Posted Aug 09, 2007 at 10:47PM by Isaac C. Listed in: News, Too Human, Games Tags: Epic Games, Microsoft, Unreal Engine, Silicon Knights
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Silicon Knights has wasted no time in responding to Epic Games' claims that their lawsuit is "a cynical effort by SK to unlawfully enrich itself." The initial lawsuit filed by SK claims that Epic kept a better version of the Unreal Engine for itself to make its games better while others who paid for it will suffer the lack. In SK's case, their concerns stem from their highly anticipated game Too Human.

Too Human - Image 1


Epic responded by saying the claim is without merit and filed a counterclaim that says "it is SK, not Epic, that has engaged in deceit, infringement of Epic's intellectual property rights, breach of contract and unfair business practices."

This is in response to the new engine developed by SK, which they claim stole codes from the original Unreal Engine. SK's attorney, Christopher Holland spoke in behalf of SK and responded not four hours later by saying:

We don't think Epic's counterclaim has any merit. We believe strongly that our claims in our complaint will prevail and the damages Silicon Knights has suffered in connection with its original complaint are vastly more, millions of dollars more than what Epic claims its damages are in its counterclaim. They've set forth $650,000 and our claims will dwarf that substantially.


Holland also emphasizes that SK was forced to make their own engine from their own efforts because Epic didn't deliver on their agreement. "We basically had to do ourselves what we paid Epic to do." The development of the new engine has the game back on track and Holland assures that it will be coming out "in a timely fashion."

Although when he was asked when Too Human was to be released, he said that it's up to the developers and Microsoft.


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   by dangermouse (Unregistered) - 2007-08-10
 » i have to say something

This REALLY bugs me. SK bought an engine from Epic, that should be the end of the story. Unless Epic explicitly stated in their contract that SK's license included all future additions and modifications to the engine, then funnily enough, they don't need to provide any additions or modifications! Any 2bit programmer knows that source code is provided "as-is" unless a source code support system is in place. stop being big freakin babies SK, and if I'm wrong and Epic HAVE stated they had rights to all future engine revisions then SK need to step up and actually SAY it, instead of all of this "they made it better, now we feel dumb and are gonna try sue you for something we have no right to". I hope for Epics sake that's the case, but I'm open to being proven wrong. I just hope the truth comes out sooner rather than later. In a perfect world games would be about art and fun, this aint cool.

And I'm not even going to start on how sick it makes me that Epic claim to have found Gears of War code in Too Human, again only if its true. I've had my source code stole before, and it's no fun, for a corporate entity to do it? I'm unimpressed to say the least.

My only hope is that someone from SK will make a formal press release and actually start stating some facts instead of this childish game of "but they said" and "but we thought"... I'm a brand loyalist, and this is starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

   by The Frenchman (Unregistered) - 2007-08-10
 » SK just need an excuse for a bad game.

Too Human still looks horrible and choppy, Silicon Knight never were assossiated with quality games, I mean they've never even done that much games...

Blood omen (confusing, ugly and old)
Eternal Darkness (wonder how they pulled that out)
MGS TTS (sucked real bad, at least it had a great base to make it passable)
Too Human (looks horrible, gameplay looks dated and choppy)

those are the only games I know SK devlopped.



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