Epic Fires Back at Silicon Knights' Lawsuit

[DTWolfwood]

huzzah more litigation! i do love these.

 

[The Rascal King]

Epic is going to run a train on Silicon Knights. I hope they consider this payback for not making Eternal Darkness 2.

 

[Sutter Cane]

I'm confused, why does it seem that no one here is willing to consider that silicon knights may be right here? Is it simply because you hated too human? Sure they could be wrong as well, but to dismiss their claim entirely simply because they made a crappy game seems like a pretty stupid thing to do IMHO.

 

[koroem]

Considering how widespread Unreal is and that SK seems to be the ONLY one with a problem with how it's supported, I think epic is probably right here.

It wasn't just SK. This is from the other article here on the Escapist

Silicon Knights Keeps Up the Fight Against Epic

Silicon Knights' case is bolstered somewhat by similar complaints from other companies. Shortly after the lawsuit was originally filed, Microsoft made similar claims that the development of poor support and communication issues [http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Odyssey-Xbox-360/dp/B000ZJVDA2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301591077&sr=8-1]," and the court also took note of a 2006 letter from Disney-owned Buena Vista Games, saying it "demonstrated that other [Unreal Engine] licensees expressed many of the very same frustrations that [Silicon Knights] did about representations made by Epic that were unfulfilled and perceived to be misleading."

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Not to mention Epic is definately guilty of serving themselves first and neglecting to support licencees in a proper manner:

Silicon Knights Keeps Up the Fight Against Epic

We're still a long way from that point but a court has found some merit in Silicon Knight's claims. According to legal documents obtained by Kotaku [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/03/this-is-going-to-be-epic-too-human-creators-gear-up-for-legal-war-with-shooter-giant/], the court found "evidence regarding the basic nature of the parties' businesses and the relationship between them establishes that Epic had a possible motive to deceive SK into entering into the License Agreement in order to fund the development costs of its own games and delay the work of SK and other competing licensees on their video games. There is also Epic's admission in its counterclaim that it developed the [Unreal Engine 3] in conjunction with the development of its own game as part of its 'synergistic model' and not separately as it had led SK to believe."

The court also found that despite "alleged representations by Epic," it never had any employees dedicated to supporting Unreal Engine 3 licensees and instead split its programmers' duties between engine support and working on Gears of War. But internal Epic emails instructed employees that "Gears comes first" and that anything not focused on that game was of secondary importance.

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It sounds like they delivered an incomplete engine, in pieces mind you, and choose to neglect supporting it. You try working under those circumstances after paying for a product then come back and try to downplay SK's need to basically rewrite the engine to do what it was supposed to in the first place.

Would you want to buy a computer desk and receive it in pieces whenever the manufacturer felt like giving them to you while having to re-cut all the pieces to fit together correct, drill your own holes and supply your own nails/screws to put it together?

I highly doubt SK's legal departments would have made such a massive mistake in entering this agreement if that had been the terms in the contract.

Just because Gears of War and Epic have amassed some kind of kool-aid drinking cultist fan club like Apple doesn't mean they aren't capable of, and haven't done anything wrong. Regardless of what people might think of Too Human, a business deal is a business deal, and from the proof released to the public, its looking more and more like Epic failed to deliver where it saw fit to do so to benefit themselves.

 

[Danpascooch]

Considering how widespread Unreal is and that SK seems to be the ONLY one with a problem with how it's supported, I think epic is probably right here.

It wasn't just SK. This is from the other article here on the Escapist

Silicon Knights Keeps Up the Fight Against Epic

Silicon Knights' case is bolstered somewhat by similar complaints from other companies. Shortly after the lawsuit was originally filed, Microsoft made similar claims that the development of poor support and communication issues [http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Odyssey-Xbox-360/dp/B000ZJVDA2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301591077&sr=8-1]," and the court also took note of a 2006 letter from Disney-owned Buena Vista Games, saying it "demonstrated that other [Unreal Engine] licensees expressed many of the very same frustrations that [Silicon Knights] did about representations made by Epic that were unfulfilled and perceived to be misleading."

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Not to mention Epic is definately guilty of serving themselves first and neglecting to support licencees in a proper manner:

Silicon Knights Keeps Up the Fight Against Epic

We're still a long way from that point but a court has found some merit in Silicon Knight's claims. According to legal documents obtained by Kotaku [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/03/this-is-going-to-be-epic-too-human-creators-gear-up-for-legal-war-with-shooter-giant/], the court found "evidence regarding the basic nature of the parties' businesses and the relationship between them establishes that Epic had a possible motive to deceive SK into entering into the License Agreement in order to fund the development costs of its own games and delay the work of SK and other competing licensees on their video games. There is also Epic's admission in its counterclaim that it developed the [Unreal Engine 3] in conjunction with the development of its own game as part of its 'synergistic model' and not separately as it had led SK to believe."

The court also found that despite "alleged representations by Epic," it never had any employees dedicated to supporting Unreal Engine 3 licensees and instead split its programmers' duties between engine support and working on Gears of War. But internal Epic emails instructed employees that "Gears comes first" and that anything not focused on that game was of secondary importance.

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It sounds like they delivered an incomplete engine, in pieces mind you, and choose to neglect supporting it. You try working under those circumstances after paying for a product then come back and try to downplay SK's need to basically rewrite the engine to do what it was supposed to in the first place.

Would you want to buy a computer desk and receive it in pieces whenever the manufacturer felt like giving them to you while having to re-cut all the pieces to fit together correct, drill your own holes and supply your own nails/screws to put it together?

I highly doubt SK's legal departments would have made such a massive mistake in entering this agreement if that had been the terms in the contract.

Just because Gears of War and Epic have amassed some kind of kool-aid drinking cultist fan club like Apple doesn't mean they aren't capable of, and haven't done anything wrong. Regardless of what people might think of Too Human, a business deal is a business deal, and from the proof released to the public, its looking more and more like Epic failed to deliver where it saw fit to do so to benefit themselves.

All I'm saying is that dozens of companies use Unreal Engine 3, it doesn't make sense that this is a problem if only Silicon Knights (and apparently some other company owned by Disney I've never even heard of) has a problem with it.

There are so many more companies with MUCH more powerful legal departments that could sort this out if there was a problem. Why hasn't Square Enix sued them? Or EA?

It just doesn't make sense, considering we have no idea if Epic is screwing them over or not, I submit that the only real evidence we have at this point is that the vast majority of companies using Unreal Engine 3 have no problem with it, make of that what you will.

 

[Danpascooch]

I'm confused, why does it seem that no one here is willing to consider that silicon knights may be right here? Is it simply because you hated too human? Sure they could be wrong as well, but to dismiss their claim entirely simply because they made a crappy game seems like a pretty stupid thing to do IMHO.

Because if this really is a problem, why isn't EA suing Epic, why isn't Square Enix suing epic? Why isn't everyone suing Epic. Unreal Engine is used by SO many companies, and yet Silicon Knights is the only one suing them.

Occams Razor, either Silicon Knights is wrong, or Epic and every company that uses Unreal III and doesn't have a problem with it is wrong.

 

[Smooth Operator]

It's hilarious how every other company can get to grips with the Unreal Engine, yet these guys were somehow magically mislead.

Ya you numb-nuts a good engine does not make you a good game, you need to do that yourself.

 

[koroem]

For all you people claiming other developers didn't have problems, do you know what time frame they licensed? What version they received? What tool set they were given? What level of support Epic game them on their priority list after Gears? How many other companies were licensing and developing on UE3 during Epic's "Gears comes first" directive?

Does 2k Boston come before Square Enix? Does Square Enix come before Ubisoft Montreal? Does Bioware come before both? Where did Silicon Knights fit in? Or Mistwalker. Or Buena Vista Games?

Who knows? Epic didn't have a dedicated support staff. So it took the money, dumped the goods and ran.

You can't just blindly claim they didn't have the same issues and chose to ignore them without having the facts to back it up. SK claimed to have had to recode the engine almost entirely to meet their expectations. That doesn't mean they are failures and bad programers, nor does that mean the game suffered from lack of expertise.

They had deadlines to meet because guess who ended up publishing them? Microsoft Game Studios. Surprise surprise? I'm willing to bet the game could not be indefinitely delayed and the setbacks as a result of Epic's Engine is what ultimately lead to Too Human being released in the state it was.

Lets see you go try to speak a foreign language without any kind of aides to help you learn a language whether its a book, human translator, teacher, ect ect.

Also if you didn't click the link in the article i linked above here is the other article about the toolset problems.

Epic's Engine Comes In For More Criticism

Microsoft has chipped in criticism of Epic's Unreal 3 engine.

Epic's Unreal 3 engine has come under further criticism in the aftermath of a lawsuit filed by Silicon Knights alleging that lack of engine support caused delays in Too Human.

Microsoft's Global Product Manager told an Ars Technica staffer that poor support and communication issues troubled the development of roleplaying game Lost Odyssey.


The issue was that Epic kept updating the versions, so it was hard to catch up. For example, if they released Unreal Engine 3, version 6.1, which has certain requirements and limitations for graphics, you wouldn't have the tools. It was hard to get the tools and instruments necessary to produce the most updated versions of our software.

Also, the lack of bilingual staff made it hard for our coders to get the support they needed. Most of our staff is Japanese, and so the language barrier and the updates made it hard to do. These were some of the issues with the engine for us.


Claims that Epic keeps revising its code without releasing complementary third-party tools on time dovetails with Silicon Knights' complaint that Epic's licensing of the engine is primarily a means to subsidize development for the company's own anticipated blockbuster, Unreal Tournament 3.

While some have speculated that other Unreal 3 engine-driven games are seeing delays for similar reasons, it is common for A-list titles to be pushed back.

The latest game to hit shelves that does use the engine is BioShock, which features arguably the most realistic fire and water effects seen to date.

Source: Ars Technica [http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/08/29/mistwalker-studios-encountered-more-unreal-engine-troubles]

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