Breaking: Silicon Knights Files Lawsuit Against Epic

[Urian]

I am sure that Silicon Knights is right on this one but they will be alone on all this because the others will start to receive help from Epic after all this and no one of them want to cancel a game for a change in the engine.

 

[AlNom]

Well there is functional and then there is optimized.
...
Just like you cannot say the engine used for Halo1 was not fully functional because you could do significantly less with it than what became possible in Halo2.

Well, SK is alleging that their version of UE3 wasn't performing according to Microsoft's TCR whereas Gears was, and that they were withholding the optimizations.

However, when Epic was asked what was being done to bring the Engine into
compliance with these fundamental TCR requirements from the Xbox 360 manufacturer (which
again, Epic warranted to Silicon Knights it would meet), Epic responded that, though it was at
that very time working toward meeting the TCRs in Gears of War, that level of functionality
would not “make it to the engine level, as it is custom to the game.â€￾

 

[Npl]

How many PS3 games are being currently developed using the U3 engine and why has Sony just paid Epic to provide a optimized U3 engine for the PS3 something its already agreed to do with those PS3 developers as SK has stated a fully function U3 engine for the PS3 was promised but has yet to be provided?

I understood this differently, Sony is lending a lot of hands for optimizing UE3-Engine and it turn UT3 is a timed exclusive.

The amount of UE3-Licenses and the amount of games we seen running on UE certainly indicates that there are problems.

 

[scooby_dooby]

There was a functional and playable version of Too Human at E3 2006. People said it had some performance issues and the control mechanic was bad, but still they had an actual game running on actual hardware. link

IF load times were as bad as SK claims, and did meet MS's certification standards, how can this be considered functional?

 

[SugarCoat]

As someone who has been buying Epic's products since even before the original Unreal: yes. Yes, I do believe quite strongly that their core philosophy has been do what is best for the gamer, and they will reward you back.

What SK is claiming Epic is trying to do runs totally contrary to prior corporate behavior and actions taken by Epic. And thats why I am more than willing to take Epics side on this one.

Over many years they have proven themselves to me that they really understand that their bottom line is directly proportional to how they treat gamers and therefore how the industry grows as a whole. And I respect them for that.

SK was founded 1 year after Epic, FIFTEEN years ago, again they do deserve the benefit of the doubt rather then being rubbed off as some moronic devs fresh off the street who couldnt get a product running and as such want a financial scapegoat which is exactly what you are saying. Your bias blinds you in short. I agree that Epic is a good company but im also inclined to believe they got in way over their heads, and if they made too many promises under contract and failed to fulfill obligations, then they are absolutly 100% liable for the consequences. If SK is losing money due to the failure of Epic's obligations what do you want them to do? Say "well you've been great in the past so we'll let it slide this time" followed by a friendly chuckle? Doesnt work that way. You cause another company to lose a substantial amount of money when it could of been prevented (which is what SK will have to prove and will use Gears as its primary evidence) you get your ass sued no matter your reputation.

Even if R6 is UE3, (which seems to be up in the air, as it doesn't have the UE3 logo on the box apparently), it doesn't do alot to disprove SK's claims.

1. R6 was released in Nov 2006, long after the deadling for UE3 to be delivered.

2. R6 is a FPS. SK is contending that UE3 did not work well with other genres as they were promised. Specifically, outdoor rendering.

It is NOT UE3, nothing is up in the air. Read the copyright line right next to the logo.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=898219&postcount=26

 

[AlNom]

Epic’s misconduct has created an industry-wide uproar because of its hoarding all
of the necessary functionalities of the Engine for Gears of War, and the other breaches and
misrepresentations by Epic referenced herein.

I am concerned about whether or not SK can back this up by having 'witnesses' from other licensee companies actually corroborate this.


(btw, thanks for finding that post, SugarCoat)

 

[one]

Looks like MS was fairly pissed:

And SK is asking the courts to take all profit from GOW sales from Epic:
​

This is some good entertainment ​

​

The interesting thing is the client of the both projects (Gears of War, Too Human) is Microsoft. If you look at it from Microsoft's POV it's a simple resource reallocation, Microsoft wanted Gears of War at Christmas of 2006 no matter what, as a result SK and other UE3 projects were slighted. I'm fairly certain Microsoft knew it and paid Epic enough money to nullify the penalties due to possible contract breaches by Epic wrt the UE3 support for projects other than Gears of War.

But it's still strange why SK abandoned UE3 and developed their own engine rather than waiting for UE3 to come like Mass Effect or Lost Odyssey. I thought a publisher is well informed about a project status and has control on details including which engine to use and so on but it looks like there's just a contract paper between the both parties and SK rushed to the most economical way they had thought would be.

 

[scooby_dooby]

But it's still strange why SK abandoned UE3 and developed their own engine rather than waiting for UE3 to come like Mass Effect or Lost Odyssey. I thought a publisher is well informed about a project status and has control on details including which engine to use and so on but it looks like there's just a contract paper between the both parties and SK rushed to the most economical way they had thought it would be.

For all we know ME and LO followed similar paths. ME was delayed almost a full year from it's original "Winter 06" release period. Companies are pretty hush hush on these things, and I don't remember any statement from Bioware about improvement to their game after GOW shipped, nor was it apparent in the screens or videos of the game.

SK didn't really abandon UE either I don't think, they just built over it, they mention plenty of UE3 code still being used in their engine, and say they will be taking it all out after they finish TH1.

 

[scooby_dooby]

It is NOT UE3, nothing is up in the air. Read the copyright line right next to the logo.

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=898219&postcount=26

Well there ya go!

So no-one has shipped full retail UE3 game other than epic. Seems SK has solid footing here...

 

[SugarCoat]

But it's still strange why SK abandoned UE3 and developed their own engine rather than waiting for UE3 to come like Mass Effect or Lost Odyssey. I thought a publisher is well informed about a project status and has control on details including which engine to use and so on but it looks like there's just a contract paper between the both parties and SK rushed to the most economical way they had thought would be.

If they were upset enough to seek legal council and found merritt for a case then thats reason enough to drop the engine all together. As someone already pointed out, SK or anyone else who speaks up isnt exactly going to be welcomed with open arms by Epic any time in the future. Besides im sure Epic would of axed support as soon as SK filed a case.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I wouldn't be surprised if Epic bit off more than they could chew. In the last few years they've been working on GoW and UT3, both two massive triple-A titles for three different platforms. They've been working on UE3 engine technology for themselves for three different platforms. They've been selling that engine tech to many different companies, again for three different platforms. That's a massive amount of work for a relatively small development company, and I wouldn't be surprised if they just drowned under the workload.

Agreed.

They were absolutely under the gun from MS to deliver Gears for holiday 06, that game could not slip.

Combine that with the problems in their engine, the surprisingly large numbers of licensees, and a fairly small dev team, seems like a recipe for this sort of scenario.

 

[sevanig]

Possibly unreal engine 3 is not as suited for the type of game they want to create???

 

[ERP]

The interesting thing is the client of the both projects (Gears of War, Too Human) is Microsoft. If you look at it from Microsoft's POV it's a simple resource reallocation, Microsoft wanted Gears of War at Christmas of 2006 no matter what, as a result SK and other UE3 projects were slighted. I'm fairly certain Microsoft knew it and paid Epic enough money to nullify the penalties due to possible contract breaches by Epic wrt the UE3 support for projects other than Gears of War.

But it's still strange why SK abandoned UE3 and developed their own engine rather than waiting for UE3 to come like Mass Effect or Lost Odyssey. I thought a publisher is well informed about a project status and has control on details including which engine to use and so on but it looks like there's just a contract paper between the both parties and SK rushed to the most economical way they had thought would be.

I very much doubt MS is that organised whan it comes to considering the ramifications of a deal with one developer on the contracts it might have with a second under the MS umbrella.

Both will have contracts with MS and both will be expected to execute according to them, managing resources internally and dealing with any other contracts the developer may have with other parties would be left to the individual developers.

Other than looking at the UE3 engine very early on, I have no idea what state it's in or what the support was like, but developers (especially management) that have never used 3rd party engines are usually surprised by the amount of re-engineering necessary to ship an A title. Whether this is a function of it being oversold or a function of unrealistic expectations, is an open question.

 

[Tim Murray]

Well there is functional and then there is optimized.

There was a functional and playable version of Too Human at E3 2006. People said it had some performance issues and the control mechanic was bad, but still they had an actual game running on actual hardware. link

Same with PS3 UE3 games. Just because they are going to spend more time optimizing it does not mean it was never functional.

Just like you cannot say the engine used for Halo1 was not fully functional because you could do significantly less with it than what became possible in Halo2.

Read the Gamasutra article (or my happy little summary). SK is claiming that the E3 2006 demo was not running on UE3.0, but instead an in-house engine that they hacked together. Now, the question is, is that a renderer or is that the whole engine? If it's the latter, and it's because Epic simply didn't deliver any code prior to November 2006, then Epic doesn't have a leg to stand on. If it's the former, then things will get very confusing very quickly. I imagine a lot of work went like this:

- Engine is supplied to licensees
- In the course of making UT3/GoW, Epic game devs (not necessarily engine devs) find and fix bugs in the engine
- Epic claims that since it was game devs and not engine devs, the fixes are game-specific and are not covered under the license

 

[dobwal]

I understood this differently, Sony is lending a lot of hands for optimizing UE3-Engine and it turn UT3 is a timed exclusive.

The amount of UE3-Licenses and the amount of games we seen running on UE certainly indicates that there are problems.

Well, if there is suppose be a PS3 specific version of U3E, which SK stated their contract with Epic is obligated to provide 6 months after the release the PS3 dev kits, then one can logically surmised that the U3E in questioned is somehow optimized for use with PS3 game development.

I never seen any evidence that would allow us to believe that the engine used to build Gears is somehow distinctly different then the engine used to build UT3. I came to the conclusion that both on built on the same engine but of different builds that were optimized to work well with their respective platforms.

You think the phrase would of been "optimized PS3 U3E" not "optimized U3E for the PS3".

I guess one could make an argument that Sony paid for greater optimization or is just touting the build used for UT3 as fully optimized and is not actually something Sony paid for.

 

[valioso]

Possibly unreal engine 3 is not as suited for the type of game they want to create???

they were guaranteed that it was, it's on the lawsuit as well

 

[AlNom]

Possibly unreal engine 3 is not as suited for the type of game they want to create???

they were guaranteed that it was, it's on the lawsuit as well

Here's the quote:

on or about August 12, 2004, Tim Sweeney of Epic represented that the Engine would be able to render both indoor and outdoor terrain. Mark Rein touted that feature of the Engine as well on December 15, 2004.

...Epic apparently decided that the terrain-creating portion of the Engine would need to be completely rewritten in order
to create outdoor terrain. Moreover, Epic informed its licensees the re-write would not be available until after Gears of War was complete.

From what is written, SK would have to wait 2 years until Gears was complete and then wait for a complete code-rewrite. I don't know the state of the engine either, but the words "completely rewritten" do not chime well. I was hoping for a description of what was wrong exactly - too basic? limited?

 

[pakotlar]

I wouldn't be surprised if Epic bit off more than they could chew. In the last few years they've been working on GoW and UT3, both two massive triple-A titles for three different platforms. They've been working on UE3 engine technology for themselves for three different platforms. They've been selling that engine tech to many different companies, again for three different platforms. That's a massive amount of work for a relatively small development company, and I wouldn't be surprised if they just drowned under the workload.

Yeah, Im starting to think the same thing.

 

[dobwal]

Read the Gamasutra article (or my happy little summary). SK is claiming that the E3 2006 demo was not running on UE3.0, but instead an in-house engine that they hacked together. Now, the question is, is that a renderer or is that the whole engine? If it's the latter, and it's because Epic simply didn't deliver any code prior to November 2006, then Epic doesn't have a leg to stand on. If it's the former, then things will get very confusing very quickly. I imagine a lot of work went like this:

- Engine is supplied to licensees
- In the course of making UT3/GoW, Epic game devs (not necessarily engine devs) find and fix bugs in the engine
- Epic claims that since it was game devs and not engine devs, the fixes are game-specific and are not covered under the license

I think the issue with the different builds used for Gears and Too Human is going to be used to show motive as well as evidence of damage.

However, the issue of fully functional engines delivered on a specific date is going to be proved on whether the build in the developer hands had the feature set or provided the performance stated in the licensees' contract or marketing material.

Epic isn't going to pitch U3E based on a hypothetical unresolved feature set and performance abilitu and/or developers aren't going to sign contracts, which doesn't stipulate what actually U3E will provide, so evidence on what a fully functional U3E entails should be around somewhere.

SK is using the different builds along with those miss delivery deadlines to show how much damage was done by Epic's supposed actions. This is being used strictly as a tool to up the compensation that SK wants from Epic.

 

[Tim Murray]

I think the issue with the different builds used for Gears and Too Human is going to be used to show motive as well as evidence of damage.

However, the issue of fully functional engines delivered on a specific date is going to be proved on whether the build in the developer hands had the feature set or provided the performance stated in the licensees' contract or marketing material.

Epic isn't going to pitch U3E based on hypothetical feature sets and performance abilities and/or developers aren't going to sign contracts, which doesn't stipulate what actually U3E will provide, so evidence on what a fully functional U3E entails should be around somewhere.

SK is using the different builds along with those miss delivery deadlines to show how much damage was done by Epic's supposed actions. This is being used to strictly as a tool to up the compensation that SK wants from Epic.

Well, if Epic actually did say "you're not going to get a new renderer until November 2006 that is capable of outdoor terrain," they're screwed. I really think it's just a matter of Epic not having the resources to do these million things at once, as BZB has pointed out.