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Crytek is taking its engine to new developers and platforms, and wants its statement of intent to be heard loud and clear. Will Freeman caught up with the company’s CEO Cevat Yerli at E3 2011 to find out more
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Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli (above) is confident that CryEngine 3 is ready for the paradigm shift in consumers’ platform preference
here’s now more platforms available to developers than ever. Where does CryEngine go with so many platforms to potentially support beyond PC gaming? We are pretty much going everywhere with it. CryEngine is expanding its footprint. We will support every platform that’s a major player in the industry of gaming. We are expanding in many ways, and some of that is more announced than others. Our support for Wii U is definitely going to happen. In fact, we aren’t showing it but we are pretty much running it already. Due to our relationship with Nintendo, we hope to get more access to it earlier. Kinect is major driver for future platforms as well, so Kinect support is important. Having basic Kinect support in the CryEngine is one thing, but I’m talking about really supporting it deeply. CryEngine is going to have deep support. Then there are other efforts towards supporting mobile and tablets, which we can only say we are working on. How far we have gone and what we mean is something I can’t talk more about now. We are also showing behind closed doors some online and weborientated technology. Why are platforms like mobile and web now getting Crytek’s attention? Those devices are quite different from CryEngine’s traditional market. Well, some people say that gaming is retracting or declining on PC. What’s happening, in my opinion, is that there’s a big shift in user behavior and the related business models. We’ve seen the move from games as a physical package to a downloadable item, and now to payment models like free-to-play microtransactions. Those games are now being played on a range of devices that are not consoles. Consoles are still not fully supporting that
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kind of game, so mobile platforms and PC download clients and browser based-gaming are dominating the market and pushing the PC gaming to new heights, and they are not recognised by the people who say that the PC industry is declining. It is not a decline; it is a shift that is happening, and that shift is not only to free-to-play and PC download clients, but also to mobile and tablet. I say those devices because mobile and tablet platforms are replacing the PC, and replacing it for gaming as well. Mobile and tablets are taking the sales from laptops, they are also replacing the acquisition of gaming content.
I love Sony as a company, and we have great relations with them, but the Vita is going to have a hard time against the next generation mobiles. Cevat Yerli, Crytek Of course devices like these are letting people have a great time playing games very easily, by just going into something like the App Store. That offers one of the best consumer models in the industry. Indie games are prolific in that space. Crytek previously expressed interest in a CryEngine indie SDK. How will that work, especially as a business model? There are going to be much more PC games in development. If when developers ask about what the next console generation will bring they get no answers, and it is this late in the console cycle, usually what happens is a surge towards PC games, and free-to-play
and microtransactions. It is the same in the mobile and tablets space as well. People are looking for opportunities and asking: ‘where can I go if I don’t know what is happening in the console business?’. From an independent game developer’s perspective, that is the best possible way forward now; looking at those kind of opportunities and exploring what you can do that minimises risks, and allows them to launch a company or IP. For those studios we are launching an IP that will empower them, not just from a game development perspective, but in terms of what is beyond game development. That is something we will talk about in more detail in the future. So for now you can’t tell us how the business model will work, either for Crytek or the indies? Crytek has to make money. For now it is a much more long-term approach. We are not just thinking in the short term or about just this year, but actually about empowering these people with our engine, and then there will be ways of revenue generation for Crytek. But for now those ways are not the priority for Crytek. We want people to take the engine, and, with no revenue to Crytek at first, be able to make full casual and indie games. There will be many ways of generating revenue and making this work. I don’t want to announce them yet, but I will say that we will be very aggressive about getting as many developers as possible in a very short amount of time. Let’s just say that implies a minimum barrier to entry for developers. And how about the Vita? What is your reaction to that system? The Vita is an absolutely fantastic platform but it will have a hard time, and it might be too late. I love Sony as a company, and we have great relations with them, but the Vita is going to have a hard time against the next