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Too Human might be done for, Epic Countersuit
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Isn't that saying that both are right and both should win their cases in court? SK is supposedly sueing to recoup expenses from a faulty engine/house. And Epic is sueing because SK wants to keep the engine/house.
But the truth is at least a large portion of one or both of these lawsuits is probably bullshit.
I hope the game turns out good but the trailer "smoulders with generic rage" and doesn't really instil with me the feeling that SK are very capable. I'll put money on what someone else said earlier - they're just whiners.
So then if I just copy a little bit of their engine I shouldn't have to pay anything is what your saying?
Its a pretty big mistake to say fuck you guys it was shit I am just going to use a little bit of your engine with this totally awesome NEW engine we built (which curiously relies on using portions of the UE3 engine). If that portion of the engine wasn't important, why wouldn't they have just removed it completely. We obviously don't have all the facts, my gut feeling is that the disclaimer sent along with the engine will protect Epic from the 1 billion that SK is seeking.
If an engine is unusable its managements responsibility to figure that out in a reasonable time, I understand this doesn't happen instantaneously, yet at some point enough should be enough. Why didn't they scrap it earlier? Your telling me it takes over a year to figure out you cannot manipulate your engine?
On another note. I understand that Too Human was going to gross 1 billion dollars in sales if it hadn't been torpeoed by Epic who purposefully didn't help, to boost their own sales. Why not sue for the amount of money wasted on development (80 mill to 100 mill), are they essentially saying we need the 1 billion because this game cannot be a success now?
I joked about this in the previous lawsuit thread, but when I read the claim, their logic comes down to this:
1. They want Epic to disgorge (God, I love that word) all profits from Gears of War, because
2. They built GoW on the profits of sales of the U3 game engine, which
3. doesn't work, so all buyers of the U3 engine were really investors in Gears of War, and thus
4. are entitled to share in GoW's profits.
This argument is obviously weak and, as pointed out by other posters, is probably designed more as a scare tactic than anything else.
Oh, I agree. But beware that people are going to call you out on taking the conversation into a rather silly fanboyish direction. That's part of the flow of conversation too.
No, it's more like, Someone gives me a recipe for a pie for a bake off. I try to make the pie, and my stove explodes. I ask them for the help they agreed to give me when I bought the recipe from them, and they tell me "Whatever fucker, maybe next month". So I drudge on, trying to make it work.
Meanwhile, I notice them going to the big potluck at work, and showing off their delicious, yummy pies. Now, right before the potluck, the pie maker sent me an important update to the recipe -- "Make sure to add 3 pounds of chilli." Me, trusting the pie maker, along with several other people who bought the recipie, add the chilli, which makes the resulting pie even MORE disgusting than before.
The potluck arrives, everyone loves the pie maker's pies, and the pie maker is given an award for best dessert. Meanwhile, I'm made a laughing stock for bringing in an chilli flavored charcoal brick.
So I say fuckit, and me, not being an idiot, start to replace their instructions like "make sure to stir the cement properly" with "add eggs". After working on it for weeks, I have my own pie recipe that I'm quite proud of. Around that time I get sick and tired of them going "Oh, mmm, god our pie's good. Oh hey, you should try some. Oh, um, still figuring out that recipe eh? Well, let me get back to you next week", so I tell them to fuck off.
Having realized I just spent a whole shitload of money on a worthless pie recipe, I take them to court for my money back, and more, just cause they're dicks who made money using the money I gave them when they scammed me.
Then the original pie maker demands I give up my pie recipe because I stopped using their cement laden deathpie recipe, and cooked my own. "They're both pie recipes," the scam artist exclaims, "So obviously they used ours as a base, so we own it."
Nevermind that the only thing I'm still using from the original recipe is "take pan out of cupboard."
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There's little difference between directions and code. At least, a shrewd lawyer could make the case for that. All code is, ultimately, is directions for a computer to do things after all.
Pie tins? Epic Megahomes?
SK's suit against Epic is like Epic sold SK a book with the promise that it would show up on a certain date. But it showed up a month later, was missing chapters and was on fire.
Epic's suit against SK is like SK decided to take the first chapter of that book and then write the rest of the book based off of that. Then they decided they wanted to get the book published.
After the bullshit Dyack pulled on 1up Yours, and his general attitude of the whole E3 preview debacle, I hope he loses this lawsuit. I know that's harsh but that's how I really feel.. I don't know why though. Probably because he came off as this major, uber asshole and he's dug him, and his company, in a hole. Now he's trying to pull some bullshit to pull himself out.
What a dick.
I don't know, just wondering what others think.
If not than they shouldn't be able to sue SK unless SK tries to sell their rebuilt UE3 engine to other parties.
SK is basically suing for "damage", since they claim they had to waste money (time = money) making the thing work without help from Epic.
A counter-suit, as has been said many times, is par for the course in these things. There's ALWAYS a counter-suit.
Irrational Games isn't selling their Bioshock engine to Sega. That's the issue Epic is taking with Silicon Knights.
Irrational has paid Epic for the UE3 engine and are only using it in Irrational games.
I thought Silicon Knights was developing the new game along side Sega and weren't actually selling them the engine.
But they are using their engine, basically Epic's engine in a way they didn't pay to use it. I guess that's the idea anyway. Out of curiosity I just went and watched the E307 trailer for Too Human. That's what this is about? The animation was terrible, and robo grendel wasn't particularly menacing. Did we really need anouther fight scene where a guy runs up a wall and flips over the bad guy slicing him with his sword? And the slowmo dualies shooting the red flying thingies looked pretty horrible.
I wonder if they would be allowed to use it on the new game they are working on if they payed Epic a new license fee for UE3. I think they could.
And that trailer was terrible. The stuff from the previous E3 actually looked pretty damn cool considering the game was suppose to be a year from release. The FPS was complete garbage and the demo repeatedly crashed on journalists, though.
Doesn't the license agreement say that SK would use the UE3 for a number of their future games? Wouldn't that also include a game that they are developing with the help of Sega?
Well now I can see why Epic would be a little pissed about that. But if SK follows through and takes out all Epic code and finishes the implementation of whatever is left, does that arguement still hold? Either way I find the whole thing mildly entertaining; kinda like two third graders getting into a spazzy slap fight.
Epic may have been assholes about the whole thing (for the sake of argument; I don't know if they were) but if it wasn't in the contract it really doesn't matter. If SK has any UE3 material in their engine that they are sharing Epic could very well take them to the cleaners.
It boils down to what’s in print; at the moment we simply don’t have the necessary facts.
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I'm amazed SK's lawyers didn't bitchslap whoever thought that was a good idea. Their engine is derived from UE3. Unless their license agreement allows derivate works, they're fucked.
Come again?
;-)
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Is this someting that could put SK out of business, seeing as Too Human is like the only game they're working on?
I guess what I'm really asking is, is there a chance for ED2?
I think Nintendo as the publisher probably own the IP to ED. Can't be sure though but you can probably look it up somewhere.
edit - Oh, Eternal Darkness.
No, they have their project with Sega, which nobody has even seen a tiniest bit of info other than they're making it with Sega.
I agree. So much so that I decided to crunch some numbers to see what kind of hole they are in:
Gears of War is currently the best selling game on the 360, at 3.7 million copies. Assuming the developer gets 20% of the royalties (at least, that's what Wiki says), Too Human would have to sell 8.3 million copies just to break even.
I understand they are planning on a trilogy, but needing three Gears of War-level hits just to stay afloat is not a tenable position. Given that Silicon Knights have moved development from Playstation to Gamecube to 360, if they fail I don't think you can put the blame solely at the feet of Epic's tech support.