Silicon Knights Gears Up For Epic Lawsuit
Too Human developer claims Unreal Engine 3 is inadequate
Silicon Knights, the developer of Too Human (pictured here) has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Epic Games, creator of the Unreal Engine 3 and the Xbox 360’s 'killer app' Gears of War.
Silicon Knight’s lawsuit includes the submission:
Epic Games' VP Mark Rein is currently remaining pretty tight-lipped about the whole affair, but has said, "We believe the claims against us are unfounded and without merit and we intend to fully defend against them."
Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack claims, “We strongly believe that from the perspective of someone waiting for a game engine that Epic promised it would deliver almost two years ago, it seems pretty clear that Gears was built on the backs of the Unreal Engine licensees.
“We certainly stand by our allegations in the lawsuit that instead of using our licensing fees to develop and support the Unreal Engine 3, Epic used that money to build Gears.
“We have had extensive problems with the Unreal Engine 3 that Epic has been unwilling or unable to rectify. For more than a year, we have been trying to reach an agreement with Epic to resolve these issues without resorting to litigation, but were unable to come to reasonable terms with Epic.
“Regrettably, we are now forced to go to court in order to achieve satisfaction. We remain hopeful, however, that we can reach a reasonable business resolution with Epic at some point.”
Could the fact that Epic has announcement that its engine is going to be "be optimised for consoles" - and this announcement was fore-fronted at Sony's E3 keynote have anything to do with the case?
SPOnG has contacted Epic and Silicon Knights over in the U.S. and we will be bringing you updates on this news as soon as we hear back from both.
Too Human is scheduled for release sometime in 2008.
Silicon Knight’s lawsuit includes the submission:
“Epic violated the Agreement with Silicon Knights by, among other things, failing to provide a working game engine, which has caused Silicon Knights to experience considerable losses and ultimately has forced Silicon Knights to spend its limited time and resources on building its own game engine rather than in developing its video game... Epic never intended to deliver Unreal Engine 3 as a fully functional game engine as promised.”
Epic Games' VP Mark Rein is currently remaining pretty tight-lipped about the whole affair, but has said, "We believe the claims against us are unfounded and without merit and we intend to fully defend against them."
Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack claims, “We strongly believe that from the perspective of someone waiting for a game engine that Epic promised it would deliver almost two years ago, it seems pretty clear that Gears was built on the backs of the Unreal Engine licensees.
“We certainly stand by our allegations in the lawsuit that instead of using our licensing fees to develop and support the Unreal Engine 3, Epic used that money to build Gears.
“We have had extensive problems with the Unreal Engine 3 that Epic has been unwilling or unable to rectify. For more than a year, we have been trying to reach an agreement with Epic to resolve these issues without resorting to litigation, but were unable to come to reasonable terms with Epic.
“Regrettably, we are now forced to go to court in order to achieve satisfaction. We remain hopeful, however, that we can reach a reasonable business resolution with Epic at some point.”
Could the fact that Epic has announcement that its engine is going to be "be optimised for consoles" - and this announcement was fore-fronted at Sony's E3 keynote have anything to do with the case?
SPOnG has contacted Epic and Silicon Knights over in the U.S. and we will be bringing you updates on this news as soon as we hear back from both.
Too Human is scheduled for release sometime in 2008.
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Comments
OptimusP 20 Jul 2007 15:02
1/2
Too Human not having an engine...while being in development from the PSX-times...and Eternall Darkness actually using the then finished Too Human engine...
Right...or the real Too Human has been canned and this Too Human is something completly different which they just slapped the name Too Human on.
And you wonder why Nintendo dropped them, hmmm...
Right...or the real Too Human has been canned and this Too Human is something completly different which they just slapped the name Too Human on.
And you wonder why Nintendo dropped them, hmmm...
ozfunghi 21 Jul 2007 20:45
2/2
You think they are PORTING a graphics engine? From PSX to GCN to 360? Riiight. Had too human stayed on GCN, they MIGHT have been able to reuse the ED engine, though the graphics in that game looked awefull.
To be honest, i heard they had problems with their engine last year. Though i would never have thought they would sue. Will be fun to see who is actually on the level here.
Btw Nintendo didn't drop them. They freaked when they heard about the Wii not being "next gen hardware" and that Nintendo was going to start with making "non-games". Which is ironic, coming from SK, who used GCN's hardware capabilities for mayby 60%. Also funny that NOW Dyack wants to start making Wii games.
To be honest, i heard they had problems with their engine last year. Though i would never have thought they would sue. Will be fun to see who is actually on the level here.
Btw Nintendo didn't drop them. They freaked when they heard about the Wii not being "next gen hardware" and that Nintendo was going to start with making "non-games". Which is ironic, coming from SK, who used GCN's hardware capabilities for mayby 60%. Also funny that NOW Dyack wants to start making Wii games.