Why Silicon Knights Needs A Wakeup Call
July 20th, 2007The big story of the day is that Epic is being sued by Silicon Knights. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen news this big. There were at least 8 e-mails about it sent to the beyondunreal news mailer, all the major gaming websites have picked it up, and it’s already hit digg. If you don’t know what I’m talking about head over to Gamasutra who I believe has the best synopsis of what’s going on. I think in the end this whole thing is just going to blow up in Silicon Knight’s faces. These guys seem to be absolutely cluelesss. So here’s a wakup call for you Silicon Knights. Fact of the matter here is that YOUR GAME SUCKS, and you have nobody to blame but yourselves!
There are two things Silicon Knights claims. The first thing is that they didn’t get the engine code on time. The contract stated they would get the engine code 6 months after they received development kits, but it took much much longer. This is actually the only part of their claim that might have any validity. At the same time they shouldn’t act quite so shocked. OMG you mean people don’t always meet release dates in the gaming industry? Give me a break! Then again the fault should probably go to Epic for this one for being stupid enough to agree to such a time table in a contract.
The next complaint is where things start to get silly. They claim that Epic shortchanged Silicon Knights and other developers in order to help out Gears of War. They seem to be surprised that Epic is better than them at using the engine. What a wonder that the people that wrote the thing would be able to better utilize the technology. Silicon Knights seems to be quite upset about how crappy their game looked for E3 2006 compare to Gears of War. They should be more pissed about how crappy their E3 2007 trailer looks. Not only is the overly dramatic trailer quite uninteresting, it has poor framerates to boot! You would think this would support their claims, but the problem is nobody else is having this trouble. BioShock looks absolutely stunning graphically, and had a great showing at this past E3. This isn’t the only title that is going well with Unreal Engine 3. Mass Effect is also coming along quite nicely. It seems that Silicon Knights are the only ones unable to figure it out.
Admit it, you guys just can’t make good games so you’re trying to place blame for why your company is failing. Even the concept of your game sucks. You’ve been trying to make it into a game since 1999. You were too incompetent to make the game back then, and you’re too incompetent to complete the game now. You can blame Epic for your failings all you want, but it doesn’t make up for your lack of game making skills.
But let’s get into the good stuff. You’ll never believe what they are asking for out of this lawsuit. This is where things start to get laughable. Silicon Knights has started to modify the engine code in an attempt to create their own engine from the existing Unreal Engine 3 code. In the lawsuit they are asking that this supposed new engine be considered it’s own entity completely separate from UE3. They then ask that they be able to sell it without giving Epic a cent. In short they want to steal Unreal Engine 3 from Epic, and license it to others. BUT WAIT IT GETS BETTER! They’re also asking for all the profits made from Gears of War, and then some!
Do they honesty expect these claims to be held up in court? Their logic just makes no sense. Sorry but “well we suck at games so we figured we should be entitled to everything Epic has” just isn’t going to cut it in court. If they’re so unhappy with the engine why don’t they just start from scratch making one? Nope, instead they have to steal intellectual property with a lawsuit, and attempt to completely demolish Epic as a company. They’re not smart enough to just ask for a refund. I don’t see how they can have the stupidity to claim that they’re entitled to all of the Gears of War profits. How can anybody take them seriously?
I’m sure this will get more interesting as things go along. True, Microsoft has said it has nothing to do with the case, and has no comment. Then again do you really think Microsoft is just going to sit by and watch Silicon Knights take all the Gears of War profits? Besides we all know too well how the courts work. This could take forever to get resolved. In the end Silicon Knights is going to be screwed. Too Human is doing poorly, and Silicon Knights is getting desperate. Nothing can save them from themselves now. Even if they won the lawsuit their game would still suck, and nobody will be willing to buy a crappified version of Unreal Engine 3. Let’s hope reality dawns on them soon, and they take whatever deal Epic gives them.