Star Citizen devs file motion to dismiss Crytek lawsuit

Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games have filed a motion to dismiss in response to a lawsuit from Crytek that accuses the developers of breach of contract and copyright infringement. 

Crytek’s original suit outlined various ways in which RSI and CIG had allegedly violated the game license agreement signed by the companies early in the development of Star Citizen. But RSI and CIG’s motion argues that their actions were perfectly in line with the terms set forth in the game license agreement, going so far as to attach the agreement itself to back up their claims. 

Between that document and the fact that Star Citizen was moved from CryEngine to Amazon’s Lumberyard game engine in 2016, RSI and CIG argue that none of Crytek’s original accusations hold water.

Crytek had originally accused RSI and CIG of breach of contract and copyright infringement for using CryEngine in a game other than Star Citizen, failing to display Crytek trademarks and copyright notices, and later using Lumberyard to develop the game after agreeing to exclusively use CryEngine.

RSI and CIG now say that the language in the actual game license agreement renders those arguments null and void while also accusing Crytek of knowingly concealing the game license agreement itself in its earlier court filings.

Specifically, the defense notes that the game license agreement itself allowed CryEngine to be used with “the game currently entitled ‘Space Citizen’ and its related space fighter game ‘Squadron 42′” and that the agreement’s use of “exclusively” in regards to developing with CryEngine wasn’t intended to mean Star Citizen could only be developed with CryEngine. 

While Crytek argues Star Citizen’s jump to the Lumberyard engine violates the agreement, CIG and RSI state that they have an “exclusive right, not a duty, to use the engine in the game.” Rather, the duo says Crytek is twisting the language and that, in context, “exclusively” instead means that the right to use the engine in the game is exclusive to CIG and not that the studio is bound to work only with CryEngine on the project.

The motion to dismiss also notes that Crytek’s accusations involving displaying trademarks no longer apply since the game abandoned CryEngine for Lumberyard. Furthermore, the document points out that only CIG signed the game license agreement so Crytek naming RSI in the original complaint was not accurate.

However, it is worth noting that the motion does not directly counter every one of Crytek’s earlier accusations. The document is noticeably silent on Crytek’s claim that the Bugsmahsers video series created during Star Citizen’s development violated the game license agreement by publicly sharing CryEngine source code and the separate issue that CIG should have shared bug fixes with Crytek prior to the big Lumberyard switch. 

The developer duo’s full argument is outlined in court filings discovered by a user on the Star Citizen subreddit.