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Gears of War powered by the UE3
Silicon Knights sues Epic Games for Unreal Engine 3 headaches

Canadian game developer Silicon Knights, maker of Eternal Darkness, has filed a lawsuit against Epic Games, famous for Gears of War and its Unreal Tournament series, for breach of contract, fraud, and several other tort claims in federal court in Greenville, North Carolina.

In the lawsuit, Silicon Knights alleges that it has lost revenue as a result of the considerable delay in developing its video game for the Xbox 360, Too Human, because Unreal Engine 3, a game engine licensed from Epic, did not work as Epic represented it would and, moreover, Epic has been unable or unwilling to fix it.

The lawsuit further alleges that Epic in fact never intended to deliver Unreal Engine 3 as a fully functional game engine as promised. Instead, Epic collected licensing fees from Silicon Knights and others in order to fund the development of its own video game, Gears of War.

"No doubt Gears is a fun and phenomenally successful game, but as we alleged in our complaint against them, 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," Denis Dyack, President and Founder of Silicon Knights, explained. "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."

Dyack continued, "Our strong preference is to focus on making games, not be in court. Unfortunately though, as explained in our lawsuit, 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."

Mark Rein of Epic Games said in a statement issued to the media, "We believe the claims against us are unfounded and without merit and we intend to fully defend against them... We'd love to tell you more about it but unfortunately our lawyers want us to save our comments for the courthouse so we're going to do our best to comply with their wishes."

A PDF file with the full details of the suit is available for download from Kotaku.

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hmm...
By nomagic on 7/20/07, Rating: 0
RE: hmm...
By therealnickdanger on 7/20/2007 9:33:36 AM , Rating: 3
My understanding, by reading the accusation, is that SK was unable to meet deadlines DUE to the incomplete engine sold to them. The allegations seem to have merit, but I'm not presiding over the case... at least not this week.


RE: hmm...
By Moishe on 7/20/2007 10:21:33 AM , Rating: 2
So they should get a refund of license fees or discount... but revenue from GoW? That's ridiculous. I don't see how a client can expect to dictate how a vendor spends the money that the client pays them. You could even conceive that Epic thought that it would be wise to spend the income on GoW because it would provide increased engine development and decrease the delivery time to SK...


RE: hmm...
By Dribble on 7/20/07, Rating: 0
RE: hmm...
By omnicronx on 7/20/2007 12:47:52 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
As long as epic employee's have been filling in timesheets which state how much time was spent in engine development, and the time sheets match what was spent by people like SK then I don't see this claim having much chance. I suspect SK is going to find it very difficult to prove epic employee's weren't spending sufficient time on the engine itself.


Are you a lawyer? if so you need to go back to school.
Read the pdf file, it has nothing to do with how much time was spent. No matter how long they spent on engine development, they were 6 months late with delivering their product. They probably made the license agreement themselves so if they thought they could not deliver their engine 6 months after the 360 dev kit was released, they should not have created/signed it . And to make matters worse, even after it was delivered it did not work correctly. So from all the information i have gathered i think it is safe to say Epic breached their contract with SK plain and simple.

but then again , i am not a lawyer either ;)


RE: hmm...
By Sazar on 7/20/2007 3:30:23 PM , Rating: 4
The problem is that the majority of people posting have:

a) not read the .pdf and therefore have absolutely no clue what they are talking about

or

b) are acting like game-engine/developer fanboy's without understanding the merits of the litigation in process

Work promised, agreed upon, signed off on and paid for, if not delivered in a proper timeframe with reasonable functionality can be sued for. You will hear of many construction companies out there that are sued for and have to give money back due to delays OR have clauses built into the contracts that lead to them paying fines (essentially giving money back) for work not completed.

It happens in other industries. Epic is not immune. I LVOE the engines they produce but, this lawsuit does have some bite.


RE: hmm...
By MrTeal on 7/20/2007 8:28:13 PM , Rating: 2
I agree with you 100%. At this point, we have only SK's accusations, and the speculation of the denizens of the internet. If SK can prove its subsections of sec. 88, and other specific allegations, Epic will probably lose, and will have to pay up. If they can't, SK will lose and will have to absorb the losses from Too Human or go out of business.

Everyone else not involved will just have to wait and see how this plays out before we learn more details.


RE: hmm...
By tuteja1986 on 7/23/2007 5:15:54 AM , Rating: 2
Well if this is true this explains all the PS3 development team using the License. team complaining about the engine not complete. Even Square enix isn't happy with license.


RE: hmm...
By Andrwken on 7/23/2007 3:41:36 PM , Rating: 2
This is exactly true. My Company just purchased a $3,000,000 machine from a manufacturer that custom designs this hardware and it has not worked correctly in the 1st 6 months of use. The manufacturer is being fined $7000/week until the machine is made to work "as spec'ed".


RE: hmm...
By BitJunkie on 7/23/2007 5:08:41 PM , Rating: 2
Liquidated Damages...they can't be punative in their own right, they just have to compensate for fair loss. Most proper engineers, project managers and contract administrators will know what they are.... ;)

I guess Epic figured at some point that there was more to be gained from finishing Gears than the engine and calculated they'd come out ahead even after paying for an army of lawyers.

Well, you have to hope they were thinking about what they were doing, rather than being inept.


RE: hmm...
By Dribble on 7/23/07, Rating: 0
RE: hmm...
By grant2 on 7/26/2007 6:50:12 PM , Rating: 2
As long as epic can prove they had sufficient people working on the engine (not just GOW) then that won't hold up.

How many is "sufficient people"?

Ostensibly however many are required to deliver the promised product in the promised time.

Apparently this didn't happen, ergo, not enough people were working on the engine.


RE: hmm...
By UzairH on 7/20/2007 6:39:31 PM , Rating: 3
Filling in the timesheets has NOTHING to do with SK's complaint. The contract between them and Epic wouldn't state the HOURS spent by Epic staff on the engine (that would be ridiculous), but rather the deliverable (the engine) by Epic to SK according to the agreed-upon timelines.


RE: hmm...
By Wamingo on 7/20/2007 11:57:41 AM , Rating: 2
I guess the (alleged) issues with Epic's engine is making SK lose more than just the cost of the license. Probably a lot more. So SK feels the money they paid should've been spent on fixing the issues because they licensed a product that didn't live up to its claims.

My numbers may be off, but as far as I can tell licensing the U3 engine is around 700k (and maybe + royalties) and Gears of War cost about 10 million.
SK's Too Human is exceeding 80 million and may be the most expensive game to date. It's easy to imagine a serious issue in the engine would put a mega project like that in trouble - this probably isn't "oh well" money.
So expecting some kind of royalties from GOW may not be as unreasonable as you think.


RE: hmm...
By AsicsNow on 7/20/2007 6:03:52 PM , Rating: 2
Spending 80 million dollars in development for a game is insane. They'd need to sell millions of copies to recoup those expenses. I'm not sure how much the game companies get for each copy sold (I know MS takes a certain %, and then the retail stores cut, etc.) but wow, thats a lot of money.


My question is....
By SniperWulf on 7/20/2007 3:00:22 PM , Rating: 3
If the engine is so horrible and incomplete... Why has other developers already have working and published titles without issue?




RE: My question is....
By SniperWulf on 7/20/2007 3:03:31 PM , Rating: 3
here is the wikipedia link with upcoming titles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_engine


RE: My question is....
By masher2 (blog) on 7/20/2007 3:18:50 PM , Rating: 4
The vast majority of UE3-based games are 2007 releases. According to SK, at least, the engine was supposed to be complete and supported by March 2006.


RE: My question is....
By Le Québécois on 7/20/2007 4:00:05 PM , Rating: 2
Maybe because SK is a little company without the money to back them up like many other companies using the UE3 right now.


RE: My question is....
By Fubar0606 on 7/24/2007 11:58:46 AM , Rating: 2
I believe it is because the other games out now or soon to be released using UE3, the ones actually coming out before 2008, are created by EPIC so, maybe they just know how to work with the "incomplete" engine because they created it..
-I just pulled that out of my ass man, but It sounds logical...


other engines out there
By wetwareinterface on 7/20/2007 10:18:51 AM , Rating: 2
there are other game engines out there.

the grand theft auto engine is a licensed property as is the lithtech engine series.

fear is it's own engine as is most of the star wars games (with the exception of the jedi knight quake 3 engine titles) so not only id valve and epic are releasing game engines.




RE: other engines out there
By FITCamaro on 7/20/2007 10:34:59 AM , Rating: 2
Don't forget that FFXIII is using a proprietary in house engine from SE. But future titles will be using Unreal Engine 3. Which makes me happy because that means they can easily port titles between the PS3 and the 360 if they want. The issue is getting them to want to.


RE: other engines out there
By Lonyo on 7/20/2007 10:48:36 AM , Rating: 1
Well EA bought out Renderware and destroyed it.
GTA was based on Renderware IIRC, which now no longer exists. FEAR is based on the Lithtech engine, not its own.
Star Wars: Republic Commando was based on Unreal Engine 2.
No one seems to have licensed the most recent Lithtech engine (the one used in FEAR) so it may not be available.
Rockstar have gone to an in-house engine for GTA4 since they no longer have access to Renderware.
Oblivion and many other games use the Gamebryo engine.

There aren't a huge number of game engines out there, and it also depends a lot on what you want. You also have to consider the age of engines. If you want to make a next-gen game, you need a next-gen engine. Even the Doom 3 engine is getting a bit old, so Source, Unreal Engine 3 and a few others are really the only other really next-gen options there are.


RE: other engines out there
By Le Québécois on 7/20/2007 3:48:31 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
FEAR is based on the Lithtech engine, not its own.


Let me, well, explain this one for you. The lithtech engine is made by Monolith Productions, which happen to be the one that made F.E.A.R.

In other words, Monolith always develop their own engines for their games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolith_Productions


RE: other engines out there
By BigT383 on 7/20/2007 12:02:52 PM , Rating: 2
Woah, Lithtech? I haven't heard about that engine since No One Lives Forever 2 and Alien Vs. Predator a few years ago.

Is there a new version in development? I always liked the NOLF games...


RE: other engines out there
By Le Québécois on 7/20/2007 3:54:04 PM , Rating: 2
Their engine is always evolving or being rewritten from scratch (the one used for FEAR for example).

So yes, its a new version.

I myself, am a big fan of Monolith game's: the NOLF serie, AvsP 2, SHOGO and FEAR.


I saw this coming
By OrSin on 7/20/07, Rating: 0
RE: I saw this coming
By Spoelie on 7/20/2007 9:42:27 AM , Rating: 1
there's considerably more work involved than simply inputting textures, models and levels for a complete game. All game mechanics need to be built from scratch as well, the only thing the engine does for you is draw pixels on the screen.


RE: I saw this coming
By masher2 (blog) on 7/20/2007 9:51:00 AM , Rating: 5
The Unreal Engine does far more than simply draw to the screen. It includes audio processing, a physics engine, an AI engine, UI widgets, animation tools, terrain editors, and code for managing networking and various types of multiplayer support.


RE: I saw this coming
By CrystalBay on 7/20/2007 8:47:14 PM , Rating: 2
The fact that Epic changed the name of UT2007 means they are having trouble with their own Engine...

I mean cmon Epic still has not released a DX9 game title 5 years after DX9 was released...


RE: I saw this coming
By sxr7171 on 7/21/2007 3:23:37 PM , Rating: 2
They somehow managed to get Gears of War out.


Excuses, Excuses
By bkm32 on 7/20/2007 1:01:30 PM , Rating: 4
Silicon Knights has been developing this game for what, 10+ years. They always have some excuse why they can't finish it. Dyack is so protective of his "baby" that everyone is at fault. This company has a track record of tardiness. Eternal Darkness was supposed to be a GC launch title. SK blamed 9/11 for it being late. Seriously! Check the EGM July 2006 issue.

One other thing, wasn't GoW demoed at the 05 E3? It seems like the UE3 was up and running then. Oh by the way, TH was also demoed at the same event. What game engine was it using then? It appears Epic delivered on it's end of the deal, but SK needs some lame-o excuse for not delivering on their's.

Dyack once made a comment about God of War and that (to paraphrase) "the failure with God of War is that I found one combo that worked for everything and kept using it" Well, buddy God of War 2 has come out since then, God of War: Chains of Olympus is due this year, and God of War 3 is scheduled for Q4 2008. Where's your game? That's four Sony God of War games to your none in less than 6 years.

Sony's Olympians 4; MS's Asgardians 0

<Michael Buffer voice> Let the "Pantheon Wars" begin. Oh, wait. They're already over.

This game is one of the reasons I've been holding back my Elite purchase. I've been looking forward to the deep story, innovative combat, and RPG elements of this game since it debutted at the 05 E3, but is it ever going to come out? I personally think Dyack didn't like the feedback he received from last year's E3 (glitches, slowdown, freezing, etc.) and decided that the fault lay in the UE3 (he even tried to blame the fans that were playing it). While at the same time, GoW was stuffed with graphics whores, who couldn't get enough of the tasty visuals and smooth animations that GoW was delivering. Then, in a very "Inspector Clouseau moment" deduced that Epic must have screwed his creation.

Hype up game before its finished, then blame graphics and physics engine for delays only to be even latter due litigaton, and deliver a final product that's half of everything once promised but charge the same $60 pricetag. Billiant!

Epic games is a very beloved developer with a huge fanbase many of whom purchase a X360 only because Epic was delivering GoW. SK isn't making any friends in the gamer community by making this move.




RE: Excuses, Excuses
By dwalton on 7/23/2007 2:05:29 PM , Rating: 2
Look up any reputable game developer and you will find missed release targets, they are pretty common occurences in the game development world.

If you read the complaint you will see that SK is complaining that not only did Epic not deliver a working engine 6 months late to SK and other licensees, they did so with the intent purpose of giving Gears an advantage.

SK is claiming that Epic had a working engine that was used to build Gears, but made this build unavailable to the licensees of U3E. Epic refused to release code claiming it was "game specific" changes instead of engine related changes. SK claims this was a way to circumvent the release of the code to the licensee in a timely fashion as the "game specific" code was eventually released to all licensees.

This resulted in unfavorable comparsions of the U3E demos to Gears at E3 2006. This also basically pushed most the U3E titles slanted for holiday 2006 to 2007, which allowed Gears to release during the holiday season minus any other U3E titles to compete against.


Any other released games using Unreal 3 Tech?
By sqrt1 on 7/20/2007 9:58:17 AM , Rating: 2
Are there any other major commercial released games using Unreal 3 Tech? At this point I don't think there is, so SK may have a point.




By PJMODOS on 7/20/2007 10:06:11 AM , Rating: 2
Rainbow Six: Vegas and Roboblitz


Game engines
By gchanjam on 7/21/2007 6:41:05 AM , Rating: 2
I think you guys are missing the strong point of the Source engine which is just how optimized it is. The Doom 3 engine by id was a great looking engine but at the time, it crippled most midrange machines at even a moderately high resolution compared to the Source engine which could be run decently on virtually any PC with a discreet graphics card.




RE: Game engines
By Proteusza on 7/22/2007 4:24:46 PM , Rating: 2
It was poory optimized for ATI video cards, yes.

But it is more GPU intensive - doing dynamic lighting like that takes up lots of gpu power. Source's shadow implementation is much much simpler, which would speed it up a lot.


Misunderstanding?
By Tyler 86 on 7/21/2007 1:21:34 AM , Rating: 2
Common Factual Allegation 11 & 12 ...

11; As one example of such a breach, Epic has failed to comply with Paragraph 5(a) of the Agreement, ...

Epic warrants that ... it can demonstrate that the Licensed Technology (A) operates on the PC platform, (B) will operate on the Xbox 2 [since renamed the Xbox 360] within six (6) months following the release of a final development kit by Microsoft for the Xbox 2 platform; and (C) will operate on the Playstation 3 platform within six (6) months following the release of a final development kit by Sony for the Playstation 3 platform.

12; 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.

--
Wait.. they were obligated to release, or obligated to demonstrate?
--

18; Epic has attempted to avoid its obligations under the Agreement by representing to Silicon Knights that the support, modifications, or enhancements to the Engine – all of which are essential to the Engine’s proper function – were “game specific” and not “engine level” adaptations, and that Epic therefore need not provide them to any of its licensees, including Silicon Knights.

--
Support, modifications, and enhancements... would these be graphical shaders, textures, and scripts? If so, ... they're not engine level, they are game specific, and don't need to be part of the engine. O_o
--

continuing 15; Epic later provided nearly all the Gears of War code to all of its licensees, at no extra charge, in a belated effort at damage control.

--
I don't think Epic was aiming for "STFU NOOB! USE THIS!", but more like "WTF NOOB? SEE EASY!"..

This sounds like just misunderstanding and sour grapes to me, from an inept or otherwise inexpirienced development team...

Of course, I don't have the U3 engine, but judging by previous engines, their SDKs, and Epic's current generation, most of the content in their game isn't part of the engine... the engine is malleable and abstract as possible, just like id's engines.




Riddick
By woof69 on 7/21/2007 10:08:50 AM , Rating: 2
There is also Starbreeze Studios who's in-house Engine looked Just as good as doom3.




Welcome SK
By dedbeez on 7/22/2007 7:39:15 PM , Rating: 2
SK, welcome to the world we consumers live in. We are all to frequently promised features, funtionality and content by developers in the software we buy and are often left wanting or waiting for a patch long after its official release.

We, like SK, also pay good money for our software.




By gc3 on 7/27/2007 7:56:53 PM , Rating: 2
I know of least 3 projects that got in trouble by trying to use the Unreal engine on XBOX360. (One was called "Frame City Killers" and the actual name should have been called "Frame Rate Killed").

In many cases if the game had been written from scratch they would have had better results than using Unreal.

Perhaps Unreal is a good engine now, but at the time it was overhyped and underperforming. A small company does not have the luxury of an extra six months of expensive development to remove the kinds from an engine.

I thought Unreal was too monolithic a solution myself (not modular enough, a defective part could not be removed easily and replaced) and the projects I advised did not use it.




I hope it's unfounded
By HWAddict77 on 7/20/07, Rating: -1
RE: I hope it's unfounded
By shamgar03 on 7/20/2007 10:05:16 AM , Rating: 1
Have you ever heard of a company called VALVE. The source engine has been licensed to far more people that Id though I am not sure about epic. The source engine is also always being improved. I think valve practically pioneered HDR, and honestly I still think that half life games look better than anything else. The characters just look more real to me.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By FITCamaro on 7/20/2007 10:32:27 AM , Rating: 1
HL2 characters definitely have a realistic look to them, but in total graphical detail, I think Gears of War looks far superior. But granted, its also a far newer game. It all depends on how the game developer wants the game to look.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By HWAddict77 on 7/20/2007 10:38:54 AM , Rating: 1
Have you ever heard of a symbol called a question mark? ;-) I am a big Valve fan, and I give them full credit for pushing HDR and for the great work with facial detail and lip synchronization in Source. But in my mind, Valve is simply not in the same category as Epic and Id, who have cranked out engine after engine - pushing boundaries and securing licensees with each one.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Sahrin on 7/20/2007 6:16:02 PM , Rating: 1
Valve has had two "game generations" - Half Life, and Half Life 2. (Compared with Epic, with 3: Unreal (based on Quake), Unreal Tournament 2 (2003/2004) Based on Unreal Engine 2), and Unreal III (based on Unreal Engine 3; and compared with iD, with Doom (Doom Engine), Doom II (Doom Engine 2/Quake), Doom III (Doom Engine III).

For Half Life, Valve developed a version of the Quake engine (!!I believe) into GoldSource (the predecessor of the Source Engine). For Half-Life 2, they developed an 'all-new' engine (as new as generational software can be) called Source. So while they don't have 3 engines under their belt like Id does, at the same time you've got to consider that Epic has only released two "Epic" engines (if you count Unreal Engine one as a unique engine, I do not) or 3 engines if you do - in which case Valve has put out 1 fully featured game engine for license (GoldSource was not licensed, I believe), compared with Id's 2 and Epic's 1 (or 2). I don't see that as a major disparity.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By TSS on 7/21/2007 8:24:46 AM , Rating: 1
ID has more then 2 engines developped. wolfstein, doom/doom3, quake 1/2/3 and now recently tech-5, if somebody knows their shooters its ID. valve has source, and the original half life engine. yes i know its the quake engine but they modified it a bit i belive and they threw away the game once (HL was started in 1995 or something i belive and a year later, they threw it away and started over). Epic has the unreal engine 2 and 3, and of course there must have been a 1 somewhere, even if its a modified quake engine. you modify something you first need to understand it, if you understand it you have the knowledge to build the next generation on.

but there have been more, human head for example who developped prey. i saw a prey movie how it was back in 1999, at which time Q3 and UT came out. prey looked better then both, had the portal technique already working, and ran on a machine half that needed for Q3. doesn't mean they are better then ID, or less then valve, or anything. it means that we know very little about what studio's are cooking up what in their research departments, creating and throwing stuff away which can be called amazing on a day to day basis.

all this originated from the original HL2 VS doom3 arguement though. couple years later we can say that HL2 guessed right and doom3 guessed wrong: less polys, higher res textures beats more poly's lower res textures. and epic just used both for UT3 (hell we have the horse power for it now who wouldn't).


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Mithan on 7/21/2007 10:27:33 AM , Rating: 1
Quake 1, 2 and 3 all use different rendering engines. If memory serves, John C ended up rewriting Quake 2 because of all the new 3d Accelerator tech that was coming out and because adding colored lighting pretty much demanded it.

Quake 3 was rewritten from the ground up and included shaders for the first time.

Doom 3/Quake 4 was its own again.

I don't recall if Quake Wars is an improved Doom 3 engine or totally rewritten but chances are it is improved with MegaTexturing.

Doom 1 and Doom 2 used the same engine I believe.

Wolfenstein was its own again.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Proteusza on 7/22/2007 4:16:10 PM , Rating: 2
Quake 3 didnt use Pixel Shaders, they were only released later.

Quake 3 was released at the time of the Geforce 256, so it was the first game to use Hardware Transform and Lighting (very important in itself).

ID has a few engines:

Wolfenstein (also used in Blake Stone)
Doom/Doom II/ Final Doom/ Ultimate Doom
Quake (later modified into HL1 by Valve)
Quake 2
Quake 3 (all different rendering engines)
Doom 3/Quake 4/Prey
ID Tech 5


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Belard on 7/23/2007 7:16:50 AM , Rating: 2
A lot of wrong info there...

Unreal is based off the UNREAL engine. Not Quake, not EVEN close to Quake! Quake2 is older than Unreal. Quake was the FIRST true 3D engine MAPing system from ID. (Doom 1-2, looked 3D, but it was still limited to a 2D mapping, such as having floors on top of floors.)

Here is the wiki list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_engine#Video_g...
Creators of UNREAL can't licence out a Quake/ID engine.

UE 1 = Unreal (1998) and UT (AKA UT Classic) (late 1999)
UE 2 = UT 2003(blah) UT2004 (yeah) Still play it and Unreal2.

UE 3 = UT3... There is NO Unreal III in the pipeline... but I would personally like to see such a game.

Not sure how you compare UE3 to Doom Engine 1... ???

You're also wrong on ID Engines:
Doom 1 & 2 ran off the same Engine... Doom2 had different maps and more bug fixes, nothing more. Quake is completely different from Doom 1-2 which used Sprites. Models are 3D. Quake2 was the first to use actual 3D models, but Quake Arena was truely smooth.

Quake4 and Doom3 uses the Doom3 Engine. Quake Wars is using the Doom 3 Engine, but severly modifed.
------

Your info about engines are very wrong... (Mixing Doom2/Quake together is a big red flag) I've played these games back in the 486 says with a few MB of RAM and a 1~4mb video cards, before they were 3D.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By suryad on 7/20/2007 11:54:28 AM , Rating: 3
Umm have you ever heard of a company called CryTek?


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By HWAddict77 on 7/20/2007 12:27:42 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, and I think they kick arse. And I think they hope to one day have the kind of track record that Id and Epic have today.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By omnicronx on 7/20/2007 12:37:15 PM , Rating: 2
Yep sure have, too bad its only used for their own games.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Rampage on 7/20/2007 1:19:14 PM , Rating: 2
Crytek doesn't have near the track record Epic and Id have.
Valve doesn't either.
Though both have had nice set ups and hopefully will continue to for as long as Epic and Id have.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By omnicronx on 7/20/2007 1:30:34 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Crytek doesn't have near the track record Epic and Id have.


if you are talking track record here, id say valve is just as good as Id, sure they have not had anything amazing recently, but they did bring HDR to the scene. and do i need to remind you how many games utilized the half-life engine? it was just as popular if not more so at one point than id's doom2 engine.
Considering track record is what they have done in the past, i think they have quite and amazing track record ;)


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By AsicsNow on 7/20/2007 1:47:12 PM , Rating: 4
The half-life engine? Specify what you mean because half-life 1 used the Quake (2) engine from iD. Over a billion dollars have been made off of games that used the Quake 3 engine I believe (was one of the Quakes, pretty sure it was 3 though). I know the Source engine is very good, but to place it in the same league as the Unreal Engine and iD's various engines over the years as far as use in other games is kinda rediculous. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next decade Valve's engines become even more popular, but right now they just arent liscensed on the same scale as Epic and iD's engines have been.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Kamasutra on 7/20/2007 9:25:24 PM , Rating: 2
And I'd say Crytek has just as good a record too. Far Cry looked amazing for its time as does Crysis look stunning today. And speaking of HDR, I believe Far Cry was the first released game to utilize it.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By feraltoad on 7/21/2007 12:18:00 AM , Rating: 2
They offered a patch after the game came out to enable it, which I thought was kick ass to keep developing a game after it's released to add functionality unlike EA or Ubisoft which keep developing to finish the game after they have already sold the game and all its problems to victims, I mean "customers".
I still think Far Cry has a great look to it. For anyone that has never played it I would definately recommend it as a must play, especially since it can be ran on high settings by mainstream cards.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By sxr7171 on 7/21/2007 3:17:32 PM , Rating: 3
Far Cry outdoor foliage scenes are just incredible. I haven't seen that from any other engine. However those engines have their own strengths.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Rampage on 7/24/2007 1:04:42 PM , Rating: 2
Thats not a "track record".

Thats one engine.

ID has been doing this for a very long time, and reliably, and make incredible sums of money licensing their engine out.

These apparant stumbles by Epic only go to show how difficult producing and getting out a complete engine really is.

So really, no one is on Id's level of having a "track record". Not even Epic.
Thats being slightly facetious though, because they'll get this engine straightened out.

Yet Epic and id are far beyond Valve and Crytek.

Remember, the HL1 engine is based on the Quake2 engine, and HL2 is actually STILL has portions partially based on the HL1 engine!
Crytek is beneath all of the above mentioned.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Proteusza on 7/25/2007 8:45:36 AM , Rating: 2
Why is Crytek beneath all others mentioned?

If you mean the engine as used in Far Cry, even today I havent seen such realistic island scenes with such impressive foliage. its indoor scenes arent as good as doom3, but thats just a weakness of it. its outdoor engine is very impressive.

I dont see why you say Valve and Crytek are behind Epic and ID - what physics does any ID engine have? None? What about lip synching, advanced ai, materials, tools?


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Le Québécois on 7/20/2007 3:43:14 PM , Rating: 2
While I have great respect for what Epic has done for computer gaming technology, Silicon Knights is far from new to this business. They've been doing this since 1992(1991 for Epic) and since that date, have to my opinion and many reviews website, never published a less than very good to near perfect game (Eternal Darkness for example). So they (SK) have been a great help to the gaming industry.

I love both of those company and hope they can come to a agreement before "really" going in court.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By ryedizzel on 7/20/2007 6:50:56 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
And I don't know that Silicon Knights DIDN'T do this, but if I were in their shoes, I would do everything possible to keep this from turning into a legal issue simply out of respect for Epic's place in the industry.

I hate people like you that think smaller companies should shut their mouth out of "respect" for the larger companies. If you actually read the article before responding then maybe you would see that Silicon Knights TRIED to resolve it without litigation for nearly 2 years and still didn't get anywhere.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By BladeVenom on 7/21/2007 10:00:23 AM , Rating: 2
He didn't even mention the size of the company.
quote:
Epic's place in the industry

Besides that, who even said that Silicon Knights is the smaller company? According to Wikipedia Silicon Knights has more employees than Epic Games.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Jack Ripoff on 7/20/2007 9:42:38 PM , Rating: 2
What about the Tenebrae project, which implemented stencil shadowing and per-pixel lighting on the free Quake engine almost two years before Doom 3 came out?


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By sxr7171 on 7/21/2007 1:16:56 PM , Rating: 2
You sound like a fanboy. We have been waiting for games with that engine for years now and they haven't come out yet except for Gears of War. Why do you think that is? There was a conflict of interest here and it showed in the worst possible way.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By FITCamaro on 7/22/2007 10:00:00 AM , Rating: 1
Or they're still in development? No that couldn't be it. The engine isn't that old, we've just been hearing about it for a while. Games using it are just finally getting near completion. If this was an industry wide problem (for those who are using the UE3 engine), then there'd be a lot more lawsuits.


RE: I hope it's unfounded
By Proteusza on 7/22/2007 4:17:53 PM , Rating: 2
However much respect one should have for pioneers like Epic, that doesnt allow them to ignore their contracts (assuming they are guilty).

If Epic was being shady in their dealings with SK, and not holding up their end of the deal, then they should be fined for it.


lame
By NotAok on 7/20/07, Rating: -1
RE: lame
By masher2 (blog) on 7/20/2007 10:09:52 AM , Rating: 3
I don't think anyone outside SK and Epic can fully judge the merits of this case. Regardless of how well it works or not, its incontrovertible that the engine was late. If it was promised to SK by a specific deadline, and Epic failed to meet that date, then


RE: lame
By Moishe on 7/20/2007 10:17:51 AM , Rating: 2
Even if Epic failed to meet a deadline, I would think SK would have a stipulation in the contract that would give them some refund or discount... I don't know about time to market for vid-games, but if Too-Human is good, it's still a viable product if it's 6 months late.

You're right though, only Epic and SK really can know all the details.


Some weird stuff with this
By killerroach on 7/20/07, Rating: -1
RE: Some weird stuff with this
By masher2 (blog) on 7/20/2007 9:54:29 AM , Rating: 5
> "Silicon Knights is blaming the issues on Epic's development of Gears of War... which is ludicrous"

The claim actually is that Epic took Silicon Knight's money and used it not to complete the product for which they paid, but to fund development of GoW, a wholly separate project. Without speaking to the accuracy of the statement itself, the legal concept behind the claim is sound.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By GreenyMP on 7/20/2007 10:56:44 AM , Rating: 2
Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that there is anything wrong with selling one thing and using the money to fund another venture. (eg. Microsoft sells Windows to lose money on XBox)

I think the only thing the Epic could be liable for is failure to provide a service (support) that complies with the contracted "Service Level Agreement".


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By HVAC on 7/20/2007 12:10:00 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I think the only thing the Epic could be liable for is failure to provide a service (support) that complies with the contracted "Service Level Agreement".


If Epic materially misrepresented the product they sold to SK (namely UE3) then they could be liable for damages. It all depends on the sales contract between SK and Epic, the law governing the contract, and the judge and/or jury.

In other words....a crapshoot....


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By masher2 (blog) on 7/20/2007 12:18:50 PM , Rating: 5
> "Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that there is anything wrong with selling one thing and using the money to fund another venture."

There is if the product being sold is incomplete and/or late, due to cannibalization of its budget to fund another project.

There are two separate issues here. The first is culpability. Is Epic liable for issues with the engine? If that is answered in the affirmative, then the question of recourse arises. SK is obviously trying to link the GoW budget to finding derived from engine licensing fees. That would obviously open up revenues from that game to sequestration if (and only if) the first issue is decided in SK's favor.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By Sazar on 7/20/2007 12:39:07 PM , Rating: 2
Had to bump up both your posts.

Exactly correct.

The reasoning behind the lawsuit is indeed sound and the claims sound legit. The interesting thing is if the other allegedly affected parties also venture into litigation.

Epic, I sure love them and their products but they could be in a bit of a pickle here.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By christojojo on 7/20/2007 2:16:22 PM , Rating: 1
Maybe you should start a new website spin off of Anandtech - Dailylaw ;-)


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By Rampage on 7/24/2007 1:11:35 PM , Rating: 2
lol, that was good.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By sqrt1 on 7/20/2007 9:56:42 AM , Rating: 2
Are you sure Epic games/engine are two separate entities? I was under the impression that they were in the same building.

I work in the games industry and I can can say that when "crunch" comes, it is all in. (esp. with MS breathing down Epic's back to get it out before the PS3 launch)


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By FITCamaro on 7/20/2007 10:30:07 AM , Rating: 1
Being in the same building doesn't mean they're on the same project. Where I work, we have three completely different projects going on.

I think what he's saying is that its two different sets of people who are creating games and the engine. Sure they collaborate together but they're separate projects under different project managers.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By omnicronx on 7/20/2007 12:33:15 PM , Rating: 2
Yes but what he is getting at is they are not two different entities, its the same company not an offshoot of epic.
Therefor if they used resources from one side to fund another, a wrongful act has been committed. As another person pointed out though, this could have been attributed to MS breathing down their back. Whats weird you would think that an engine in such demand like the UT3 engine, would/should have been complete.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By FITCamaro on 7/20/2007 2:11:47 PM , Rating: 1
UE3 is not 100% complete. They have job postings for people to work on it.

And as the guy below said, it never will be. Just as the Half Life 2 engine is always getting upgraded for each successive chapter.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By Aikouka on 7/20/2007 2:33:05 PM , Rating: 2
I don't mean to nitpick, but if something is merely being upgraded, then it is 100% complete with the initial coding and is in what you'd call "maintenance mode." Maintenance mode includes fixes or upgrades that are requested/required. I don't consider EOL (End of Life) of a project to be the completion date.


By Le Québécois on 7/20/2007 3:28:44 PM , Rating: 2
I know someone who's working on UE3 for another company and believe me, UE3 is not complete, at least not now, so if SK has problem because of that and that they don't receive correct support from epic, I do believe they're right here. But the final outcome of all this is not for me to decide.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By Slaimus on 7/20/2007 10:51:52 AM , Rating: 2
Epic's engines are always a work in progress, since they keep updating it even after a product is released.

My speculation on what really happened:

1. SK wanted a certain feature in UE3 and wanted Epic to implement it.

2. Epic was too busy with GoW and told SK to do it themselves

3. SK tried to implement it, but lacked the know-how in UE3 to do it properly, causing them to miss a product deadline and associated payoff from a publisher.

4. SK is now suing to recoup the loss.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By rtrski on 7/20/2007 11:59:53 AM , Rating: 2
Why speculate? The PDF is right in the article above. It spells it out in detail.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By eryco on 7/20/2007 12:16:25 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
2. Epic was too busy with GoW and told SK to do it themselves


Seems that Epic already had the features that SK wanted in Gears of War, but they initially were unwilling to share them. Section 18 in the PDF is very interesting...


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By Zirconium on 7/20/2007 12:23:43 PM , Rating: 5
Here is what happened, according to the PDF mentioned above:
quote:
11. As one example of such a breach, Epic has failed to comply with Paragraph 5(a) of the Agreement, which sets forth Epic’s express warranties as to the performance of the Engine. Subsection (iv) provides:
quote:
Epic warrants that…it can demonstrate that the Licensed Technology (A) operates on the PC platform, (B) will operate on the Xbox 2 [since renamed the Xbox 360] within six (6) months following the release of a final development kit by Microsoft for the Xbox 2 platform; and (C) will operate on the Playstation 3 platform within six (6) months following the release of a final development kit by Sony for the Playstation 3 platform.

12. 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. Further, even if licensees were somehow, on their own, able to utilize the released code, Epic said that such code would not be supported by Epic going forward, as described more fully below.

13. More recently, Epic has breached its Agreement with Silicon Knights yet again by missing the six-month deadline for release of an Engine that works on the Playstation 3. Final development kits for that console were released in and around mid-August, 2006, making the functional Engine due to Silicon Knights in February, 2007. Silicon Knights has received no such Engine from Epic.

It isn't even that Silicon Knights wanted certain features in the engine; they wanted the engine, period, and Epic couldn't supply it in a timely manner, pushing back the release date of their game.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By yacoub on 7/20/2007 1:53:07 PM , Rating: 3
No, Epic probably over promised and under delivered on the ease of use and other claims, as is typical these days.


RE: Some weird stuff with this
By grant2 on 7/26/2007 7:00:02 PM , Rating: 1
Granted, more than likely a judge isn't going to know (or care),
Despite a few examples to the contrary, judges generally aren't disinterested bufoons who only wear the robes because they weren't smart enough to be ditchdiggers...

Most likely a presiding judge will spent a lot of time learning the technical details necessary to render a useful verdict. The lawyers will also try to help this process along, since their success depends on the judge seeing their point of view.


umm
By omyg0t on 7/20/07, Rating: -1
RE: umm
By Le Québécois on 7/20/2007 4:03:56 PM , Rating: 2
Next time, use the wikipedia before posting something useless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Knights

Eternal Darkness when released was one of the greatest game of its time.


absurd
By Moishe on 7/20/07, Rating: -1
RE: absurd
By Keeir on 7/20/2007 4:36:40 PM , Rating: 3
I think you need to read a little bit more about US contract law. (Assuming the contract was executed in the US)

This seems like a classic case of "Breach of Contract". Given that the product, the U3 engine, was not delivered in a timely manner or when delivered was delivered defective this would potentially be a "Fundamental breach". In cases of fundamental non-performance by one party of a contract, the other party has the right to cancel the contract and sue for additional damages encured by the reasonable assumption that that contact would be followed regardless if the contact specified damages from non-performance.

This is unfortunely Epic's fault for not devoting resources to the completion/distrubation of thier engine. In many of the other of Epic's customers' cases there is a potential that Epic has reached an additional contract to replace/fix the fundamental breaches in the original contract. But SK is under no obiligation to reach an argreement in the case of a Fundamental Breach and as far as I understand US contract law has the legal option to persue damages provided a proper Exclusion clause does not limit Epic's liability. Again, it was up to Epic to limit thier liability, not SK to state thier damages if the contract was not performed.


RE: absurd
By Moishe on 7/23/2007 2:31:37 PM , Rating: 2
I certainly don't know anything about contract law... I acknowledge that I don't know the details, but based on what I know, I think the stance SK has on this is ridiculous...

Basically what I'm saying is this. Assuming Epic promised Engine X by Date Y and failed to deliver in time, the lawsuit reasonable. Makes perfect sense. What's absurd is that SK can over reach the "reasonable" and try to cash in on the success of Epic's other game using the same engine. I would think it would be awfully hard to prove that Epic purposefully screwed SK.


RE: absurd
By Keeir on 7/24/2007 5:31:14 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I certainly don't know anything about contract law


Then why do you insist on thinking the stance SK has taken is ridiculous?

Maybe if you spent a little bit of time reading actual contract law and reading SK's complaint you would realize

A. SK is trying to get as much as possible
B. SK is following US contract law in request for damages

SK is saying GoW was a more successful game that it would have been if GoW had to compete with Too Human. Epic therefore benifited from the breech of contract with SK. Epic doesn't have to have made a secret nefarious plan, all that has to have happened is for Epic to have gained benifits from breech of contract for these benifits to be open to punitive damages.


RE: absurd
By Oregonian2 on 7/20/2007 6:27:18 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
If SK didn't have a solid contract that allows them to have some legal method of regaining their loss, then it's SK's fault for being so stupid. The U3 engine might suck (for all I know) but I hardly think that Sk should be able to sue for the loss of their own game.


You've got me confused. If they DID have such a "solid contract", the legal method to have it enforced IS to file a lawsuit. Then you say they shouldn't use that means you say they should have had. The lawsuit. If you have a contract violation you can't call in the police, you call in the lawyers and sue. That's how it works.


Too Human vaporware now, Xbox360 doomed
By LiptonGreenTea on 7/21/07, Rating: -1
RE: Too Human vaporware now, Xbox360 doomed
By FITCamaro on 7/22/2007 10:16:01 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
I'm starting to feel sorry for anyone who owns an Xbox360.


So because one game is being delayed, the entire console is doomed? Do I even need to go into the stupidity of that statement?

There are plenty of other 360 games for us to play and plenty more coming out this fall. How's that PS3 lineup looking for this fall? Other than Warhawk and GTAIV (which also will be out on the 360), what do you have thats going to blow people away? Next major title will be Dark Sector in January but that will be on the 360 too.


RE: Too Human vaporware now, Xbox360 doomed
By christojojo on 7/22/2007 1:25:49 PM , Rating: 2
Imagine the damage MS could inflict on Sony with a price drop. Too bad MS took a $1.89 billion hit. Speaking from experience a bad rep with the RRoD will definitely stick around. Especially, if they can't make the 360 more attractive price wise.


RE: Too Human vaporware now, Xbox360 doomed
By FITCamaro on 7/25/2007 10:45:58 AM , Rating: 2
They'll still be dropping the price even with the nearly $2 billion loss. They know they can hurt Sony even more with a price drop. And their hardware is far less expensive to produce. Once the 65nm models are in the channel, they can cut the cost and maybe still even start making a profit on the hardware sales.

You figure the Elite costs $80 more than the premium. It wouldn't surprise me if they were breaking even on it. A 120GB hard drive doesn't cost much more than a 20GB (considering no one really produces a 20GB drive anymore so they were probably having to have them made for the 360) and the only other added cost over the premium was the inclusion of the HDMI cable in the box ($2-3 for them) and the licensing of HDMI (few dollars).

I still think they should drop the Core model, put the current Premium in its place, move the Elite to $399 (like they probably will), and drop the price on the 20GB hard drive to $25-35 so that everyone can afford them. That way developers can start to require it for games. No different than the memory expansion pack for the N64. Once that happens games will be better since its a lot easier to have high compression data on a disc when you can uncompress it and store it locally rather than constantly have to read it off the disc. To me thats the only true weakness of the 360. The fact that the base console doesn't have a hard drive.


By christojojo on 7/26/2007 5:15:40 PM , Rating: 2
A quick look at tigerdirect.com and Newegg.com had the smallest laptop hd at 40G for 39.99 USD. (ata-6)The cheapest 120 G HD came in at 66.99 USD.

Granted this is just for one HD and economy of scale, yada yada yada. But, this very quick research seems to reinforce your 20 G not being available for consumers.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...

I also agreet hat the core should go the way of the Dodo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo


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