Crytek has decided to sue Cloud Imperium Games and Roberts Space Industries, blaming the developers for both breach of contract and copyright infringement.
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.
Cloud Imperium Games
The game was originally developed with the help of CryEngine, but the developers decided to switch to Amazon’s Lumberyard in December 2016, which was based on an earlier version of CryEngine but greater possibilities for online games.
That’s one of the reasons for Crytek’s allegations — the game license agreement signed between Crytek and the Star Citizen developers meant exclusive use of CryEngine for the game’s production.
The license agreement also required the developers to “prominently display Crytek’s trademarks and copyrights notices” in Star Citizen and associated marketing and use Star Citizen‘s development to develop bug fixes and optimizations to CryEngine on an annual basis.
Basically, Crytek states that CIG and RSI violated all of those terms and the company is now seeking damages from the developers, including direct damages ($75,000) and assorted indirect, consequential, and special damages.