Mark Rein speaks on Silicon Knights v. Epic suit

by Alexander Sliwinski on Aug 9th 2007 1:59PM

Epic's Mark Rein is standing strong in the face of the Silicon Knights suit over the "inadequacies" of the Unreal Engine 3. In a statement sent out today he says they have "done nothing wrong" and that they are committed to fight against Silicon Knights' "unfounded allegations." Epic has now gone and filed a counterclaim in U.S. District Court saying that Silicon Knights "decided to misappropriate Epic's licensed technology" and that SK's lawsuit has no merit.

There have been some developers who spoke out regarding development issues with Epic's Unreal Engine 3. Sony even admitted their concerns by sending in their own engineers to get the UE3 working on their "timed exclusive" title Unreal Tournament 3 for PS3. Whatever the issue with the engine, the latest bit in this saga revolves around Silicon Knights allegedly co-opting the UE3 tech as their own. Epic says in their suit, "Indeed, the plain language of the Silicon Knights' Complaint makes clear that Silicon Knights wants to take Epic's Licensed Technology, pay nothing for it, and use it any way it pleases." Epic wants "compensatory and punitive damages, the destruction of infringing goods, including infringing computer code, and attorney's fees and costs." This is only going to get bigger before it gets better.

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Tags: breakingnews, epic, lawsuit, siliconknights, TooHuman, UE3, unrealengine3, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (53)

I'm sure that Epic's game budget is a lot higher than SK's, which is a big part in making a great game. Not to say that huge budget games always come out great...

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I can't believe some of you. How can you state that you are completely oblivious to programming and then cheer on Cliffy B./Epic? Why do you feel like you have to slam Silicon Knights? Who cares if Gears of War is your favorite game ever(it is a really beautiful game with good duck and cover mechanics), it doesn't magically make Epic perfect and infallible. Some of you are starting to sound like fanboys. Someone else made a good point about Bill Gates breathing down Cliffy B's neck to make the deadline. Maybe Epic did put too much emphasis in getting GeoW out, instead of finishing the UT3 engine. Plus, they still haven't released a good copy of the PS3 UT3 Engine. Yeah, R6: Vegas came out, but it ended up looking worse than the Xbox360 version. That speaks volumes.

You make it seem like SK is full of complete dumbasses, which is not the case. Anyone who has played Eternal Darkness or MGS:Twin Snakes can attest to that. I'm not going to take sides, but it does seem like SK has a good case. Imagine this scenario: you are building a kit car for a wealthy man. Some Kit Manufacturer sells you a kit that has everything supposedly included. You start building the car and then you realize that the drive-shaft was not included. You call up the company and they say that they are still developing the part and it will be ready by */*/** date. Then, */*/** date passes and you still do not have the part. All calls to the company are ignored or are unhelpful. The rich guy gets impatient and demands a finished car or he will pull out of the contract. Panicked, you develop your own drive-shaft and complete the car. Wouldn't you be mad at that Kit company and demand some of your money back? Now, this is all going by what SK has stated and I can't say that what they are saying is truthful, but if it is, put yourself in their shoes... wouldn't you be mad? Wouldn't you want compensation?

Now before you flame me for being a SK fanboy, please know that I've played Epic games since the original UT came out. I love their stuff, but I'm not deluded into thinking that they are gods. If Kojima (my fave game producer) pulled something similar, I wouldn't blindly believe him. I would hold my judgement.

Sorry for the long post,
Phi

You know what is funny...I had to think of one game they made were they did it all by them selfs. The only one I could think of is their "Legacy of" series, which IMO only Soul Reiver was good.

Eternal Darkness was partly created and coded by Nintendo, heck the fear system was thought up by Miyamoto himself. Then Twin Snakes was supervised by Kojima.

Personally I do not give two fucks for this lawsuit, but its just a small antidote. :D

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