| Silicon Knights Files Lawsuit Against Epic Games Over Unreal Engine 3 |
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| Written by Alexis M. (Rivithed) | ||||
| Friday, 20 July 2007 | ||||
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Silicon Knights, developers of Too Human, have filed a lawsuit against Gears of War creators Epic Games over lack of support on the Unreal Engine 3 in Too Human. Too Human has been delayed after a buggy E3 2006 showing, where by contrast Gears of War received Best of Show. The camera and controls of the playable demo of Too Human were terrible, as I witnessed firsthand at E3 2006. There has been a lot of hype and hope for the unique controls and storyline the game had touted. Word quickly spread that Too Human had failed to impress in the E3 2006 showing. Now Silicon Knights has issued a lawsuit, claiming Unreal Engine 3 development was poorly supported by Epic Games.
The Silicon Knights' lawsuit claims: "Rather than provide support to Silicon Knights and Epic’s other many licensees of the Engine, Epic intentionally and wrongfully has used the fees from those licenses to launch its own game to widespread commercial success while simultaneously sabotaging efforts by Silicon Knights and others to develop their own video games." Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein responded: "This morning we were served with a lawsuit by Silicon Knights. We believe the claims against us are unfounded and without merit and we intend to fully defend against them." Silicon Knights said the Unreal Engine 3 was provided too late for development of Too Human on the Xbox 360. From Silicon Knights in the lawsuit filing: "The final development kit for the Xbox 360 was released in early September, 2005, such that Epic was obligated to release the functional Engine for that platform no later than March, 2006. However, that deadline came and went without Epic providing Silicon Knights with a functional version of the Engine. Indeed, it was not until much later (November, 2006, far too late for time and cost-sensitive projects like SK’s videogames) that Epic ever provided anything resembling working Xbox 360 code to its licensees. Even at that belated date, though, Epic did not provide any guidance to licensees in how to implement the code it finally released." Silicon Knights is developing a new engine for Too Human, which is said to be working fully independent from Epic's Unreal Engine 3. Other game developers and publishers that have licensed Unreal Engine 3 include Electronic Arts, Square-Enix, Midway Games (Hour of Victory), ACONY (for Parabellum) and Gearbox's Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway, to name a few. KOEI's Fatal Inertia on the PS3, another Unreal Engine driven game, has encountered delays as well. Frame City Killer, from Namco Bandai Games, was an Unreal Engine game that was abandoned, but the character designs or cheesy sunglasses may have been to blame.
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