Epic Games is being sued by Too Human developer Silicon Knights. Silicon Knights is alleging that Epic Games, "intentionally and wrongfully has used the fees from those [Unreal Engine 3] licenses to launch its own game to widespread commercial success while simultaneously sabotaging efforts by Silicon Knights."
Yikes, strong words. Silicon Knights was planning to use the Unreal Engine 3 in their upcoming action title, Too Human, but didn’t receive the proper version of the engine to incorporate it into the game’s development.
As a result, Silicon Knights abandoned use of the engine for their own in-house engine. Looks like the suit goes several steps further too.
The lawsuit alleges that Epic Games favors its own titles over any of its licensees, even to the point where they offer little or no support. "Epic has attempted to avoid its obligations under the Agreement by representing to Silicon Knights… and that Epic therefore need not provide them to any of its licensees, including Silicon Knights."
The suit also alleges that there are other developers who have been affected by this poor support. "Upon information and belief other game developers have been faced with a similar dilemma as Silicon Knights."
Denis Dyack, President and Founder of Silicon Knights, said, "We stand behind everything in our complaint and believe it is highly unfortunate that Epic forced us into this situation. We would rather spend our time focusing on making great games, but as stated in our complaint, Epic simply refuses to acknowledge the inadequacies of the Unreal Engine 3 code it provides to its licensees, and refuses to accept the fact that its code has caused serious damage not only to Silicon Knights, but a number of other developers in the industry. We look forward to successful resolution of our claims in this court proceeding."
[Via Gamasutra]
