite back.
Curious: what was the first? I can vaguely remember something, but don't recall what specific item.
As @SBFord mentioned, if the agreement reads how the doc implies it does, there seems to be at least one serious allegation (stand-alone game Crytek never gave CIG permission to use the engineer on). If the underlying facts submitted in the document are accurate, the logo thing sounds pretty serious too, as it was an integral part of the agreement for ongoing discounted licensing fees.
Using the image of an actor (or some pre-rendered art from another artist) for an in-game character model/video/portrait without permission, if I recall correctly. Can't remember the specifics.
What actor? Gary Oldsman and Mark Hamill have both been paid. Mark Hamill is extremely excited for the project and all of the footage was MoCap'd with his permission lmao. All of the MoCap is finished
It was concept art if I remember correctly. Nothing to do with the games actors. Basically they took a picture of a woman, replaced her face with Sandi's? and drew new clothes on her.
UPDATE: We have received a brief statement from Cloud Imperium Games about the recently filed legal documentation by Crytek:
From CIG…
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.
Worth pointing out that they're not suing them for $75,000 - the complaint says the amount substantially exceeds $75,000
Exactly
The documents seemed to indicate that was something along the "starting point" and that with incurred fees, residuals from game sales and so forth, the number would go exponentially higher.
Hurray for crowdfunded money being used to settle legal issues due to bad management!
That does present a whole other strand of hairy to this: if the settlement or judgement rendered does say "CIG, you folks intentionally broke the agreement and as such you owe Crytek X amount of money" ... Do backers owe that money? Should CIG and the employees responsible pony up that cash separate of backer funds?
If this does end in a settlement or judgement against CIG, it will be an important legal point for all crowdfunded projects to take note of.
Personally feel that intentionally misleading or committing acts that would create such a liability should not be assessed against the fund pool backers have contributed. If it could be reasonably decided that CIG acted out of innocent ignorance but still violated the agreement, backer money should be used to cover such settlements or judgements.
1. Backers don't owe anyone anything. They already paid when they made their purchase, and won't need to pay extra no matter what happens.
2. There is no special pool of backer money. After a backer transfers the money to CIG, it's CIG's and will be used to pay for CIG's expenses, including paying Crytek for possible damages
3. CIG's owners, managers, and employees don't need to pay anything. In some cases it's possible that owner/manager/employee must pay compensation because they've caused damages, but that's normally only when someone has committed a crime or ignored their responsibilities. Making bad decision while working - even if those decision leads to the company breaking agreements - is not serious enough that you'd need to pay for those damages personally.
I wasn't implying that backers would be required to shell puts extra cash for this. The pool I mentioned is simply the funding received, not that I think they've taken the funder money and put it in a room or account somewhere and aren't touching it. I'm saying, should the courts order CIG to pay damages, should CIG be allowed to use the funds garnered from crowdfunding to pay that (as well as the lawyer fees associated), or should CIG be expected to fund that separately?
That's why I quoted Talonsin. Should backer funding be used to support a legal defense of a company breaking contract obligations, particularly if done knowingly?
Yes. Legal expenses are also a part of the company's expenses.
If it means that RSI goes bankrupt then the situation sucks for backers, but people will just have to be careful what they back.
Comments
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They may make an argument but I would imagine all that RSI has to do is show that Squadron 42 was part of the scope of the crowdfunding campaign, because Crytek was apparently, according to the legal docs, part of the crowdfunding campaign. So they would have known that S42 was apart of Star Citizen.
I think they may be swinging for the fences with the S42 stuff. Though they got em pegged it seems for the breach of contract in switching engines...so long as the original contract does indeed make it clear they can't switch. But I'm curious why Crytek waited so long to pursue and I gotta think a judge might look at that. No DMCA takedown notices served before suit, a year or so after the very public game engine switch, even longer since the public announcement and footage of S42, and for loss profits of an unreleased game. I don't think the pre-sale ships will go far in court because you can't prove that the engine footage directly lead to those sales because consumers were not always buying an asset to use in-game made with the engine, in fact many times ships were sold before they were even made in any engine.
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/2895381/#Comment_2895381
Erin Roberts states in 2014 that they did one outright buyout of the engine and all its assets.
If that is true then they didn't have to respond to Crytek if they do decide to switch to Lumberyard, or even make SQ42 its own game. But if anything that could be the terms of the sale.
That's why I quoted Talonsin. Should backer funding be used to support a legal defense of a company breaking contract obligations, particularly if done knowingly?
I feel like Crytek don't want to deal with big daddy amazon though and are just salty.
This seems like Crytek just crossing their fingers and hoping they get lucky pulling the slot machine handle of the legal system. I doubt anything will come from it, but getting more bad press piled on CIG's doorstep does hurt them in one way or another, even if the legal case is dismissed.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Bah... that’s chump change. So they make a new Crytek ship to sell for $1k. Give Crytek their $75k and pocket another $500k themselves...
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What actor? Gary Oldsman and Mark Hamill have both been paid. Mark Hamill is extremely excited for the project and all of the footage was MoCap'd with his permission lmao. All of the MoCap is finished
..Cake..
It was concept art if I remember correctly. Nothing to do with the games actors. Basically they took a picture of a woman, replaced her face with Sandi's? and drew new clothes on her.
Exactly
UPDATE: We have received a brief statement from Cloud Imperium Games about the recently filed legal documentation by Crytek:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
MAGA
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If it means that RSI goes bankrupt then the situation sucks for backers, but people will just have to be careful what they back.