Microsoft essentially owning Amazon’s game engine and charging them in perpetuity seems like a pretty reasonable outline for being PRO acquisition if you are Microsoft.
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Not when you can not charge them for it, they have a permanent license, and any update will benefit them too also for their own customized crytek engine.
Yeah, that’s not really how software licensing works. Companies can and do change terms of licensing often. Your old copy continues to function, you dont get the new version unless you pay.
Source: Works with software licensing/vendors daily
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Then help me understand it. As far as I am aware Amazon already paid ~50 million to basically have a fork of the crytek engine for perpetuity.
And they are entitled to that fork. They are not entitled to future versions. Crytek themselves could easily branch and do CryEngine 2.0 (or what ever a +1 might be) that is considered an entirely new product with a entirely new licensing model. If Amazon wants improvements that product provides, they can buy the new version.
It happens all the time where I work. We own a site license for something like Minitab (statistics software) with our current agreement we are entitled to new versions we just have to update the license server.
Minitab has informed us that they may discontinue site licensing and that our agreement will no longer allow us to move to new versions moving forward without purchasing new licenses.
Microsoft is also notorious for convoluted licensing with their enterprise products.
EDIT: Amazon and Crytek Agree to Licensing Deal Worth $50-$70 Million - Report - GameSpot
This story even references a engine version specifically:
Four sources told the site that Amazon agreed to a licensing deal for Crytek’s in-house game-building toolset, CryEngine 3
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Still not a good acquisition. Adding to that Amazon already has a better engine.
They mention they have already replace 60% of the codebase to better code.
Don’t get me wrong, Im not advocating for or against the acquisition. My point with Crytek has always been the same. MS’ reasons for acquiring companies may not be readily apparent to the masses, but if they are buying it, they have a reason and it isnt arbitrary.
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You’re taking the word of a PR release from Amazon… the same company who hasn’t released a single game on this supposedly better-built code, and a company who’s relationship with the truth is as tumultuous as a Trump’s. Sure, that’s a great take.
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Their new MMO New World is using Amazon’s Lumbyard which players already could play in beta.
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Wasnt that summarily “un-released” shortly after?
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That was Crucible, which also used Amazon Lumbyard. Having said that Crucible problem was not its engine.
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Nevertheless, I would wait until Amazon can actually release a single title on anything. Even then it’s a bit disingenuous to compare a trillion dollar company with considerably more staff influx working on a fork of the engine to that of a studio operating on a fraction of the cost and staff (fun fact: Amazon has spent at least $500 million a year for staff/projects, and that doesn’t include Twitch or Luna). Despite those massive differences, Crytek has released several projects in the eight years Amazon has failed to release a single title, so I wouldn’t go around assuming Amazon’s engineers have succeeded at anything.
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Amazon failures are self inflicted. Not anything to do with their game engine. They mostly shut games down if their games aren’t received well. I thought Crucible was fun.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-01-29/amazon-game-studios-struggles-to-find-a-hit
You mention that Amazon has invested so much into their engine when crytek cannot because they are small while they are big. But if Microsoft is buying them then they are gonna have to also invest equal or more than that of Amazon for a game engine game developers are not using in favor of unreal or unity. They already have top notch engines like ID tech, forza engine etc. If they are gonna spend that much resources into cryengine they might as well start one from scratch like slipspace engine.
For starters, you’re making a lot of assumptions about what it would take to right the few wrongs with Crytek by equating their budgetary needs to the tune of more than half a billion dollars like Amazon… and that’s not a good-faith debate. Moreover, there are more reasons to purchase Crytek than just their engine, as I mentioned. Also… if the past five years alone haven’t indicated to you that Xbox prefers choice for their developers’ engine choices, I don’t know what will.
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Do you think that with the already acquired idtech and a possible Crytek acquisition, Xbox could free itself from the over-reliance on Unreal Engine? Other than 343, Turn10 and Playgroud, all XGS use UE.
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I think both the cryengine and crytek the developer are bad acquisitions. But hey, Microsoft is a 2 trillion dollar company they can spend their money however they want like with Mixer and Nokia and their balance sheet would not take a hit.
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Still championing my main four.
Moon, Asobo, IO Interactive, and Supergiant are the four to look out for.
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I think with the growth that Xbox is having with Japan right now I think a Japanese studio will be acquired this year. If not a Japanese studio then a Japanese game IP e.g. Ninja Gaiden . I think clearly Xbox want to strengthen that part of the division. That’s my thoughts anyway. I still think that acquisitions like Avalanche will happen as well.
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Unreal is pretty much the industry standard. I wouldn’t say it’s an overreliance. It would be like saying a graphic designer has an overreliance on photoshop. Yes, other tools exist but photoshop just works and has done so for so long it’s just the standard. EA nearly irreparably harmed bioware by indirectly forcing them to use frostbite after ME3.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t just keep the status quo. If a studio wants to use id tech, or creation engine, unreal5 or whatever engine they want if it fits the scope of the projects and does what they want it too i don’t see why Microsoft would care? They probably have a blanket license at this point.
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I didn’t say they should enforce another engine to their studios, but I think that idtech was out of cards before acquisition because Zenimax stopped to sell licenses like idsoft did in the past (ending the competition with Unreal) and CryEngine as it is now is not as appealing as a MS owned CreEngine could be. More options is always good.