Crytek Studios and Cloud Imperium Games have been suing each other since 2017. But when Crytek decided to withdraw the lawsuit, the authors of Star Citizen demanded compensation: $ 500 thousand. And they also accused the plaintiff of lying.
Star Citizen
In 2017, Crytek accused Cloud Imperium Games of unauthorized use of its CryEngine engine.
According to the plaintiff, the license applied only to the Star Citizen itself. But Cloud Imperium Games allegedly creates a single-player Squadron 42 campaign on the engine with the help of its “daughter” Roberts Space Industries.
Nevertheless, in January of this year, Crytek agreed to withdraw the application. The reason was that the release of Squadron 42 never took place. According to Eurogamer, Crytek doubted that the component will be released at all in 2020. Therefore, they see no point in continuing the lawsuit.
Recently, Cloud Imperium Games finally responded to Crytek’s statement. She was not satisfied that Crytek wants to withdraw the claim and at the same time not pay legal costs. In addition, she is convinced that the plaintiff invented a reason for withdrawing the claim before the release of Squadron 42. “Crytek is trying to mislead the court and confuse the public,” Cloud Imperium Games are sure.
As stated in the document, Squadron 42 is created on a completely different engine — Lumberyard from Amazon. It is indeed based on CryEngine, but it may not be enough for the court. As stated by Cloud Imperium Games, Crytek decided to withdraw the claims, allegedly “learning” about the real engine from the news about the Squadron 42 release window. But the developers of the game did not name the release dates to the plaintiff.
In addition, Crytek has not provided any evidence for two years that the creation of Squadron 42 caused it financial damage.
In the end, the company demanded that the withdrawal of the claim be accompanied by the payment of compensation. This is at least $500 thousand. The court obliges Crytek to issue a response statement by February 7.
Star Citizen — kosmosim is a long-term and at the same time the most expensive crowdfunding project in the history of game development. In eight years, he has not gone beyond the alpha version. It is also unknown when its recently announced Squadron 42 component will be released.