From where I'm standing, if SK manages to draw other developers to their side who are willing to back up their claims that smaller development houses were shut out in terms of support and received product later than indicated in the contract, then Epic is going to have to settle or face a rather large payout. The whole intent thing is somewhat murky, and I'm not sure whether there will have to be proof of malicious intent to receive a judgement for SK (I'm not a lawyer, and I don't live in the States).
I would totally agree....if they can get others to sign on. However, there are currently more then a dozen developers working on the engine, and SK is the only one suing at this point. This I find interesting.
My guess is that SK has support on the quiet, and others are waiting to see what happens in the first few weeks of this coming to light. I cannot imagine that it is good for any developer to go up against a relative powerhouse like Epic who appears to have such power and pull (Microsoft, the shared publisher, falling over themselves for Gears of War, etc). It sounds like SK is trying to stick its neck out to encourage other UE3 developers to also voice their concerns, in the same way Dyack tried to push the whole "it is time for previews to change" issue.
I find it interesting that CliffyB has been quoted about the fact no one makes anything but shooters on the UE3 engine, and the only successful UE3 games we've seen in their entirety thus far are shooters. Those who are having issues have been smaller development companies trying to use the engine in a more flexible way, the exact same thing CliffyB has been publicly calling for. It sounds, however, like the more customisation required and the smaller your dev house, the less support you may have encountered from Epic.
I don't understand all the Silicon Knights hate here. Yeah, Dyack is a bit of a dork, but he's behind some of the best games in the business and if a lack of support from Epic is why I'm not playing Too Human right the Hell now then Epic deserves whatever happens.
This seems pretty open and shut - we've seen all of two Unreal Engine games as of the end of '06, those being Vegas and Gears of War.
Everything else so far either looks unfinished and choppy (Mass Effect) or so heavily tweaked it's practically a different engine altogether (Bioshock).
I hope SK takes Epic to the cleaners.
And I don't understand all the Silicon Knights love here either. They made a few mediocre turn-based strategy titles in the early 90s, an absolutely abhorrent FMV game, a buggy action RPG with horrendous load times that was totally eclipsed by its non-SK-developed sequels (Legacy of Kain), the one hit that they're actually really known for (Eternal Darkness), and a pretty if deeply flawed port of a then six year old game (Twin Snakes).
That's not exactly an illustrious career here.
Blood Omen 1 was a fantastic, fantastic game, and Twin Snakes was one of the greatest remakes of all time. Hence the love.
Not really. I'm not going to go into the specifics of why I think it sucks but the fact that it's divided a lot of fans over whether they like or dislike it, means that it's nowhere near being one of the greatest remakes of all time. Compare it to Resident Evil Rebirth, which is beloved by pretty much every RE fan, and it doesn't even compete.
Also, yeah I'd totally call Silicon Knights a pretty mediocre developer. I'll give them Blood Omen (since I haven't played it) but I really didn't like Eternal Darkness at all. The gameplay just felt so... robotic. Even Twin Snakes felt more 'robotic' than any of the other Metal Gears.
The RE1 remake was superior, yes, but Twin Snakes is still high up there with Mario All-Stars and Ninja Gaiden Sigma, IMO.
I would completely disagree. Ninja Gaiden Sigma improved upon the original release with a bunch of new features and awfully pretty graphics. Twin Snakes tried to improve upon the original release but ended up breaking it.
Metal Gear Solid was pretty much designed as a 2D game, nearly all the levels are flat planes and it works great with the originals gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 2 then came along and was designed as a 3D game, the levels weren't flat planes but had actual depth to them. But when you add the gameplay from MGS2 (3D game) into MGS1 (2D game), you just end up with a complete mess and it's shown by the games difficulty. Take the Blast Furnace for example, from where you start you can see (and shoot) every guy in the level and then just do whatever the hell you want.
Note that I'm not saying they should've just stuck with MGS1's gameplay, I'm saying that they should've redesigned a lot of MGS1's levels to take the new gameplay into account.
From where I'm standing, if SK manages to draw other developers to their side who are willing to back up their claims that smaller development houses were shut out in terms of support and received product later than indicated in the contract, then Epic is going to have to settle or face a rather large payout. The whole intent thing is somewhat murky, and I'm not sure whether there will have to be proof of malicious intent to receive a judgement for SK (I'm not a lawyer, and I don't live in the States).
I would totally agree....if they can get others to sign on. However, there are currently more then a dozen developers working on the engine, and SK is the only one suing at this point. This I find interesting.
But isn't this lawsuit, at most, a few days old? Not really enough time for anyone else to jump on board.
So has Gearbox chimed in on what they have to say, yet? Gearbox is still an indie developer, IIRC. And what with them using UE3 for Brothers in Arms 3 and what not hooby jooby.
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
edited July 2007
Does anyone here know the first fucking thing about what's going on here, or have any fucking clue how game development, lawsuits, or even a business works?
Goddammit you're just taking random guesses from a synopsis of a transcription that's only a portion of a single argument from one side of a trial that hasn't started yet!
Does anyone here know the first fucking thing about what's going on here, or have any fucking clue how game development, lawsuits, or even a business works?
Goddammit you're just taking random guesses from a synopsis of a transcription that's only a portion of a single argument from one side of a trial that hasn't started yet!
WELCOME...TO THE INTERNET!
FireWeasel on
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SirUltimosDon't talk, Rusty. Just paint.Registered Userregular
edited July 2007
I guess this would also explain why Dyack went insane when everyone said Too Human sucked and then praised Gears of War to the high heavens.
Does anyone here know the first fucking thing about what's going on here, or have any fucking clue how game development, lawsuits, or even a business works?
Goddammit you're just taking random guesses from a synopsis of a transcription that's only a portion of a single argument from one side of a trial that hasn't started yet!
Actually the entire lawsuit is up on the net in full. Not so much random guesses as accurate and supportable facts.
Does anyone here know the first fucking thing about what's going on here, or have any fucking clue how game development, lawsuits, or even a business works?
Goddammit you're just taking random guesses from a synopsis of a transcription that's only a portion of a single argument from one side of a trial that hasn't started yet!
Actually the entire lawsuit is up on the net in full. Not so much random guesses as accurate and supportable facts.
Right now the logic and deduction I'm seeing here is on par with the quote in your sig.
Does anyone here know the first fucking thing about what's going on here, or have any fucking clue how game development, lawsuits, or even a business works?
Goddammit you're just taking random guesses from a synopsis of a transcription that's only a portion of a single argument from one side of a trial that hasn't started yet!
Actually the entire lawsuit is up on the net in full. Not so much random guesses as accurate and supportable facts.
Right now the logic and deduction I'm seeing here is on par with the quote in your sig.
So are you going to grace us with your insightful commentary on the situation?
Does anyone here know the first fucking thing about what's going on here, or have any fucking clue how game development, lawsuits, or even a business works?
Goddammit you're just taking random guesses from a synopsis of a transcription that's only a portion of a single argument from one side of a trial that hasn't started yet!
Actually the entire lawsuit is up on the net in full. Not so much random guesses as accurate and supportable facts.
Right now the logic and deduction I'm seeing here is on par with the quote in your sig.
So are you going to grace us with your insightful commentary on the situation?
No, I'm going to tell you to "wait and see how this pans out".
I'm also going to let you play a fun game that's out right now, based on some cutting edge technology that was licensed from a third party:
No it isn't, we've known UE3 hasn't been running well on the PS3 since well before the PS3 was even launched. It was even announced at E3 that Sony has paid off Epic to get the engine working properly and to get UT3 as a timed exclusive.
However, it has nothing to do with this lawsuit. Too Human is being published by Microsoft, thus 360 exclusive.
No it isn't, we've known UE3 hasn't been running well on the PS3 since well before the PS3 was even launched. It was even announced at E3 that Sony has paid off Epic to get the engine working properly and to get UT3 as a timed exclusive.
However, it has nothing to do with this lawsuit. Too Human is being published by Microsoft, thus 360 exclusive.
SK is developing a PS3 game though, they haven't revealed the name.
No it isn't, we've known UE3 hasn't been running well on the PS3 since well before the PS3 was even launched. It was even announced at E3 that Sony has paid off Epic to get the engine working properly and to get UT3 as a timed exclusive.
However, it has nothing to do with this lawsuit. Too Human is being published by Microsoft, thus 360 exclusive.
SK is developing a PS3 game though, they haven't revealed the name.
Yeah but by the time it's released, Epic will have already fixed the PS3 version of UE3.
I don't understand all the Silicon Knights hate here. Yeah, Dyack is a bit of a dork, but he's behind some of the best games in the business and if a lack of support from Epic is why I'm not playing Too Human right the Hell now then Epic deserves whatever happens.
This seems pretty open and shut - we've seen all of two Unreal Engine games as of the end of '06, those being Vegas and Gears of War.
Everything else so far either looks unfinished and choppy (Mass Effect) or so heavily tweaked it's practically a different engine altogether (Bioshock).
I hope SK takes Epic to the cleaners.
And I don't understand all the Silicon Knights love here either. They made a few mediocre turn-based strategy titles in the early 90s, an absolutely abhorrent FMV game, a buggy action RPG with horrendous load times that was totally eclipsed by its non-SK-developed sequels (Legacy of Kain), the one hit that they're actually really known for (Eternal Darkness), and a pretty if deeply flawed port of a then six year old game (Twin Snakes).
That's not exactly an illustrious career here.
Blood Omen 1 was a fantastic, fantastic game, and Twin Snakes was one of the greatest remakes of all time. Hence the love.
Not really. I'm not going to go into the specifics of why I think it sucks but the fact that it's divided a lot of fans over whether they like or dislike it, means that it's nowhere near being one of the greatest remakes of all time. Compare it to Resident Evil Rebirth, which is beloved by pretty much every RE fan, and it doesn't even compete.
Also, yeah I'd totally call Silicon Knights a pretty mediocre developer. I'll give them Blood Omen (since I haven't played it) but I really didn't like Eternal Darkness at all. The gameplay just felt so... robotic. Even Twin Snakes felt more 'robotic' than any of the other Metal Gears.
The RE1 remake was superior, yes, but Twin Snakes is still high up there with Mario All-Stars and Ninja Gaiden Sigma, IMO.
I would completely disagree. Ninja Gaiden Sigma improved upon the original release with a bunch of new features and awfully pretty graphics. Twin Snakes tried to improve upon the original release but ended up breaking it.
Metal Gear Solid was pretty much designed as a 2D game, nearly all the levels are flat planes and it works great with the originals gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 2 then came along and was designed as a 3D game, the levels weren't flat planes but had actual depth to them. But when you add the gameplay from MGS2 (3D game) into MGS1 (2D game), you just end up with a complete mess and it's shown by the games difficulty. Take the Blast Furnace for example, from where you start you can see (and shoot) every guy in the level and then just do whatever the hell you want.
Note that I'm not saying they should've just stuck with MGS1's gameplay, I'm saying that they should've redesigned a lot of MGS1's levels to take the new gameplay into account.
Okay. Ummm... What the hell are you talking about?
Twin Snakes = GCN remake of Metal Gear Solid 1, right?
I thought the game controlled beautifully and played great. And YES I've played the original, and YES I prefer Twin Snakes over the others. As do all of my friends.
If Epic screwed the pooch on supporting things the way the contract supposedly reads, they've got some case. What gets me is, they're also suing because Epic makes video games as well, not just an engine, and they (the creators of the engine) were able to make games and release them before they could release theirs?
HELLO MAKE YOUR OWN ENGINE THEN IF YOU WANT TO HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.
Epic made the engine, they can do whatever they want with it, even create competing products. They didn't create the engine to JUST hand it out for a fee. It's just added to the whole business they do of creating games.
So why this is tacked on seems like their case is "epic did it on purpose, cuz our game would have sold more than theirs, but they sabotaged us!"
If Epic screwed the pooch on supporting things the way the contract supposedly reads, they've got some case. What gets me is, they're also suing because Epic makes video games as well, not just an engine, and they (the creators of the engine) were able to make games and release them before they could release theirs?
HELLO MAKE YOUR OWN ENGINE THEN IF YOU WANT TO HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.
Epic made the engine, they can do whatever they want with it, even create competing products. They didn't create the engine to JUST hand it out for a fee. It's just added to the whole business they do of creating games.
So why this is tacked on seems like their case is "epic did it on purpose, cuz our game would have sold more than theirs, but they sabotaged us!"
Retarded basically.
Though you have a point, if you read the article posted on page one... it says that there was a deadline to give the engine code, and Epic did not meet that deadline... and gave no word whether or not they were actually going to go through with it.
So SK paid 75k to Epic to get an engine... waited x number of months... (delaying the game longer than before)... and still ended up having to write their own engine.
If they would have talked/did something within the deadline, I'm sure they wouldn't be in this predicament.
urahonky on
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PharezonStruggle is an illusion.Victory is in the Qun.Registered Userregular
If Epic screwed the pooch on supporting things the way the contract supposedly reads, they've got some case. What gets me is, they're also suing because Epic makes video games as well, not just an engine, and they (the creators of the engine) were able to make games and release them before they could release theirs?
HELLO MAKE YOUR OWN ENGINE THEN IF YOU WANT TO HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.
Epic made the engine, they can do whatever they want with it, even create competing products. They didn't create the engine to JUST hand it out for a fee. It's just added to the whole business they do of creating games.
So why this is tacked on seems like their case is "epic did it on purpose, cuz our game would have sold more than theirs, but they sabotaged us!"
Retarded basically.
Though you have a point, if you read the article posted on page one... it says that there was a deadline to give the engine code, and Epic did not meet that deadline... and gave no word whether or not they were actually going to go through with it.
So SK paid 75k to Epic to get an engine... waited x number of months... (delaying the game longer than before)... and still ended up having to write their own engine.
If they would have talked/did something within the deadline, I'm sure they wouldn't be in this predicament.
Epic or SK? Reading through the all the info it looks like SK thought this through and has an actual case rather than "WTF I SUCK AT THIS GIVE ME MONEY WAHHHH!".
If Epic screwed the pooch on supporting things the way the contract supposedly reads, they've got some case. What gets me is, they're also suing because Epic makes video games as well, not just an engine, and they (the creators of the engine) were able to make games and release them before they could release theirs?
HELLO MAKE YOUR OWN ENGINE THEN IF YOU WANT TO HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.
Epic made the engine, they can do whatever they want with it, even create competing products. They didn't create the engine to JUST hand it out for a fee. It's just added to the whole business they do of creating games.
So why this is tacked on seems like their case is "epic did it on purpose, cuz our game would have sold more than theirs, but they sabotaged us!"
Retarded basically.
Though you have a point, if you read the article posted on page one... it says that there was a deadline to give the engine code, and Epic did not meet that deadline... and gave no word whether or not they were actually going to go through with it.
So SK paid 75k to Epic to get an engine... waited x number of months... (delaying the game longer than before)... and still ended up having to write their own engine.
If they would have talked/did something within the deadline, I'm sure they wouldn't be in this predicament.
Epic or SK? Reading through the all the info it looks like SK thought this through and has an actual case rather than "WTF I SUCK AT THIS GIVE ME MONEY WAHHHH!".
If Epic would have talked with SK, is what I meant.
I don't understand all the Silicon Knights hate here. Yeah, Dyack is a bit of a dork, but he's behind some of the best games in the business and if a lack of support from Epic is why I'm not playing Too Human right the Hell now then Epic deserves whatever happens.
This seems pretty open and shut - we've seen all of two Unreal Engine games as of the end of '06, those being Vegas and Gears of War.
Everything else so far either looks unfinished and choppy (Mass Effect) or so heavily tweaked it's practically a different engine altogether (Bioshock).
I hope SK takes Epic to the cleaners.
And I don't understand all the Silicon Knights love here either. They made a few mediocre turn-based strategy titles in the early 90s, an absolutely abhorrent FMV game, a buggy action RPG with horrendous load times that was totally eclipsed by its non-SK-developed sequels (Legacy of Kain), the one hit that they're actually really known for (Eternal Darkness), and a pretty if deeply flawed port of a then six year old game (Twin Snakes).
That's not exactly an illustrious career here.
Blood Omen 1 was a fantastic, fantastic game, and Twin Snakes was one of the greatest remakes of all time. Hence the love.
Not really. I'm not going to go into the specifics of why I think it sucks but the fact that it's divided a lot of fans over whether they like or dislike it, means that it's nowhere near being one of the greatest remakes of all time. Compare it to Resident Evil Rebirth, which is beloved by pretty much every RE fan, and it doesn't even compete.
Also, yeah I'd totally call Silicon Knights a pretty mediocre developer. I'll give them Blood Omen (since I haven't played it) but I really didn't like Eternal Darkness at all. The gameplay just felt so... robotic. Even Twin Snakes felt more 'robotic' than any of the other Metal Gears.
The RE1 remake was superior, yes, but Twin Snakes is still high up there with Mario All-Stars and Ninja Gaiden Sigma, IMO.
I would completely disagree. Ninja Gaiden Sigma improved upon the original release with a bunch of new features and awfully pretty graphics. Twin Snakes tried to improve upon the original release but ended up breaking it.
Metal Gear Solid was pretty much designed as a 2D game, nearly all the levels are flat planes and it works great with the originals gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 2 then came along and was designed as a 3D game, the levels weren't flat planes but had actual depth to them. But when you add the gameplay from MGS2 (3D game) into MGS1 (2D game), you just end up with a complete mess and it's shown by the games difficulty. Take the Blast Furnace for example, from where you start you can see (and shoot) every guy in the level and then just do whatever the hell you want.
Note that I'm not saying they should've just stuck with MGS1's gameplay, I'm saying that they should've redesigned a lot of MGS1's levels to take the new gameplay into account.
Okay. Ummm... What the hell are you talking about?
Twin Snakes = GCN remake of Metal Gear Solid 1, right?
I thought the game controlled beautifully and played great. And YES I've played the original, and YES I prefer Twin Snakes over the others. As do all of my friends.
I never said no-one liked it, I was stating why I (and a lot of other people) didn't like it. So, what's your point again?
Mark Rein himself has said so many things about the amount of support Epic gives its licensees. The UDN isn't everything - if licensees have questions about low-level code they can directly ask Tim Sweeney, if they've got questions about AI they can ask Steven Polge, and so on and so forth - as much was directly stated in one of the interviews he did a while back.
Now, if people are getting pissed because the PS3 version's not fully optimised yet, well. Of course it's not fully optimised yet, they're still working on UT3 for PS3 right now, aren't they? I don't really see the problem here - it's not like they get nothing while Epic work. Full UDN access means full access to the builds that Sweeney's engine team checks in, and even if that were lacking, if you were a licensee you'd have access to the man himself.
Besides, PS3 optimisations aside, the toolkit is first-class in every sense of the word - and I very much doubt that unfinished PS3 optimisations would have much influence on the art side of the aisle, which is increasingly more and more of the work. To be sure the engine's overhead will have an impact on your polygon budget, but that's not going to stop you from creating your high-res models for normal map generation in the interim.
Mark Rein himself has said so many things about the amount of support Epic gives its licensees. The UDN isn't everything - if licensees have questions about low-level code they can directly ask Tim Sweeney, if they've got questions about AI they can ask Steven Polge, and so on and so forth - as much was directly stated in one of the interviews he did a while back.
Now, if people are getting pissed because the PS3 version's not fully optimised yet, well. Of course it's not fully optimised yet, they're still working on UT3 for PS3 right now, aren't they? I don't really see the problem here - it's not like they get nothing while Epic work. Full UDN access means full access to the builds that Sweeney's engine team checks in, and even if that were lacking, if you were a licensee you'd have access to the man himself.
Besides, PS3 optimisations aside, the toolkit is first-class in every sense of the word - and I very much doubt that unfinished PS3 optimisations would have much influence on the art side of the aisle, which is increasingly more and more of the work. To be sure the engine's overhead will have an impact on your polygon budget, but that's not going to stop you from creating your high-res models for normal map generation in the interim.
tl;dr: I can't believe this.
Well that's the problem, isn't it. All that stuff they promised? SK is saying that's not what they delivered.
Yes, we know they promised it. Now it's up to the court to decide if they delivered upon that promise to SK.
Death of Rats on
No I don't.
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PharezonStruggle is an illusion.Victory is in the Qun.Registered Userregular
edited July 2007
Hmm apparently the Too Human being shown at E306 was an Unreal placeholder and that Epic delivered a fully functional engine to them in November of that year instead of March of that year.
What Mark Rein says should always be taken with a grain of salt or maybe in this case a large container.
Well that's the problem, isn't it. All that stuff they promised? SK is saying that's not what they delivered.
Yes, we know they promised it. Now it's up to the court to decide if they delivered upon that promise to SK.
The thing is, why hasn't anyone else complained? There are so many Epic licensees out there - Squeenix, Ubisoft, and Midway to name but a few. Either a) there's a gag rule in place, or b) there's something off about SK. My money's on the latter, personally - Midway moved all of its studios to UE3 and is working on multi-platform UE3 titles like Stranglehold, and yet we haven't heard a peep from them regarding engine difficulties.
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My guess is that SK has support on the quiet, and others are waiting to see what happens in the first few weeks of this coming to light. I cannot imagine that it is good for any developer to go up against a relative powerhouse like Epic who appears to have such power and pull (Microsoft, the shared publisher, falling over themselves for Gears of War, etc). It sounds like SK is trying to stick its neck out to encourage other UE3 developers to also voice their concerns, in the same way Dyack tried to push the whole "it is time for previews to change" issue.
I find it interesting that CliffyB has been quoted about the fact no one makes anything but shooters on the UE3 engine, and the only successful UE3 games we've seen in their entirety thus far are shooters. Those who are having issues have been smaller development companies trying to use the engine in a more flexible way, the exact same thing CliffyB has been publicly calling for. It sounds, however, like the more customisation required and the smaller your dev house, the less support you may have encountered from Epic.
I would completely disagree. Ninja Gaiden Sigma improved upon the original release with a bunch of new features and awfully pretty graphics. Twin Snakes tried to improve upon the original release but ended up breaking it.
Metal Gear Solid was pretty much designed as a 2D game, nearly all the levels are flat planes and it works great with the originals gameplay. Metal Gear Solid 2 then came along and was designed as a 3D game, the levels weren't flat planes but had actual depth to them. But when you add the gameplay from MGS2 (3D game) into MGS1 (2D game), you just end up with a complete mess and it's shown by the games difficulty. Take the Blast Furnace for example, from where you start you can see (and shoot) every guy in the level and then just do whatever the hell you want.
Note that I'm not saying they should've just stuck with MGS1's gameplay, I'm saying that they should've redesigned a lot of MGS1's levels to take the new gameplay into account.
But isn't this lawsuit, at most, a few days old? Not really enough time for anyone else to jump on board.
No matter what it should be fun to read about on message boards.
Two letters.
Silicone Nights.
Silicone Nights
SeXbox
PMS3
Cockstar
pD
Vulvae
Jizzard
who else
Goddammit you're just taking random guesses from a synopsis of a transcription that's only a portion of a single argument from one side of a trial that hasn't started yet!
WELCOME...TO THE INTERNET!
I thought people were like "OLOL BAD ASS NORSE MYTHOLOGY THIS SHIT IS OOZING WITH CHARACTER"
Yes! Sucked! Past tense! Because it's already out and you've played it.
papermario-goonmessageboardsandreviewgamesthathaven'tcomeoutyet.jpg
Yes, but I forgot the link and didn't remember what thread it was in.
Actually the entire lawsuit is up on the net in full. Not so much random guesses as accurate and supportable facts.
Right now the logic and deduction I'm seeing here is on par with the quote in your sig.
So are you going to grace us with your insightful commentary on the situation?
No, I'm going to tell you to "wait and see how this pans out".
I'm also going to let you play a fun game that's out right now, based on some cutting edge technology that was licensed from a third party:
Some thing new.
Damn you conclusions board.
You can discuss what might happen if X is true without saying that on side is wrong.
No it isn't, we've known UE3 hasn't been running well on the PS3 since well before the PS3 was even launched. It was even announced at E3 that Sony has paid off Epic to get the engine working properly and to get UT3 as a timed exclusive.
However, it has nothing to do with this lawsuit. Too Human is being published by Microsoft, thus 360 exclusive.
SK is developing a PS3 game though, they haven't revealed the name.
Yeah but by the time it's released, Epic will have already fixed the PS3 version of UE3.
Okay. Ummm... What the hell are you talking about?
Twin Snakes = GCN remake of Metal Gear Solid 1, right?
I thought the game controlled beautifully and played great. And YES I've played the original, and YES I prefer Twin Snakes over the others. As do all of my friends.
HELLO MAKE YOUR OWN ENGINE THEN IF YOU WANT TO HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.
Epic made the engine, they can do whatever they want with it, even create competing products. They didn't create the engine to JUST hand it out for a fee. It's just added to the whole business they do of creating games.
So why this is tacked on seems like their case is "epic did it on purpose, cuz our game would have sold more than theirs, but they sabotaged us!"
Retarded basically.
Click image for my huge backlog
Though you have a point, if you read the article posted on page one... it says that there was a deadline to give the engine code, and Epic did not meet that deadline... and gave no word whether or not they were actually going to go through with it.
So SK paid 75k to Epic to get an engine... waited x number of months... (delaying the game longer than before)... and still ended up having to write their own engine.
If they would have talked/did something within the deadline, I'm sure they wouldn't be in this predicament.
Epic or SK? Reading through the all the info it looks like SK thought this through and has an actual case rather than "WTF I SUCK AT THIS GIVE ME MONEY WAHHHH!".
If Epic would have talked with SK, is what I meant.
I never said no-one liked it, I was stating why I (and a lot of other people) didn't like it. So, what's your point again?
Mark Rein himself has said so many things about the amount of support Epic gives its licensees. The UDN isn't everything - if licensees have questions about low-level code they can directly ask Tim Sweeney, if they've got questions about AI they can ask Steven Polge, and so on and so forth - as much was directly stated in one of the interviews he did a while back.
Now, if people are getting pissed because the PS3 version's not fully optimised yet, well. Of course it's not fully optimised yet, they're still working on UT3 for PS3 right now, aren't they? I don't really see the problem here - it's not like they get nothing while Epic work. Full UDN access means full access to the builds that Sweeney's engine team checks in, and even if that were lacking, if you were a licensee you'd have access to the man himself.
Besides, PS3 optimisations aside, the toolkit is first-class in every sense of the word - and I very much doubt that unfinished PS3 optimisations would have much influence on the art side of the aisle, which is increasingly more and more of the work. To be sure the engine's overhead will have an impact on your polygon budget, but that's not going to stop you from creating your high-res models for normal map generation in the interim.
tl;dr: I can't believe this.
Well that's the problem, isn't it. All that stuff they promised? SK is saying that's not what they delivered.
Yes, we know they promised it. Now it's up to the court to decide if they delivered upon that promise to SK.
What Mark Rein says should always be taken with a grain of salt or maybe in this case a large container.