Silicon Knights sues Epic Games

[jumpman17]

Silicon Knights is suing Epic Games dealing with their Unreal Engine.

Epic Games apparently told companies that the engine would be available for them on the 360 in 6 months. However, it seems that it wasn't given out to the companies until a full year later.

As many of you may know, SK showed off Too Human for the 360 at last years E3. The game looked like crap and the company apologized and said it's not final yet and is still being worked on.

However, at the same E3, Epic showed off Gears of War to outstanding success and eventual best of show.

The problem? Epic hadn't given SK the Unreal Engine yet but they had it ready to go and on display for their own game.

SK feels that their image has been tarnished because Epic didn't give them the engine in time and because of that, their game looked like crap at E3.

So SK has written up and filed a 52 page lawsuit on the matter.

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My thoughts? I think that if Epic said 6 months, they should have had it out in 6 months, especially if it was ready and were using it themselves. Yes, I think the crappy showing of Too Human at E3 really hurt the game. But I don't think Epic shouldn't be held responsible for the crappy showing. If the game wasn't ready to show, then they shouldn't have shown it. The Unreal Engine is a beautiful engine, yes. I do think though that developers are starting to rely too much on the Unreal Engine. SK mentions how many developers have been hurt by the Unreal Engine and that Epic won't acknowledge it. If it's such a problem for developers, then they should make their own engine.

SOURCE: GameDaily BIZ

 

[VmprHntrD]

I disagree on your first point. So they said 6mo...if there wasn't a signed contract stating delivery in 6mo...SK is ass out of luck and deserve what they get for not having a contingency plan. I do agree though that Epic shouldn't be held financially or otherwise responsible for the bad showing of a (bad?) game by another company. It sounds more like convenience to blame other people for your piss poor work output...hmm sounds like the blue collar american work ethic.

And you're right, too many morons are sucking off Epic for their generic engine. People forgot how to be creative and make their own crap for once.

 

[rest0re]

why create from scratch when you got nice engine working? its called outsourcing, you can buy engine ready

 

[Jiggah]

Outsourcing is huge in the gaming industry even Epic outsources. For things like say a program to make randomized trees, or a physics engine, these things take a whole lot more time. If every developer has to come up with their own little way to do it. The amount of coding involved would be ridiculous.

I'm trying to figure out what really happened. Say the Unreal Engine wasn't ready in 6 months time. Does SK have evidence that the Engine was given out to other licensees before the 6 month period? SK trying to attribute the fact that GoW was running on a finalized engine is credulous, too. First, Epic is the developer of the Engine, they know the Engine backwards and fowards, so Epic probably would have had more experience is forming a game around that engine within the same amount of time that SK had. Second, I bet SK has no proof that GoW was running on a finalized Engine. For all we know it could have been running an alpha/beta Engine. Also, was there an actual contractual agreement? Or is this the "he said, she said" game?

 

[Darkforce]

A couple of the comments here are grossly misinterpreting the information and seriousness of the situation here. Anyone saying 'it's Silicon Knights fault for having a rubbish game' please read the following article:

http://gamespot.com/news/6175386.html


The reason Silicon Knights are suing is because Epic promised them the Unreal Engine at a set date and which they then broke (by 6 months for the 360 version, and they are still waiting for the PS3 version of the Unreal Engine almost 5 months after they were promised it). This in itself is bad enough; not being able to deliver the product on time, but it soon became clear that Epic did infact have a working Unreal engine at the time but simply withheld it from developers for their own advantage - so their own game: Gears of War (which they were able to develop thanks to the money raised from all of the Unreal licensing fees) could garner all the praise and hype and then go on sale with next to no competition. Now other developers including Silicon Knights finally have the 360 version of the Unreal engine, Epic are refusing to provide promised support or updates for it, leaving them with a crippled engine that's a nightmare to work with.

I'm all for Silicon Knights suing Epic, Silicon Knights have a strong case and they're not the only developer left in the cold by Epics behaviour. Epic deserve everything that's coming to them.

 

[jumpman17]

Anyone saying 'it's Silicon Knights fault for having a rubbish game' please read the following article:

I'm only saying that SK can't sue because they CHOSE to show an unready game at E3. They can sue that they were not provided the engine at the promised time, but they can't sue for their own decision to show their game and then say it hurt their image. They've announced the game for more consoles then I can count. What would 1 more year of waiting to show it have hurt?

 

[AshuraZro]

Completely agree.

Silicon Knights never should have showed something off that they believed would harm them. They can blame Epic for a few things but this isn't one of them.