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Silicon Knights Rejects Epic Counter-Suit

Posted by Zonk on from the not-very-knightly dept.

In response to Epic's counter-suit (a suit countering Silicon Knights' suit over the unreal engine), Silicon Knights has flatly denounced Epic's move and is calling for the suit to be summarily dismissed ... while simultaneously decrying Epic's motion to dismiss the original suit. This is going to get ugly. Next Gen reports: "Silicon Knights' response thoroughly picks apart a myriad of points brought about by the counterclaim. The firm stated, 'For Epic to attempt to dispute the merit of those allegations [of the original suit] under the auspices of a motion to dismiss is improper. Therefore, Epic's Motion to dismiss should be denied in its entirety, Epic should be ordered to answer the Complaint, and this case should proceed to discovery and trial.' The original suit arose in July, when Silicon Knights filed the suit against North Carolina's Epic Games, developer of Gears of War and creator and licensor of the development tool Unreal Engine 3. Silicon Knight said Epic didn't deliver on its UE3 promises, resulting in the delay of the unreleased UE3-powered Xbox 360 game Too Human."

5 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Another Excuse by hansamurai · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I honestly think that Silicon Knights is just trying to find another reason why Too Human is almost as oft-delayed as Duke Nukem Forever. There have been plenty of games released now using the Unreal Engine 3, and they haven't had a problem with it, at least not one they felt needed to be brought public and to the courts.

    I used to be a fan of Silicon Knights and Denis Dyack (founder), but I can't say I am anymore. Though they haven't released an original game since 2002, it's hard to be a fan of a non-productive company.

    --
    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
    1. Re:Another Excuse by Aladrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, other companies have admitted to difficulties with the engine as well. None of the others claim that Epic is trying to sabotage them, though.

      In truth, any powerful engine is going to be difficult to work with, especially if it wasn't built in-house specifically for that project. There's a lot of cruft you have to learn to ignore, and there's a lot of workarounds to make the engine do things the way you think they should be done.

      I'm not saying Epic has no fault in this (they at least ignored SK's pleas for help), they aren't the evil empire that SK makes them out to be, either.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  2. Silicon Knights Rejects Epic Counter-Suit by Daimanta · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't understand what's so epic about it...

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
  3. Headline should read.. by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 2, Informative
    from the "no-shit" dept.

    "Company getting counter-sued says it's not their fault"

    Seriously.. I don't get why this is news. Lawsuits are filed when there are disagreements that cannot be settled between parties. If SK responded to Epic's countersuit with "Oh, ok, you're right, we're wrong," then that would actually be newsworthy.

  4. Re:Summary incomprehensible by LukeCage · · Score: 3, Informative

    Basically it goes like this:

    Silicon Knights is making a game called Too Human. In order to streamline the development of Two Human, Silicon Knights decides to outsource the programming of the 3d engine. They look around and, based on both it's current and planned feature set, decide to use Epic's UT3 (Unreal Tournament 3) 3d engine. This becomes the "motor" of their game.

    At some later point, Silicon Knights runs into problems implementing certain things in the engine and making it work the way they want to. Their suit alleges that Epic did not help them with their problems and did not make good on their initial promises (which were features offered under contract, according to Silicon Knights). Instead, Silicon Knights is accusing Epic of withholding information and support so that Epic's own games would look awesome and use features of their UT3 engine that Silicon Knights did not have access to (or could not use).

    This supposed non-help cost Silicon Knights a lot of money because they eventually dropped UT3 and wrote their own engine, a major development expense.