Crytek's Frank Vitz, creative director.
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Crytek switches CryEngine dev tool to ‘pay what you want’ model and sets up $1M indie fund

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Crytek announced today that it is changing its business model for its game-development tools to “pay what you want.” It is also setting up a $1 million indie game development fund.

The new business model is a bold bet that relies on the kindness of fellow game developers, especially when Epic’s Unreal Engine and Unity’s tools have free options. The company made the announcement as part of its unveiling of its next-generation CryEngine V game engine, which supports for virtual reality headsets.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.