Crytek Talks Crysis 2, Far Cry Movie and CryEngine 2

By John Gaudiosi

MONTE CARLO—Cevat Yerli, co-founder, president and CEO of German game developer Crytek, recently was a featured speaker (for the second year running) at Imagina 2008, the annual 3D technology conference in Monaco. Following his discussion on the lessons learned from developing Far Cry and Crysis on CryENGINE and CryENGINE 2, he spoke about the changing face of game development.

Today's landscape has fewer independent game studios, especially on the heels of Electronic Arts acquisition of Bioware and Pandemic. Along with Epic Games and id Software, CryTek remains one of the top independent game makers in the world today.

"The challenge is in the balance of creativity versus funding," said Yerli. "The increasing budgets, more demanding platforms and customer behavior makes it difficult to sustain as an independent company. However, at the same time, new opportunities arise such as in casual online games, but also on games that are on simpler platforms such as Nintendo Wii, Xbox Live or Playstation Networks in the form of smaller game experiences, including but not limited to arcade experiences. I believe (digital distribution) is an opportunity to sustain independence and successful titles through these channels may even be more commercially lucrative than titles released through traditional retail business."