Rumors are flying once again about Crytek's inability to pay its staff, with some employees saying that their paychecks have arrived late, or been entirely absent, through more than half of the year. As reported by Kotaku, the situation has grown bad enough that one former employee, an FX artist by the name of Ludviq Lindqvist, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for legal action against the company.
Lindqvist says in his GoFundMe pitch that he was employed at Crytek's Frankfurt HQ from March 2015 to December 2016, but quit on December 8 after going two months without being paid. "Crytek has failed to pay salaries on time starting May 2016. Ever since May this year, salaries have been delayed," he wrote. "Today as I'm creating this GoFundMe campaign, 14th December 2016, it was 58 days since Crytek paid me my September salary. Two whole months have failed to make it to my account. The last salary I got was one month late."
He clarifies in the pitch that "all Crytek employees are in the same situation," which jibes with complaints that have recently surfaced on Imgur, Glassdoor, and through anonymous emails from current employees. It also, unfortunately, fits with what happened in 2014, when reports of late payrolls simmered throughout the summer, eventually leading to the closure of Crytek UK and professed surprise from CEO Cevat Yerli that employees were upset about having to wait for their money.
Crytek came to prominence with the hit Far Cry and Crysis games, but ran into trouble with Ryse: Son of Rome, a high-profile launch title for the Xbox One that failed to meet expectations. The eventual PC port didn't fare any better, a planned sequel was canceled, and Crytek has since turned its focus to free-to-play games like Warface and Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age. That doesn't seem to have gone especially smoothly either: Hunt was announced in the summer of 2014, but a beta slated for later that year still hasn't happened.
I've emailed Crytek for comment, and will update if I receive a reply.
