Report: Judge Awards Epic $4.45 Million in Silicon Knights Countersuit

[Mike Kayatta]

Report: Judge Awards Epic $4.45 Million in Silicon Knights Countersuit

The end of a five-year case surrounding the Unreal Engine 3 sees Epic Games leave on top.

A source close to the ongoing case between Too Human developer Silicon Knights and Epic Games has told the Escapist that a judge has awarded Epic $4.45 million in damages, instantly shifting Silicon Knights from its hopeful $54 million payday, to actually owing money to the company it was attempting to sue.

"We are delighted with the jury's verdict and all of the hard work done by the Hunton & Williams legal team," said Jay Andrews, Epic's General Counsel.

The ruling followed two recent case milestones, neither of which had foreshadowed much hope of a Knights victory in what has now been a five-year-long affair. Troubles began last week, when the courts ruled that due to an invalid expert testimony, no claim (if accepted) against Epic could be awarded more than a dollar in recompense. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.375865-UPDATED-Silicon-Knights-Legal-Claims-Against-Epic-Worth-1-00-Each] Soon, the thought of even a quick, hypothetical seven-dollar check vanished when later that same week, all claims of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, unfair competition, and unfair and deceptive trade practices previously levied were dismissed outright.

While Epic has remained somewhat tight-lipped regarding the specifics of its counterclaims since the announcement of their filing in 2007, most center around copyright infringement of the Unreal Engine 3's code. Silicon Knights' initial lawsuit rested upon the idea that Epic had misrepresented the engine [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/75104-Silicon-Knights-Sues-Epic], forcing it's developers to build a more competent one from scratch. The result, Knights claimed, was a rushed production schedule, a hypothetically inferior product, and a massive loss of potential sales. Epic, however, holds that during this time, Silicon Knights had full access to the Unreal Engine 3's code, and may have infringed upon it while reconstructing the core of Too Human.

Code copyright infringement is extremely complex, even for the great legal minds among us, and with no specific details on what was found during the court's proceedings, it's impossible to say exactly why the $4.5 million was awarded. This ruling does, however, marks the final judgment of this case, with all claims ruled in Epic's favor.


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[Terminate421]

And the last nail hit Silicon's Coffin.

I didn't have a side in this case but I have to go with Epic on this one. Mostly because they made the engine which Silicon voluntarily took.

 

[AxelxGabriel]

Well Eternal Darkness 2 is off the table forever now >.<

 

[shintakie10]

Well Eternal Darkness 2 is off the table forever now >.<

It depends on who ends up with the IP once Silicon Knights goes under (and after this it'll take some sort of miracle not to go under). The best we can hope for is for someone who actually wants to do it to get the rights, but then we're lookin at a best case scenario of a couple years before we even hear anythin about it.

Edit -

Let this be a lesson to everyone. If you make a shit game just own up to the fact that it is a shit game. Don't try to make your money back by suin someone else. More importantly, if you do sue someone else make sure your case actually makes some damn sense.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

pretty much doomed to happen. Can they use this as an excuse to fire Dyack now?

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I guess we'll never see Too Human 2 then, which is a shame because Too human had great potential.

(Yes I liked Too Human, get off my back!).

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I guess we'll never see Too Human 2 then, which is a shame because Too human had great potential.

(Yes I liked Too Human, get off my back!).

but..... THERE WAS ONLY ONE VIABLE CLASS OUT OF SIX!


no, I really hated Too Human. I tried playing the Ranger class as my main character because I like guns.

Second Level? everything was immune to all of my weapons.


.... I..... I never got past the second level, nor the part of the second level where you were on the giant disks and enemies kept spawning.

You were obviously just bad at the game then. Different enemies were immune to different attacks, this is something that gets praised in pretty much every other game that has ever come out, why not this one?

The only problem I had was that stupidly long and boring death sequence, yes it's better in some ways than a corpse run, but at least with a corpse run you had something to do.

 

[RatRace123]

I guess we'll never see Too Human 2 then, which is a shame because Too human had great potential.

(Yes I liked Too Human, get off my back!).

Another person who liked Too Human! I heard they existed, but I never believed I'd find one.
I'm in agreement, it's a real shame, the game had an interesting premise, and of course that friggin' cliff-hanger that will almost assuredly never get resolved now.

If they had done a few tweaks to the combat system and made the death animation go a little bit faster I think the game would've been much more well received, too bad they'll never get the chance now.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I guess we'll never see Too Human 2 then, which is a shame because Too human had great potential.

(Yes I liked Too Human, get off my back!).

Another person who liked Too Human! I heard they existed, but I never believed I'd find one.
I'm in agreement, it's a real shame, the game had an interesting premise, and of course that friggin' cliff-hanger that will almost assuredly never get resolved now.

If they had done a few tweaks to the combat system and made the death animation go a little bit faster I think the game would've been much more well received, too bad they'll never get the chance now.

Maybe the franchise can be rescued, but I doubt Silicon Knights will be.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I guess we'll never see Too Human 2 then, which is a shame because Too human had great potential.

(Yes I liked Too Human, get off my back!).

but..... THERE WAS ONLY ONE VIABLE CLASS OUT OF SIX!


no, I really hated Too Human. I tried playing the Ranger class as my main character because I like guns.

Second Level? everything was immune to all of my weapons.


.... I..... I never got past the second level, nor the part of the second level where you were on the giant disks and enemies kept spawning.

You were obviously just bad at the game then. Different enemies were immune to different attacks, this is something that gets praised in pretty much every other game that has ever come out, why not this one?

The only problem I had was that stupidly long and boring death sequence, yes it's better in some ways than a corpse run, but at least with a corpse run you had something to do.

that was the thing, I had multiple weapons because I knew there would of been some immune to specific damage.

Its been a while but I think I had three different guns and two types of swords. I guess while I wasn't looking, Loki made them into dart guns and giant feathers.


And then, yes, the death scenes. After getting the seventh in a row I just turned the game off for a few weeks, when I came back the Online Multiplayer was a joke.

I think there was only about five people playing, including me.

That's weird, the last time I played there must have been about 20 or 30 games going. I have a mental image of scrolling through pages of available games to join.

Ah well. It doesn't matter anyway because there will most likely never be a new one.

 

[Nuttydwarf]

two things I hate about Too Human was the control scheme and the long death scene... a third would be the camera but that goes along the control scheme other then those, I actually liked the game.

 

[koroem]

I guess we'll never see Too Human 2 then, which is a shame because Too human had great potential.

(Yes I liked Too Human, get off my back!).

I agree with you 100%

This is honestly almost a big a tragedy as Advent Rising not seeing a sequel. I loved the cliff hanger both games ended on... Time to go be sad...

 

[JediMB]

And the last nail hit Silicon's Coffin.

I didn't have a side in this case but I have to go with Epic on this one. Mostly because they made the engine which Silicon voluntarily took.

I don't really understand your reasoning.

Epic supposedly supplied an engine that didn't (yet) have all its promised features. Epic block Silicon Knights from being able to let their witnesses testify on the matter.

Epic also claim that Silicon Knights may have possibly copied code from UE3, on the basis that Silicon Knights had the code available to them when they made their own engine. And a jury, which is unlikely to be able to understand what this even means, grants Epic $4.45 million.

Okay?

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Had they been able to get the second game out, I think they could of vastly improved on everything, death scenes that take forever included.

Maybe someone will buy the franchise? Or even save the whole company?? That's happened before right?

If only I had the money.

 

[JordanXlord]

Silcon's wallet is gunna be thor tomorrow.

Well they ODIN me some money