Back in May, a court case between Epic Games and Silicon
Knights began. The two took issue with a
breach of contract, and who exactly breached what. Silicon Knights
believed they should be awarded compensation, while Epic believed Silicon
Knights infringed on Epic's own Unreal Engine 3 copyrights. The court case
ended swiftly with Epic winning and Silicon Knights
expected to pay a little under $5 million.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the story. Now the post-trial ruling has increased the payment to $9 million. This doubling of fees is only the half of it though. The court ruled that Silicon Knights must also destroy their unsold games which used Unreal Engine 3, as well as code for unfinished titles. They have until December 10th to go through with this. They must also never again use Epic technology in a product.
What games are impacted by this ruling? Too Human and X-Men Destiny are the finished products which must now be destroyed. Unsold copies must be recalled as well, so buy these soon if you were waiting on purchasing. As for code, three unannounced games are getting infringing code ripped out of them. These titles are The Box/Ritualyst, The Sandman, and Siren in the Malestrom. In order to be sure Silicon Knights has taken all the Epic-related features out of their engine, Epic is given access to look over all of Silicon Knight's computers and data for verification.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the story. Now the post-trial ruling has increased the payment to $9 million. This doubling of fees is only the half of it though. The court ruled that Silicon Knights must also destroy their unsold games which used Unreal Engine 3, as well as code for unfinished titles. They have until December 10th to go through with this. They must also never again use Epic technology in a product.
What games are impacted by this ruling? Too Human and X-Men Destiny are the finished products which must now be destroyed. Unsold copies must be recalled as well, so buy these soon if you were waiting on purchasing. As for code, three unannounced games are getting infringing code ripped out of them. These titles are The Box/Ritualyst, The Sandman, and Siren in the Malestrom. In order to be sure Silicon Knights has taken all the Epic-related features out of their engine, Epic is given access to look over all of Silicon Knight's computers and data for verification.
