Silicon Knights Files Lawsuit Against Epic
polycounter lvl 17
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14759
Saw this on Joystiq, heres the Gamasutra link. Thoughts? I've never heard of developers suing over tools or engines before, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I'm hoping I'm not ignorant, but has this sort of thing ever happened before?
Saw this on Joystiq, heres the Gamasutra link. Thoughts? I've never heard of developers suing over tools or engines before, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I'm hoping I'm not ignorant, but has this sort of thing ever happened before?
Replies
Be interesting to see how this pans out and what kind of effects it has.
I don't know this is a touchy situation and it could be a very dirty fight. I have heard of a few studios complaining about Epic taking forever to get them a working Engine.
this really sounds like SK completely failing to make a good game and then looking for someone to lay the blame on. I'm pretty sure Too Human will never come out and they are now trying to cover their financial losses with that lawsuit...
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This is exactly what I thought by reading the article. Even more so after reading the part on SK not having to owe anything to Epic and be able to make any changes to the engine as they see fit without Epics permission and releasing a game.
I am starting to feel that this game wont come out like Rawkstar said and that they are looking to point the finger and cover the losses. Really sad though if you think about it.
I gotta agree with jay though about Epic maybe setting up a seperate division / studio for the engine development and support and one for game develoment.
At the end of the day, it's business. If someone you pay does not deliver what you paid for, you're pretty fucked. They have every right to sue.
It'll be interesting if other development houses chime in and comment with their experiences regarding Epic and their support for their Engine.
If I was SK, I would be frustrated as well. 6 months of not having anything functional to work on is nothing more than a HUGE, HUGE drain of funding.
I wouldn't put the intentions of the lawsuit simply on the fact that "SK would have made a shitty game and that they're trying to get some money back."
I think the one thing that will work against Epic is the statement about Gears of War for the 360. SK was supposedly to receive a functioning engine for the 360, but Epic never delivered. Yet during that time frame, they were able to put together Gears of War for the 360.
It's the same as paying a contractor to build you a house in 7 months. Yet, 6 months down the road, there's nothing put up yet.
I have always thought it a bit strange that epic creates a great engine to license as well as pumping out awesome games.
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It's not that strange, is it? Most of the major engine licensors do it... Valve, id, Crytek, Epic, etc.
I'd love to comment on it but as part of a team, currently using the Unreal 3 engine I don't think I can.
It is quite a sad situation to see in the industry, but I guess with big budgets there has to be accountability - which is obviously why this lawsuit was instigated.
It's strange that companies license an engine in development from a company they view as a competitor, knowing Epic will produce successful titles with its own toolset. I hope I'm selected for jury duty on this one. ^_^
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It makes a certain amount of sense to license your engine to other companies if you've made a solid engine, as it helps defray the costs of building the engine in the first place.
Likewise, it makes sense to license a powerful engine from a company in the same industry if it is cheap and well-supported, as it saves you the money and time required to build your own engine.
The problem here lies in what appears to be Epic breaching their contract with SK and presumably other developers by not delivering their engine when they said they would. This would be easier to overlook and accept if it wasn't for the fact that Epic is in the same business as SK, and thats where the heart of the matter lies. SK is arguing that Epic purposefully delayed releasing their engine to the public, to give themselves more time to work with it, to make sure they were the first-to-market with a UE3 game (let's ignore Roboblitz because as a budget Live title that's not really the sort of competition that we're talking about here) and give them a competitive advantage. Meanwhile Epic is going to argue that they were delayed to development hiccups, problems introduced by Microsoft and Sony and other outlying factors.
Unless you were actually on Epic's engine development team during that timeframe, you're not going to really know the whole truth of the matter, and unless you were a developer who was working closely with Epic to license the technology or at least consider licensing the technology you're not going to know that much about the matter outside of what SK and Epic claim, which are obviously going to conflict.
Anyhow I hope this works out nicely, because I love the hell out of Epic but also thought Too Human sounded pretty cool because I'm a sucker for cyberpunk and Norse Mythology and it sounded like it was a neat combination of the two.
Tough situation.
I'd love to comment on it but as part of a team, currently using the Unreal 3 engine I don't think I can.
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I wish you could also . It is interesting to me that SK has not as far as we know joined up with other Unreal Licensee's
to bring a civil suite against Epic and thus making a much more compelling case against epic . If what they are saying is t rue obviously other companies are suffering the same set backs and losses .
More details at that link. Microsoft stated "Microsoft is not involved in or a party to this litigation, therefore has no comment."
Hopefully Epic didn't leave anyone to twist in the wind and the SK guys are just bitter about a bad E3 showing and lashing out. There is always next year.
Who was stopping them from using assets they planned on using in game to make a pre-rendered "almost in-game like" trailer. no one said they had make a cinematic trailer using only U3.
The trailer was pretty cliche, which didn't help. When are people going to realize that stretching slow-mo action scenes and ripping off anime from 1982 is past the point of getting old? It's like a hallmark of bad moments in movies/games. Maybe it was the story boarding that killed the trailer.
But Epic hasn't told their piece yet, so we'll just have to wait and see.
after all, Too Human was originally a GC title, started back in '99... so we're looking at 8 years. what a nightmare.
That is the only thing that is bothering me and I never knew this but if what Gauss said was right about it being in development for 8 years. It just gets even uglier.
Between 2000 and 2004 SK made Eternal Darkness, 6/02, and MGS: Twin Snakes for gamecube, released 3/04.
Partnerships with Sega (unknown project) 3/05, and MS (Too Human) in 5/05.
MS provides X360 SDK in 9/05; Epic provides UE3 for X360 in 3/06 (or failed to); SK shows Too Human 5/06 at E3'06; according to the gamasutra article quotes from the law suit claims.
another year, building their own engine according to SK, the law suit 7/07
I mean you can build content, models, level designs without having the engine on hand and once you get the full engine implement everything you have.
I don't know. I just know Epic is crazy busy with trying to finish up the games for themselves and giving support to it's licensees.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14759
It might smell like a way to salvage a failed project but i doubt Epic is ran by Mother Theresa either...
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(4) Silicon Knights may alter the Engine without restriction
(7) the game engine developed by Silicon Knights is totally independent of the Unreal Engine 3 and therefore is the sole property of Silicon Knights, or, alternatively, the game engine developed by Silicon Knights constitutes an Enhancement under the terms of the Agreement, and therefore is the sole property of Silicon Knights under the terms of that Agreement
[/ QUOTE ]These guys are looking more slip-shot by the minute. It sounds like these guys are trying to do what Valve did with Quake2. "We've changed it so much its no longer yours, YOINK!" The difference being that when valve did it, Quake2 was already old tech and they did massive changes. I doubt SK would change the code base as much as valve did.
I could be wrong.
Sonic, 8 years of development costs and several engine changes... I'm not saying you don't have a point that Epic wanted to be first and the prettiest bell at the ball, but I'm pretty certain they delivered what they where contracted to do, deliver a 360 compatible version of the U3 engine.
Wow something slipped past its ship date, that never happens in this industry. /rimshot
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It happens all the time as we all know, but do you know the consequences of that ?
When a game is late, Publisher and developer HAVE to come to an agreement, either the publisher pays for that time, or in some cases, the developer does out of their own pocket.
Either way, the two come to a mutual agreement.
I think this can go both ways. It does read a bit like they're blaming Epic for their crappy game which may not get them much simpathy.
I suppose that depending on how many other studios managed to have their stuff done and ready in time with what epic provided will tell whether SK will look incompetent to handle the technology or... are right.
If I read it correctly they are asking for that money back, and then some on top of that.
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Yea, they are asking for all of the profits from Gears as well. Why don't they just include a clause that Epic has to finish their game for them while they are at it?
Hardly making their own engine, more like stealing U3 tech.
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(4) Silicon Knights may alter the Engine without restriction
(7) the game engine developed by Silicon Knights is totally independent of the Unreal Engine 3 and therefore is the sole property of Silicon Knights, or, alternatively, the game engine developed by Silicon Knights constitutes an Enhancement under the terms of the Agreement, and therefore is the sole property of Silicon Knights under the terms of that Agreement
[/ QUOTE ]These guys are looking more slip-shot by the minute. It sounds like these guys are trying to do what Valve did with Quake2. "We've changed it so much its no longer yours, YOINK!" The difference being that when valve did it, Quake2 was already old tech and they did massive changes. I doubt SK would change the code base as much as valve did.
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Even if SK is "stealing" they legally can because it's in the contractual agreement that Epic agreed to.
Can anyone elaborate on the Valve-Id case with Q2 and HL1 engine? Was the HL1 engine built using Q2 engine as a base? I was unaware that there was anything between them way back then. In my defense, I was also 13 years old at the time so I was unaware of a lot of things :P
Valve is actually rather sneaky like that - Steam came about in a similar fashion - rights were obtained, some time passed, and then Valve monetized the shit out of it and was way more successful than everyone else (or at least Sierra/Vivendi) realized.
...sorry
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If I read it correctly they are asking for that money back, and then some on top of that.
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Yea, they are asking for all of the profits from Gears as well. Why don't they just include a clause that Epic has to finish their game for them while they are at it?
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i just hope this goes well for both sk and epic
i hope sk releases that game just so that they get out of "development hell" and break even with what ever they have allready shelld out
and epic keeps on making games AND tech ... lets face it unreal engine 2.x was leagues ahead of every other engine back than and it looks like so is ue3 now
also hl --> quake 1 not 2 (quake 2 had fog half life didn't
i just hope this goes well for both sk and epic
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Hardly making their own engine, more like stealing U3 tech.
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(4) Silicon Knights may alter the Engine without restriction
(7) the game engine developed by Silicon Knights is totally independent of the Unreal Engine 3 and therefore is the sole property of Silicon Knights, or, alternatively, the game engine developed by Silicon Knights constitutes an Enhancement under the terms of the Agreement, and therefore is the sole property of Silicon Knights under the terms of that Agreement
[/ QUOTE ]These guys are looking more slip-shot by the minute. It sounds like these guys are trying to do what Valve did with Quake2. "We've changed it so much its no longer yours, YOINK!" The difference being that when valve did it, Quake2 was already old tech and they did massive changes. I doubt SK would change the code base as much as valve did.
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Vig this is exactly the couple of lines that made me think WTF. Change the code and "enhance" it. Come on they are just looking to get out of the obligations to Epic.
And Rainbow Six Vegas came out on 360 before PC am I correct? That came out right around the same time as Gears of War. So how could Ubisoft have pulled a game out like that so quickly if they got the kit so late?
Just so much stuff that doesn't add up.
Personally, I expect a settlement of some sort to be reached [sooner rather than later] and many documents being signed that will ensure SK doesn't talk about it.
I think that the very worst thing that could happen to Epic is that their product loses it's current attraction and they lose customers. It should be in their interest to have this all go away as soon as possible. We shall see.
BTW Jesse, Vegas was an absolutely phenomenal game but I'd hardly call it a "UE3" game as the high-profile titles we are talking about (and a Tom Clancy title is high-profile nowadays, oh rogue spear where are you). I thought it was a heavily modified 2.x UE for a while.
I want to see this resolved but I'd really be interested in an explanation and response from Epic about all of this.