3 Jul 2014

Sounds like Crytek is imploding

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Crytek LogoCrytek UK (formerly Free Radical) employees are no longer going to work. But who would blame them? They haven’t been paid for quite some time.

I’m not surprised by this turn of events though. I’m not much of a Crytek fan and sales show that many feel the same way. There’s not enough Crytek fans out there to sustain $66 million game budgets. And as pretty as their game engines are, they don’t seem to be as easy to use as Unreal Engine which explains why the list of licensees pales in comparison.

They’re not done yet but I hope for the best for Crytek’s employees. There’s talent there and I hope they end up at other studios or start their own independent efforts.

19 Mar 2014

FYI: GDC 2014 News & More

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Announcements

  • Sony’s Virtual Reality Headset unveiled as “Project Morpheus” (via PS.Blog)
    • 1080p w/ 90 degree field of view
    • Positional and orientation tracking with help of accelerometers, gyroscopes and PlayStation Camera
    • No pricing or release plans announced
  • Some PlayStation 4 firmware 1.7 features detailed (via PS.Blog)
    • Video editor
    • Ability to export video and photos to USB
    • Option to disable HDCP for capturing game footage via HDMI
  • Sony integrating additional tools and middleware engines into the PlayStation 4 (via PS.Blog)
  • Intel Haswell-E feature 8-cores, DDR4 and X99 chipset coming 2H 2014 (via AnandTech)

Read More

11 Mar 2014

Linux Gaming Inches Closer to Reality

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linux-logoThere are games on Linux but the selection available is paltry compared to Windows. And the reasons why the selection is so limited is due to lack of middleware support and the dominance of DirectX.

Crytek have ported their CryEngine to Linux and will be demonstrating its capabilities at GDC 2014 next week. I’m curious if it will perform better than the DirectX version.

Valve is continuing their efforts to sway the masses away from Microsoft and DirectX with “ToGL“, a DirectX to OpenGL translation layer. It’s limited to DirectX 9.0c for now but it’s a start. If developers can just flip a switch and port to OpenGL with minimal effort, they would be more inclined to support Linux.

All these efforts sound good but how long would it take before we see day and date high profile releases from the likes of Activision and Electronic Arts?

8 Mar 2012

Middleware Battle 2012

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It wouldn’t be a Game Developer’s Conference without some middleware upselling. First we have Crytek’s CryEngine 3. It starts with a demo reel of games powered by their engine before getting into the nitty gritty.

It’s a nice little off screen capture of the trailers, but it doesn’t quite match the trailer Epic put out for their Unreal Engine 3 updates.

Epic’s trailer showcased a wide range of platforms including Adobe Flash, Vita, iOS and the usual candidates. That’s far more impressive than the handful of no-name games (except Mechwarrior Online) that Crytek showed off. But most importantly, Unreal Engine 3 continues to look awesome. I look forward to GDC 2013 where we’ll hopefully be seeing Unreal Engine 4 making its debut.

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