Silicon Knights sues Epic

Gamasutra is reporting that Silicon Knights is has filed suit against Epic today, for breach of contract in providing the UE3 in a proper manner.

Everything about Too Human has had the sickening creak of a sinking ship to me all along. Is this SK' s attempt to deflect the blame?

Breaking: Silicon Knights Files Lawsuit Against Epic

Breaking: Silicon Knights Files Lawsuit Against Epic According to a statement from Epic' s Mark Rein sent to leading news outlets including Gamasutra, the Unreal Engine 3 creator is the subject of a lawsuit from licensee Silicon Knights, presumably regarding UE3-utilizing Xbox 360 title Too Human.

Rein' s statement, sent out to the media this afternoon, reads as follows: " This morning we were served with a lawsuit by Silicon Knights. We believe the claims against us are unfounded and without merit and we intend to fully defend against them."

The Epic VP continues: " We' d love to tell you more about it but unfortunately our lawyers want us to save our comments for the courthouse so we' re going to do our best to comply with their wishes."

He concludes: " In that vein we' d appreciate if our friends in the industry and media would refrain from asking us about the suit because we' re only going to say " no comment" . We just wanted to share the news directly before the rumor mill starts churning."

Representatives from Silicon Knights were not immediately available for comment, but Gamasutra will update this story when more information about the contents of the lawsuit are made available.

[UPDATE: Gamasutra has now obtained a copy of the lawsuit, which was filed in North Carolina district court and demands a jury trial on the grounds of breach of contract regarding Unreal Engine 3 licensing.

The suit initially alleges that: " Rather than provide support to Silicon Knights and Epic’s other many licensees of the Engine, Epic intentionally and wrongfully has used the fees from those licenses to launch its own game to widespread commercial success while simultaneously sabotaging efforts by Silicon Knights and others to develop their own video games."

It goes on to detail a number of specific alleged breaches of contract, particularly related to the delivery of Xbox 360 versions of the Unreal Engine 3 code. Epic' s licensing document stated that a functional version of the engine would be available within 6 months of development kits being available.

Silicon Knights claims: " The final development kit for the Xbox 360 was released in early September, 2005, such that Epic was obligated to release the functional Engine for that platform no later than March, 2006."

The suit continues: " However, that deadline came and went without Epic providing Silicon Knights with a functional version of the Engine. Indeed, it was not until much later (November, 2006, far too late for time and cost-sensitive projects like SK’s videogames) that Epic ever provided anything resembling working Xbox 360 code to its licensees. Even at that belated date, though, Epic did not provide any guidance to licensees in how to implement the code it finally released."

Another area of concentration is Epic' s simultaneous development of its own titles alongside engine development. The lawsuit charges: " In particular, at the same time that Epic was supposed to be supporting its many licenses to the Engine (Silicon Knights’ among them) Epic was also racing to complete and market its own games: “Unreal Tournament 2007” and “Gears of War." "

It goes on to explain: " The support Epic had misrepresented it would provide Silicon Knights... became increasingly inconsistent as both Silicon Knights and Epic progressed toward the target launch date for their respective games. Epic has attempted to avoid its obligations under the Agreement by representing to Silicon Knights that the support,
modifications, or enhancements to the Engine – all of which are essential to the Engine’s proper function – were “game specific” and not “engine level” adaptations, and that Epic therefore need not provide them to any of its licensees, including Silicon Knights."

It' s claimed: " That representation is false, as evidenced in part by the fact that Epic later provided nearly all the Gears of War code to all of its licensees, at no extra charge, in a belated effort at damage control."

Further on in the document, it' s revealed that Silicon Knights is no longer using Unreal Engine 3, despite showing multiple versions of the game using the engine. It' s explained: " Epic’s actions and the consequent increasing delay and cost of development of Silicon Knights’ own game caused by the unworkable Engine forced Silicon Knights in May of 2006 to embark on the time and resource intensive task of writing its own game engine, the very task it had hoped to avoid be entering the Agreement with Epic."

So?
They have the right to sue for that reason if its true.


They paid for the engine to have it in March and got it in November I would be pissed too.

Its not like GoW developers are something we should cuddle around with,just because they made GoW doesnt mean they can bypass certain laws.
Now you may think this should be handle intern,and probably it should but if it happend to another company they have the right to sue.

If you pay for a product and say,I want it at latest in 5 months,and it arrives in 10 months would you think that is okay? especially when you paid hands up from the start.

That is just retarded.
If this is true then Epic should pay.

Delaying their graphic engine to make GoW come out first isn' t something they can do without a punishmnent.

We all like epic but you dont do what they been accused off,if that is true that said.

Even if you break 2 legs from a crab it still runs!
What you gotta do is find its weak spot and do massive damage at it.

Gamers around the world should sue SN for creating soch a shitty looking game in the form of Too Human

Aren' t a lot of developers using UE3? And Silicon Knights is apparently the only one that had this problem? And they didn' t file this lawsuit until now when they were having the problem starting in March of ' 06? It sounds fishy to me. I think Too Human is going belly-up and they' re looking to cash out now. Otherwise why wouldn' t they have sued sooner?

I think Too Human is a game that' s either going to succeed very well, or crash and burn violently. I can' t see any middle ground ever being achieved.

What was put forward in this lawsuit certainly was interesting, and while some of it could be interpreted as damage control, there are some facts raised that certainly put Epic in a bit of hot water. The parts about failing to produce a functional engine on time can be seen in many places - especially PS3 UE3 development. We' ve heard many times that UE3 on the PS3 has not been going very well and by failing to produce a functional engine for the platform on time, regardless of the fact that the PS3 is not the most well thought out system in the development context, Epic has caused uncessessary damage to it' s licencees. Even most of the 360 UE3 games that we' ve seen (like Mass Effect) had severe framerate/technical problems at the timeframe that the lawsuit specifies. Many delays to release dates have been seen too. Are these problems a result of negligence on Epic' s part? Hard to say really, but this doesn' t seem like a simple case of shifting the blame when you look at everything we' ve seen.

The really suprising part for me was the part about Silicon Knights developing their own engine. There was a rumour suggesting this about a year ago, but was quickly silenced as myth. Yet it now appears true again. But after reading the definition of the Silicon Knights Engine I' m a little confused.

It' s also revealed: " Progress on the Silicon Knights’ Engine continues to date and, at this time, the Silicon Knights Engine is completely independent of Epic’s Engine and certainly derives no benefit from the unworkable source code provided by Epic."

I understand that, but the next paragraph confuses the picture:

" In fact, at this juncture the Silicon Knights Engine should, at a minimum, be described under the Agreement as an “Enhancement” of Epic’s Engine, which, as defined by the Agreement, is technology developed by Silicon Knights that improves upon the Engine and is therefore the property of Silicon Knights. Moreover, as development of the Silicon Knights Engine continues, the amount of code from Epic’s Engine employed by Silicon Knights continues to decrease. After the release of Silicon Knights’ Too Human, all Epic code will be removed from the Silicon Knights Engine."

At first glance it seems like they' re still building upon UE3. The only explanation I can get out of this paragraph is that they' re gradually migrating all of their work over from UE3 to the SKE (Silicon Knights Engine).

I think the reason that Silicon Knights have filed this lawsuit now is because they' re probably feeling the financial effects of the constant delays they' ve endured. Will other licencees who' ve had to endure delays follow suit too? I don' t think we' ll ever know who was in the wrong, but from what I' ve seen, there' s a bit more to this than I originally thought.

Preparing for a lawsuit can take some time because lawyers probably want to go through loads of legal mumbo-jumbo in order to see that everything is in order. It' d be foolish to sue someone the same day you encounter a problem.

Too Human blows. It had unbelievable promise but they royally fucked it up and now they' re trying to blame Epic.

Too Human blows. It had unbelievable promise but they royally ***ed it up and now they' re trying to blame Epic.

Now iv been defending the project for some time, but after seeing the E3 trailer im more skeptical as they somehow made it look very dead.

Ill preserve final judgement til we see some gameplay videos though, they havent shown the game for ages!

I can' t blame them for sueing if this is true. Though it could be made up of course. But in many of such cases, the truth is something that' s in between. Probably a bit of Epic' s fault and their own.

From what the article said if it is true then SK does have a case but the accusations of why their sales for too human...we' ll i' m not sure of that. We' ll see how this goes.

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

If what the article says is true i wonder why SN didnt sue earlier, maybe MS was preventing them from doing so but now that Epic made a deal with SONY that courtesy is over, i also wonder if SONY knew this and thats why they are giving tech support to upgrade the engine and whats their take on this.