GC: Dyack confident "justice will be done" in Unreal suit

First!

Not such a great story to be first on :/

Strange story,

how did they get the technology is they didn't pay for it? I assumed they'd paid for it but then epic wasn't keeping it's end of the bargin and offering them support.

From what I've heard Too Human is shaping up to be pretty shit. Supposedly it's trying too hard to be stylish but the cut-scenes end up being 10 minute long animation cringe fests. Or as my friend put it ... "nobody told them bullet time went out of fashion". We shall see I guess.

I think the counter suit - which sounds pretty childish in it's reasons - won't really get heard in court. It just sounds like a tantrum from Epic and is almost embarassing to the company, if someone did that in any other business they'd probably be fired or go bankrupt or something. If someone is suing you, a counter-suit must be balanced, not just be, "They just want our product for free!". Reasons, justification, and balance. Counter-suit so far has none of the aforementioned things... there may be some level of personal pride in the counter-suit, but just ask Sony how much pride costs these days after the Dual Shock thing...

As for SK's suit, who can say. It depends on what is considered a reasonable level of product support I suppose, and whether or not Epic lived up to the minimum considered requirements. This is mostly lose-lose for Epic, because if they meet up to minimum requirements, they'll be seen as not going that extra mile, and if they lose the case, it's going to show they don't provide enough after-sales support. Epic have to prove quite considerable malice on SK's part to escape this situation. SK pretty much has Epic by the delicates on this one and it'll be interesting to see how it develops (no pun intended) in the months to come.

However, in the end, the engine fiasco is a cop-out. If Too Human is badly designed, badly scripted and poorly produced, that's SK's fault, not Epic's, and in no way will any court case be able to prove otherwise.

What odds this will be settled out of court? If I didn't know better, I'd say they were all just filing suits for a bit of free publicity...

Pirotic - Eternal Darkness was absolutely fan-fucking-tastic, so I continue to have reasonably high hopes for Too Human.

@Pirotic

"Or as my friend put it ... "nobody told them bullet time went out of fashion".

Tell your friend to try Stranglehold.

@PlugMonkey

I'll second that, Eternal Darkness kicked ass.

I call for a general boycot of Silican Knights and Too Human, cos they are really starting to piss me off now!

EDIT:
"I think the counter suit - which sounds pretty childish in it's reasons - won't really get heard in court. It just sounds like a tantrum from Epic and is almost embarassing to the company"

You what!!! Where else do you think SK managed to pull a complete engine from? their arses!!! Let see who do i believe more? Epic who have made a great engine that has been in use for a god 2 years now and accounts for a large perportion of the games on the 360 or Silicone Knights who have been trying to make the same game now for over 10 years!!!!!

And who am I going to listen to? You, a random forumite, or Silicon Knights, developers of one of the best games of the last 10 years?

Moz, thing is - you can have a fucking awesome product but if you don't provide the right after-sales support, it's as good as worthless. It's like buying an X-Box 360, Wii or PS3 and then being fobbed off when something doesn't work right. You'd be pretty pissed off, right? Well, this engine must've cost more than a pretty penny for SK. If they're not getting the right after-sales support, don't they have a right to be pretty pissed off too? The two things aren't dissimilar, and it applies to most electronic and digital goods today.

So, let's go back to the console example. Say, your PS3 breaks down after three months (outside normal store-returns policies). Sony refuses to acknowledge the problem and you file a civil claim, quite rightly, because they're not providing a suffient level of warranty care. Now, let's say Sony decided to counter-claim on the grounds that all you want is a free PS3 and that your claim is worthless. Or perhaps we can go to software side - say you had Windows XP. XP goes wrong, you call a hotline and they tell you they no longer support the product and tell you to buy Vista to resume after-sales support. You'd be pretty pissed, so again, a civil suit isn't beyond the realms of comprehension (after all, you just want your version of XP to work, right?) and then you're accused by MS of wanting a free version of Vista - despite you just wanting what you paid for.

Do you see where I am coming from now? SK paid for the engine, but without the support, it's a waste of money. Why should you, or any person or company, put up with this kind of thing? Epic can have the benefit of the doubt but it's not just SK that have vented - there have been over development teams quietly muttering about the support they've been getting, and Epic's retaliation saying SK just want to freeload is remarkably groundless if they've already taken SK's money, or signed up to get a share of sales profits. If SK don't think they're getting the right kind of support for it then they're more than entitled to file a claim in the courts to recoup money they may have lost, or been overcharged for after-sales service, or to fight any legal agreements they may have made.

This is all legal technicalities really. It's got nothing to do with Too Human, and as I said - the engine will be no excuse for bad design, poor execution, bad scripting, bad gameplay, bad music or anything else along those lines. On that, the blame will lie solely and squarely with Silicon Knights, and there will be no excuses. This whole legal drama is a sideshow.

The contract (probably most of the contracts) stated Epic would deliver on their promises 6 months after each consoles launch (PS3 and 360).

Time certainly was of the essence and dates agreed.

Epic did not deliver on time, on all counts. The engine also under delivers on features that were promised (number of lights, characters at X polygons etc).

Which has pissed more than SK off, just look how many UE3 games have been pushed back.

It's worth remembering that developers often pay for the engine with a fee upfront and then a percentage of royalties.

SK are probably threatening to withhold Epic's part of teh royalties on the game for lack of support. Most likely an advertised feature didn't work in some respect and SK feel they've been conned.

I wouldn't want ot be the judge on this one.

It was the Specular Highlighting in the art department with the candlestick M'lord!

Moz: You made me laugh.

ROFL and all.

Tell your friend to try Stranglehold.

Did. Left me underwhelmed for something that is supposed to be the biggest thing this generation (according to them). Not a bad game mind you. It just doesn't do anything that impresses.

Had Dyack still not sobered up from the few sherrys he had yesterday ?

What with his idiot suggestion of a unified console, and now this "here, watch me dig myself a deep hole" spiel here, this man need to be gagged for the sake of the game at least.

He may have gone on record to say that the claim of "take Epic's licensed technology, pay nothing for it, and use it any way it pleases" absolutely will not affect the release of too Human, but he didn't deny it did he ?

The sooner this guy throws himself on his sword the better.