Silicon Knights

Epic Games have filed a motion to dismiss the Silicon Knights suit, and filed a counterclaim stating Silicon Knights were aware that “the Unreal Engine 3 may not meet its requirements and may not be modified to meet them.”

The suit goes on to say:

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 is seeking “compensatory and punitive damages, the destruction of infringing goods, including infringing computer code, and attorney’s fees and costs” totalling $650,000.

Silicon Knights’ attorney Chris Holland told GameDaily.biz:

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.

So what does this all mean to you? Not much. Holland insists Too Human will not be affected at all by the on-going legal shenanigans regarding its development - “we are back on track and this game is going to come out in a timely fashion.”

via Joystiq

Silicon Knights have filed suit against Epic Games, in a dispute over the licensing of Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 for use in their upcoming Xbox 360 title, Too Human. The suit reads,

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.

Turns out Epic promised licensees a functional engine six months after the Xbox 360 dev kits were released, giving them until March 2006 to deliver. It was November by the time Silicon Knights saw anything resembling a functional game engine, causing extensive delays in the development of Too Human. During the same period, Epic managed to complete their own Gears of War, and take “Best Game in Show” with their impressive demo at E3 in May 2006 - using the very same engine they failed to deliver to Silicon Knights.

Read the full, juicy story at Gamasutra.

Will Silicon Knights ever release a Wii game? Founder Denis Dyack had this to say in a recent interview with Nintendo World Report

…we’d consider working on the Wii today, we’d consider working on the Wii immediately, and is there a possibility of us working on the Wii, yeah, absolutely. I think that it depends on the type of game we’re trying to make, but I’d say the possibility is very high.

Come on, Denis…You know a sequel to Eternal Darkness on the Wii would sell like hotcakes.