In ‘07 Silicon sued Epic for failing to ”provide a working game engine” for Too Human. Epic were ”sabotaging” UE3 licensees for Gears of War.
The studio alleges that Epic withheld an updated version of their Unreal Engine technology and that licensee money was being used to fuel Gears of War’s development and not just solely for UE tech improvements.
A federal court has agreed the lawsuit should proceed before a jury which Silicon hail as a “victory in their litigation against Epic.” They allege fraud, negligent misrepresentation, unfair competition, breach of contract, and breach of warranty by Epic Games.
The court found ”evidence regarding the basic nature of the parties’ businesses and the relationship between them establishes that Epic had a possible motive to deceive SK into entering into the licence Agreement in order to fund the development costs of its own games and delay the work of SK and other competing licensees on their video games.”
They also note that Epic’s counterclaim admits they developed Unreal Engine 3 ”in conjunction with the development of its own game as part of its ‘synergistic model’ and not separately as it had led SK to believe.” Silicon also claims they were denied support.
“When Epic first went public about our case to the press, they said that our claims were without merit,” said Silicon Knight’s Denis Dyack. “Two separate federal court judges have now disagreed with Epic, and have ruled that the case does have merit.”
“Silicon Knights has always wanted to have our focus be on making great games, not litigation. This ruling will allow us to have our day in court, before a jury, and to shine the light publicly on Epic’s conduct,” he continued.
“We are very confident the jury will see the truth behind Epic’s actions.” Too Human released exclusively for Xbox 360 but suffered middling review scores.
