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Lumberyard is a fork by Amazon of CryEngine that they licensed in 2015 that Star Citizen switched to. If developers start with that engine they are ok but looks
by drawkbox 9y ago
Lumberyard is a fork by Amazon of CryEngine that they licensed in 2015 that Star Citizen switched to. If developers start with that engine they are ok but looks like there were deals with Crytek on games/content before that date.
Legal challenges from a game engine is something that can scare away new projects in that engine. This wouldn't affect most developers as Star Citizen signed with CryEngine but it won't be attracting people to use CryEngine over others anytime soon.
Crytek is one of those companies that has great game engine tech but got high-centered when Unreal and Unity went free in 2015. Crytek is from the age of game development where licensing per game could run up above 300k for licenses and/or percentages that were much higher than today (Today Unreal is free but 5% royalties of gross over 3k quarterly -- but previously was 300k for the license -- Unity free up to 100k revs and $35/$125 Pro with no royalties, previously it was $1500 a year minimum). Crytek has been in a reactionary mode since 2015 when they also had to significantly change their model due to Unity/Unreal competitive moves.
Unreal at 5% royalties over 3k a quarter, Unity at free to 100k annually and $35/$125 Pro after that and even Crytek at $50/mo, all are very helpful for game development skills. Previously when engines were hundreds of thousands for a license it was hard to even gain skills beyond modding tools for engines and game companies had to shoulder all the training costs of even good game devs. Today, Unity/Unreal skills are much easier to find because of the low cost of entry. Ultimately the change to subscriptions and low cost (relatively) of the licenses allows a good market for developers investing in skills that will immediately translate at the game company they are working at, much easier to hit the ground running. Ultimately access to the engines is more valuable than the up-front costs of the past. Crytek is still dealing with that competitive pressure most likely.
- make3 9y ago(Just kidding here) Unity and Unreal could merge into a company called U2. I wonder though if the FTC would let this unreal unity of game engines happen though
- fazilakhtar 9y agoYou gave me a much needed laugh. Thank you!
- katastic 9y agoNow there's a man that's thinking with his Id.
- ekianjo 9y ago> merge into a company called U2 You are waiting for another Copyright suit, aren't you? :)
- wccrawford 9y ago>but it won't be attracting people to use CryEngine over others anytime soon. Seriously. I can't imagine anyone seeing this lawsuit and reading about the terms of these contracts and thinking, "Yeah, CryEngine sounds like a good idea." Lumberyard is far more likely to have good licensing terms, plus Amazon integration, and Unreal Engine is a serious competitor with very clear licensing terms and pretty extreme access to the engine code itself. IMO, Crytek should take a deal as soon as its offered, here.
- shak77 9y agoWhat's "Amazon integration"? And why is Amazon developing a game engine?
- irb 9y agoIntegration with AWS products. And I assume Amazon is developing a game engine that integrates well with AWS products in order to sell more AWS products.
- sgift 9y agoTo boost AWS and Twitch: https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/ https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/
- bhouston 9y agoDoes anyone but Star Citizen use it Amazon Lumberyard? Unity and UE4 really are the current leaders in game engine technology, CryEngine, while great, has suffered in the last four years or so and isn't a significant competitor.
- sgift 9y agoIf you look in the link there are six games listed. One is Star Citizen, two are (afair) by Amazon game studios, so that would leave three other games. No idea if these are just the show cases or all of them. So, not the greatest uptake, but Amazon was always willing to give things time to mature. We'll see if they can take market share of UE4/Unity.