News
Silicon Knights to Sue Epic
Lawsuit Over Unreal Engine Problems
by Gamervision
Silicon Knights has had enough with the Unreal Engine. They're so frustrated with it, in fact, that they are taking its creators to court.
Ok, we're pissed.
Allegedly, Epic used beefed up versions of the engine when they made Gears of War in an effort to show up their competition. The allegation says that the Gears-specific engine was superior to the one they sold to other companies, including Silicon Knights. The suit claims:
Epic apparently was able to achieve a very useable version of the Engine for the Xbox 360 – the version that it kept to itself, for use only on its Gears of War game (as discussed below), to the detriment of Silicon Knights and Epic’s other licensees, as set forth in more detail below. Epic’s plan to avoid its obligations and hoard all of the necessary functionalities not only harmed Silicon Knights and all of Epic’s other licensees in the industry, but also gave Epic a clearly unfair advantage in the industry."
Epic was supposed to present participating developers a full version of the Unreal Engine III by March 2006. The lawsuit claims they did not come through with it and they had improved it greatly by May of 2006 for Gears of War.
Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack has been quoted as saying: "We stand behind everything in our complaint and believe it is highly unfortunate that Epic forced us into this situation. We would rather spend our time focusing on making great games, but as stated in our complaint, Epic simply refuses to acknowledge the inadequacies of the Unreal Engine 3 code it provides to its licensees, and refuses to accept the fact that its code has caused serious damage not only to Silicon Knights, but a number of other developers in the industry. We look forward to successful resolution of our claims in this court proceeding."
But who could argue that Gears looks better than the other games on the engine? Is it due to polish or something more? Expect to hear more on this suit in the coming weeks.
Source
Ok, we're pissed.
Allegedly, Epic used beefed up versions of the engine when they made Gears of War in an effort to show up their competition. The allegation says that the Gears-specific engine was superior to the one they sold to other companies, including Silicon Knights. The suit claims:
Epic apparently was able to achieve a very useable version of the Engine for the Xbox 360 – the version that it kept to itself, for use only on its Gears of War game (as discussed below), to the detriment of Silicon Knights and Epic’s other licensees, as set forth in more detail below. Epic’s plan to avoid its obligations and hoard all of the necessary functionalities not only harmed Silicon Knights and all of Epic’s other licensees in the industry, but also gave Epic a clearly unfair advantage in the industry."
Epic was supposed to present participating developers a full version of the Unreal Engine III by March 2006. The lawsuit claims they did not come through with it and they had improved it greatly by May of 2006 for Gears of War.
Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack has been quoted as saying: "We stand behind everything in our complaint and believe it is highly unfortunate that Epic forced us into this situation. We would rather spend our time focusing on making great games, but as stated in our complaint, Epic simply refuses to acknowledge the inadequacies of the Unreal Engine 3 code it provides to its licensees, and refuses to accept the fact that its code has caused serious damage not only to Silicon Knights, but a number of other developers in the industry. We look forward to successful resolution of our claims in this court proceeding."
But who could argue that Gears looks better than the other games on the engine? Is it due to polish or something more? Expect to hear more on this suit in the coming weeks.
Source
Comments
"Epic simply refuses to acknowledge the inadequacies of the Unreal Engine 3 code it provides to its licensees, and refuses to accept the fact that its code has caused serious damage not only to Silicon Knights, but a number of other developers in the industry."
1. What were those inadequacies?
2. Then why aren't those "number of other developers in the industry" filing a complaint as well?
Gorth: Silicon Knights is a game development shop (not a game). Companies who create good game engines license them out to other dev. shops so they can build their games on that platform. These companies pay a fee to have access to the code, api's, drivers, etc. (like how Micro$oft charges for their SDK- software developer's kit- for companies building apps. for Windoze). It sounds like SK is pissed 'cuz they didn't get the final "version" of the engine- the one used for GoW- which is what they thought they were paying for.
SpicedSugar: click on the "source" link at the bottom of the article for the full read @ Gamasutra (my own, personal fav. gaming industry site).
It sounds like either shady business dealings by Epic, breach of contract by Epic or shoddy Software Quality Assurance at the Epic labs. Either way, Epic has egg on their face & a bad rep. like this can cripple any company in any industry, but more so in the small, tight-knit group that is game development.
You know, I'm not really surprised at the lawsuit, as the Unreal 3 engine clearly has more than its fair share of problems outside of GoW, especially with its application via outside developers (enter certain title of Midway's Historical WWII shooter here!)