Over the past few days multiple reports have surfaced that video game company Crytek has been having payroll troubles this year, and has been paying at least some of its employees late — or not at all.
This is a notably bad sign, especially since we heard similar things out of the company two years ago. At the time, Crytek publicly refuted allegations it was on the verge of bankruptcy even as anonymous sources within Crytek UK claimed the company had seen a rash of departures and generally low morale due to late or unpaid paychecks.
This time around, word started spreading on Friday when an Imgur post titled “Crytek hasn’t paid me (or my coworkers) for almost 6 months. Help!” was published. The post was attributed to an anonymous throwaway account, and alleged that Crytek had failed to pay the poster (who identified as working for Crytek in Germany) and their coworkers on time — and had done so numerous times in the past.
“The brothers had a meeting a few months ago and assured everyone that the issue was finally fixed and there should be no more problems,” read the message. “That is not the case. People are still working without pay. This isn’t just here in Germany, this is in all of our offices as far as I can tell.”
Following that post, Kotaku reported that an anonymous (but trusted) current Crytek employee had verified the company has been repeatedly late on payroll throughout 2016.
Crytek has so far failed to respond to multiple requests for comment from Gamasutra or other media outlets. The last time we contacted the company to find out why it had reportedly failed to pay its employees, back in 2014, we received a curt reply that “we will not comment any further.”
Before this happened, Crytek appeard to be having a decent year: the company made its CryEngine tech available on a “pay-what-you-want” basis, doubled down on the movie business with its standalone Film Engine and dived into VR development with its VR First initiative and VR games like (pictured) The Climb.
If you or someone you know has been affected by this reported payroll situation, you can email Gamasutra to tell your story confidentially.