Epic Games wins Silicon Knight lawsuit. Receives 4.45 Million dollars in damages
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/171362/Epic_prevails_in_suit_against_Silicon_Knights_receives_445M_in_damages.php
Wow. That couldn't have gone any worse for SK. I wonder how the company will be able to stay afloat with that money they now have to pay. Reputation is likely now to ensure no publisher will ever work with them again. I can't imagine even Nintendo (who own company shares) would bail them out of this.Epic Games has won the case against Silicon Knights. In addition, the jury has ruled in favor of all of Epic's counterclaims, which state that Silicon Knights breached the Unreal Engine license agreement, misappropriated Epic's trade secrets, and infringed Epic's copyrights in the Unreal Engine 3 code.
As a result, Epic has been awarded damages totaling $4.45 million. The company also has the option to submit a request to the court for a full reimbursement of its legal fees.
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What are the details on this? Sounds pretty serious.
+1
On a fragile and super thin icy slope, we pound on the ice underneath our brothers in arms.
Basically, Silicon Knights were claiming they'd modified UE3 to the extent that they should no longer have to pay the license fees.
The case they were arguing came down to them arguiing that Epic were 'deliberately sabotaging' them by not providing adequate support, and doing this as a means to further their own products. It's all a bit tin-foil hat from what I could see.
Is 4.5million much for a company? Considering they were trying to get 58million from Epic, it doesn't sound much.
Even when attached to the particulars, I think, one cannot help but notice the uncommunicative club swinging. It's quite sad.
For a company that has 40 employees, that's more than a year's worth of salaries.
Seems crazy a company of 40 tried to claim 58million then.
Even if the case was just, if someone had to win I'd rather epic.
58 Million, is a whole lot off there budgets, the new GoW-prequel coming out alongside UDK-4, plus there other ongoing projects. It would potentially cripple one of the largest supports of this ever fragile industry.
I mean your looking at a year wage for a few hundred people gone.
They have a choice to set the example either way now though, collect the 4.5 and screw a entire company an be the don't fuck with us company. Or they can let it go and be the saints.
Both are a means to the same end really.
A lot of the things [SK] did were a little erm... crazy, which was probably why they went to court in the first place most likely, and why their damage analysis was thrown out by the north carolina judge and why they never reissued another.
Not to say there were or weren't in the right to do it though.
I suspect they were much larger during development.
The $4.5 mil is counter claim to being sued. It serves two purposes for paying off any court costs, legal fees, etc. as well as sending a message to others that you're taking a risk by suing them. After a five year long trial, I know that I would find it pretty odd if they simply said, "LOL, don't worry about it SK, that's all time and money under the bridge."
And the layoffs that happened a few months ago at SK took the company from 97 employees to 25 key employees. So, unless they hired more since then, its 25, not 40. So ya. 4.5 mil is huge. like 4 years worths of salaries.