German Game Development At Crytek Studios
Perspective comes with time. A few days after I posted an article about German censorship laws, another article pops up about game development in Germany. Tim Parlett recently shared his game development experience working in German studio Crytek. He spoke for some time about the hatred he faced from surrounding regions, and described a raid on Crytek studios.
“At the time of the (2002 Erfurt school) shooting, we were already in development of Far Cry … We were just across the state border from Erfurt in northern Bavaria. Tensions in the region were high … In 2004 the Bavarian authorities sent in the state troopers… When the small tech team appeared to inspect our computers, they were accompanied by over one hundred flak-jacketed riot police, all armed with Heckler and Koch sub-machine guns. It was a total overreaction… They arrived first thing in the morning, and kicked down our doors. They even raided the nearby private residences … I was caught just outside the office … We were all shepherded into our Mo-Cap room, and there we were forced to remain until questioned, prevented from leaving by dozens of armed guards.”
Depictions of violence will always be a catalyst for heated debate. No country is right or wrong in their means of handling the issue of ‘violent’ games. Judging other cultures and their practices by your own standards is dangerous. Although, if I’m working for a company that gets raided by one hundred flak-jacketed riot police, I would probably be on the next train outta Bavaria.
The Unfriendly Side of German Game Development [Slashdot]
Toots
Posted to Video Games on 15 December 2006
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: crytek, germany, raid
there is something ironic about riot police with machine guns kicking down doors to ‘protect’ people against a software company . Maybe it would be more effective to tackle the root courses but far more ‘politically’ friendly to be seen to do something proactive.
I think we need a game about killing jackbooted German thugs.
Oh, wait….
That is kind of old news to me, a friend of mine started working at CryTek that year and then posted on the Portuguese GameDevPT forums to lay some rest to the reported situation.
That was truly a freshmen