Crytek’s CEO opens up on unpaid staff and financial woes

The founder and CEO of Crytek has admitted that the studio has ‘paid the price’ to downsize and cut costs.

The Far Cry, Crysis and Homefront: The Revolution developer was hit by job losses and staff salary payment issues earlier this year, before selling the Homefront IP to publisher Deep Silver in an attempt to combat its financial woes.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Cevat Yerli stated: “We have been undergoing a transformation, just like the whole game industry. Part of the transformation was of a financial nature, part of it was of a strategy nature and part of it was of a reorganisation nature. The shift from retail products towards a game service – that’s the one we are undergoing.

“As a result of this, we have adjusted our entire strategy across the board for each game. We evaluated the games and looked at which do not fit in this strategy. This required additional investment, which led to temporarily diminished capital resources. But we are today fully prepared to deliver a game service. From a strategy perspective we are financially equipped towards that. And we have restructured the studios so we focus on Frankfurt, Sofia, Kiev, our Asian operations, and Budapest, towards delivering our strategy.”

Yerli also commented on the criticism surrounding Crytek’s unpaid staff, saying: “You have two choices, right? Either you delay payments and salvage the company. Or, you push your cash flow directly to the studios and you file for insolvency. Both options are really bad. So you have to make the better of the two bad decisions.

Our sister-site MCV has further details on the story.