Silicon Knights ordered to recall and destroy Unreal Engine games

[Vampire Lied]

Too bad. They should've stuck with what worked for them. Even though it was very little. Would've liked to see at least one more good game from them.

 

[gloweyjoey]

Wow. That's a huge blow...

I'm a big Silicon Knights fan - Legacy of Kain is one of my favourite franchises and I have to say, I'm pretty saddened by this turn of events. I'm not familiar with the case, if they "deserved" that kind of a verdict then hey! Triumph of Justice, but it still saddens me just because I like the company.

The Legacy of Kain games were great, except SK only developed the first Blood Omen. Soul Reaver 1&2 and Blood Omen 2 and Defiance were developed by Crystal Dynamics. There was some legal dispute between the two companies and CD ended up with the rights.

 

[Foxi4]

The Legacy of Kain games were great, except SK only developed the first Blood Omen. Soul Reaver 1&2 and Blood Omen 2 and Defiance were developed by Crystal Dynamics. There was some legal dispute between the two companies and CD ended up with the rights.

I'm well-aware of that, but I'm crediting the "invention" of the frachise to them, still. I'm not entirely sure how the two studios divided the programmers that worked on the original project - I'd have to look into that.

Silicon made another game I enjoyed - Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes. What a great remake, I really enjoyed that one.

 

[Annieone23]

I really doubt it. The IP isn't worth enough money to buy the company and the talent there is incredibly lacking. I mean they made two games that can be considered "good" and everything else has been from average to awful.

Nintendo usually isn't in the business of buying bad devs either.

Agreed. Why bother to buy such an awful situation? Besides, as I said a second ago, Nintendo doesn't need to buy SK to make another ED. They already own the rights etc. They could give it to another team at any time if they felt so inclined.

 

[emigre]

Personally I reckon Nintendo should buy back Silicon Knights and Rare, in order to allow a certain proportion of their fanbase to live in the past.

 

[Midna]

Personally I reckon Nintendo should buy back Silicon Knights and Rare, in order to allow a certain proportion of their fanbase to live in the past.

Rare was bought for 375 million dollars by Microsoft in 2002. They never made that money back. A fitting and ironic detail in my opinion, because all Rare's talent left and Microsoft was left with a company that could by no means produce the constant stream of high selling games that MS had so desperately wanted. Really, Nintendo would have no use for buying back Rare, even if MS agreed, and even if they managed to get a decent price. There's nothing left of them. The only worthwhile thing attached to the Rare name is its N64-era IPs.

And no one's buying out Silicon Knights. Their debt to Epic is a staggering number, and the buyer would have to pay it off.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Rare was bought for 375 million dollars by Microsoft in 2002. They never made that money back. A fitting and ironic detail in my opinion, because all Rare's talent left and Microsoft was left with a company that could by no means produce the constant stream of high selling games that MS had so desperately wanted. Really, Nintendo would have no use for buying back Rare, even if MS agreed, and even if they managed to get a decent price. There's nothing left of them. The only worthwhile thing attached to the Rare name is its N64-era IPs.

And no one's buying out Silicon Knights. Their debt to Epic is a staggering number, and the buyer would have to pay it off.

Rare's too busy making virtual clothing for virtual people to make games.

They were probably able to get a few bucks out of Banjo Kazooie/Tooie/Perfect Dark HD too.

 

[Midna]

Rare's too busy making virtual clothing for virtual people to make games.

They were probably able to get a few bucks out of Banjo Kazooie/Tooie/Perfect Dark HD too.

Rare was bought out while they were at the top of their game in regards to releases. Year after year they continued to put out new, and profitable titles at an unimaginable pace. Whatever sweat-shop the Stamper brothers were running, Rare was efficient as hell. That's what Microsoft had wanted, they wanted Rare to be their big developer as they moved into the gaming business.
Viva the Pinata was the most profitable thing Post-Nintendo Rare ever made. The rest is a long list of flops and failures.

As you can see I'm slightly bitter about this.

 

[emigre]

Rare was bought for 375 million dollars by Microsoft in 2002. They never made that money back. A fitting and ironic detail in my opinion, because all Rare's talent left and Microsoft was left with a company that could by no means produce the constant stream of high selling games that MS had so desperately wanted. Really, Nintendo would have no use for buying back Rare, even if MS agreed, and even if they managed to get a decent price. There's nothing left of them. The only worthwhile thing attached to the Rare name is its N64-era IPs.

And no one's buying out Silicon Knights. Their debt to Epic is a staggering number, and the buyer would have to pay it off.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/flippant

 

[Midna]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/flippant

So you are telling me that you are frivolously disrespectful, shallow, or lacking in seriousness; characterized by levity?

 

[Hadrian]

I just googled it real quick and the first few results are people claiming that not only does Nintendo own the rights to ED but they also own the patents on the sanity meter effects. IDK for 100% fact if that is true or not, but its what everybody on the internet is claiming.

Nintendo does own the patent for that.

Also another thing, Nintendo does actually still own stock in the company but there is no way they can sell that and get a good price.

The total figure is actually over $9 million, not just paying $4.5 mill to Epic for breach of contract but they also have to pay $4.7 mill for legal fees & "prejudgement interest". A huge number for a company like that but even if they manage to pay all that, the recalling & destroying those games (Wii & DS versions of X-men don't count) is to be done at SK's expense so that could add a couple of extra million for them to hunt down every unsold copy in the world.

Good job they only made two lousy games! However that's not even the end of it! EVERYTHING they have been developing has to be restarted with new engines, all of the money they got from the government has gone down the drain and what with all these fees there is no way SK can come back from this, although you can bet Dyack will still form a company and do a "spiritual successor" to Eternal Darkness via a Kickstarter campaign and idiots will pay for it...they'll never see the game of course and all their money will be gone.