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Silicon Knights Says Unreal Engine is Broken
Yesterday we discussed Too Human's absence from this year's E3 event, and briefly mentioned the just-announced lawsuit between Silicon Knights and Epic. Today there's a bit of a clarification. Silicon Knights is suing Epic because, according to Kotaku, Epic failed to 'provide a working game engine' to SK causing them to 'experience considerable losses.' Essentially Knights argues that the Gears of War version of the Unreal engine was withheld by Epic so that Epic products could show up competitors at trade events. For a deeper look at this, the blog runs down the allegations in detail, and concluded by noting that a slew of next-generation titles slated to use the Unreal Engine have been delayed several times. This includes Stranglehold, BioShock, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Turok, Frame City Killer, Fatal Inertia and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway ... a somewhat persuasive list, when it's all laid out in front of you.
Outside of exclusive, blockbuster-style releases that have significant backing by Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo, what game ISN'T delayed these days?
Except for the fact that they started working on this since before the xbox 360 was released, so they didn't even have a way to know that it was broken.
If you've read any of the articles you would know that the issue is Epic not delivering on their contracts (assumedly) for the purpose of being able to highlight their own games (Gears of War) over competitors who had licenses their engine. It's not as simple as "don't license it."
I want to see some evidence, from both sides.
IANAL but my guess is:
The simplest and most likely scenario here is that Epic promised to ship some code out, and missed their deadline. It's not very unusual for this to happen, deadlines get missed all the time, particularly in the gaming industry. SK is covering their bases (which is the smart thing to do) by making the claim include the possibility that Epic did it intentionally, which would be considerably harder to prove, but is in there just in case that's what happened.
If it was just a missed deadline, it looks like whatever clauses were already in the contract's terms and conditions for this scenario will be invoked(why the HELL would they not include a late delivery clause? There has to be one in there already), or failing that, just a nulled contract, possibly with some compensation for the inconvenience. Slashdotters probably already know that there's very little chance of the Gears profits being handed over. People claim whatever they want, that doesn't mean the court will decide to award it to them.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
So, id software is going to get a lot of business in the coming years, huh?
To me, this sounds like a typical software development fuckup. Epic probably underestimated what it would take to get GoW out. So they decided to take development resources away from the engine to the game. Then, they fixed the engine specifically for the game, because that is easier than fixing it in a generic fashion - but this leads to a kind of merging of the two code bases. Obviously, they didn't want to give out the code for GoW, so they ended up with a crappy version of the engine - which they did give out - and a good version of the engine married to the code of GoW - which they didn't want to give out (at first).
I have absolutely no insider information, but I could easily see something like this happening. As always, Hanlon's Razor applies: "Never ascribe to malice, that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
One: Middleware (and just about any production software) is constantly in a state of flux, and there is never a "final" version of it. People who licence the Unreal Engine technologies are given secure access to Epic's CVS repository, where daily engine builds and patches can be checked out for use by the game developers. SK's claim that they didn't have access to a "finished" version is a load of bunk.
Two: the Engine framework is delivered "as is". It is up to the game developer to modify the engine to suit that particular game's needs, not Epic. If the developers at SK are incapable of programming the engine to suit their needs, that is their problem, not Epics. SK started receiving alpha versions of the engine right after the first X360 dev kits went out and they have access to the CVS like everyone else. The fault is with SK, not Epic.
Three: if you read up on it you will find that SK is looking to claim that all of the modification work that they are doing on the game constitutes an "entirely new engine" and that they should retain all rights to it. In other words, they want the benefits of using UE3 technology without having to pay for it.
Four: SK is seeking damages - they want the complete profits from Gears of War. Think about that for a minute. Here's the relevant part: The document then asks that "The Court award damages to Silicon Knights in an amount proved at trial for the damages as set forth above", and that "Epic be required to disgorge all profits obtained on its Gears of War game as a result of the misconduct set forth above." This is a straight-up scam to get money, period.
Five: Epic has licenced its technology to a rather vast collection of developers, including some of the biggest in the business. No one else has complained, just Silicon Knights - a company that has been pushing Too Human (the title in question) since 1999 (when it was being developed for the Gamecube). Think about that - a company that has been making the same title for 8 years suddenly decides to launch a lawsuit when they find themselves unable to show the goods at E3. At least 3DRealms isn't making grandiose claims about Duke Nukem Forever all the time...
Six: Epic has a long history of supporting developers, from the corporate level all the way down to the hobbyist modder at home. Epic provides tools and help free of charge to anyone who wants them. If SK gets their way, this could have severe ramifications for the entire gaming industry and engine middleware licencing in general.
SK Business Plan
1). Licence middleware engine 6 years after beginning development. Have incompetent programmers who cannot understand simple instructions program the game.
2). Show off screenshots, brag - and then fail to deliver goods at E3.
3). Blame middleware provider for own problems.
4). ???
5). Profit.
From what I've read it seems that a majority of games, even the big budget ones, have a relatively short productive shelf life. Meaning that the large majority of a game's sales come within its first few months of release. That being the case, a company like Valve or Id could easily release their a few months game before licensees get around to releasing, and then there's no real competition between them, because the original game is already past its prime.
Also, for a company that puts a lot of time and resources into an engine, if they just had their own game to make that money back, they could be in real trouble if that game tanks for whatever reason. But if they've got the engine set up for licensing, that's some extra insurance that they'll recoup their investment.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Before you insult the guy, maybe you should have RTFA?
From Kotaku:
Of course, if the grandparent had read the article, he'd also know that this lawsuit relates to general problems with the engine across the board. Not just for the PS3 and 360.
Perhaps next time, both of you children will read the article?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
So far this seems like a "Harvard vs Yale" thing where it is inconsequential who wins. The cynic in me does have a suspicion that blame can be laid at the feet of both Epic and SK.
Epic is to blame because it seems to complete Gears of War with the "Unreal Engine 3" required a lot of work from Epic themselves. Or in other words, the engine wasn't as complete as it really needed to be so Epic did a lot of specific fixes for Gears to bring up the game. This seems to indicate that UE3 isn't that complete or polished and Epic is unable (technically or contractually) or unwilling to merge these changes into the basic engine leaving any ISV who got a license wondering how in the world they can make a game that is remotely close to Gears in function and quality.
Silicon Knights is to blame because their management seems to be way out there (yes Denis Dyack I'm looking at you). No engine can make a game beautiful where the performance of Too Human was entirely your ball to drop. That is the job of the artists, programmers, and ultimately the "director" where if they were not happy with the platform given they needed to voice their concerns. I have a sneaking suspicion they believed the marketing instead of their own technical assets then it is yet another bad decision by management.
So whatever. These two can hash it out where the ultimate fall out is that Too Human is probably 2009 time frame if SK goes through with this, reclaim their money, and rebuild their own engine.
When a developer decides that they want to make a competitive 3D game nowadays they have 2 options: write your own engines -or- license an engine from someone else. On the one hand, writing your own cutting edge, competitive engine is going to take a hell of a long time and money, just look at the guys who do it primarily: Id, Valve, Epic. These engines take several years, a lot of money, and some freaking brilliant coders (John Carmack for example). But once these engines are done, they can compete with almost anything else out there. And because they are done SO well, others want to use said engine too.
Now, if you are a developer trying to make a competitive and interesting new game, if you decide to write your own graphics and physics engines then you have to spend all the time and money just to get a good engine and then spend even more time and money working on all the actual gameplay. In short, you have to spend almost double or triple the time to make the game, after which time your game may not even be competitive or innovative anymore. But, if you license an engine from another company then you only spend the time+money to work on gameplay plus the amount of time needed to get acquainted with the engine, which is not anywhere near as long or expensive as writing an engine from scratch. So, by licensing an engine you save time which equals money which equals a (hopefully) earlier ship date and a (hopefully) more competitive product.
I'll note here that the large amount of time it takes to develop both an engine and a game is why you don't see the big engine developers publishing a ton of games. They spend the years to make one engine and then they publish several games using that engine while possibly working on a new one on the side. Take Valve for example. They spent a ton of time developing Source for HL2 and since then they have been doing the episodes. Adding a little to Source with each episode but also publishing (not developing, mind you) a lot of smaller games using Source while they (most likely) work on a new engine. Same can be seen with both Id and Epic: they will produce one new Game+Engine every 5-7 years, afterward developing a few titles using the current engine while writing a new one.
When you license an engine you are putting your faith in another company that they are providing you with a robust and well documented engine because that's what you are paying a quarter of a million dollars for. So, when something like this happens with Unreal 3.0 where the engine developer actually provided licensees with an incomplete/broken engine not only have you committed fraud by falsely advertising and licensing something you never had, the licensee now has to spend even more development time trying to fill in the gaps and write work-around components to get the engine to do what you bought it for. As such, when something like this comes up it not only heavily hurts the many developers using the engine, but it harshly damages the reputation of the engine developer, who makes a good portion of its income from licensing their engines.
Future indie game developer of America (and possibly Canada)