Silicon Knights is on a mission to expose Unreal Engine maker Epic Games' "misconduct." During the holiday break, the developer behind Too Human suffered a slight setback when a judge granted a motion to exclude testimony from financial analyst Terry Lloyd, who was being leveraged to provide an expert opinion about the damages sought. In an email to IndustryGamers, however, Silicon Knights played down the court motion and said it's looking forward to making sure the "voluminous evidence" against Epic is heard by the jury.
The response from Silicon Knights was as follows:
Denis Dyack says, “Terry Lloyd being excluded from testifying at trial is really one of the few rulings that Epic can say went their way."
While we are certainly disappointed that the Court decided that Mr. Lloyd’s testimony on damages was not appropriate for trial, we look forward to putting on evidence of the damage that Unreal Engine 3 caused to Silicon Knights, which was substantial and very tangible. For those not familiar with the legal process, it is important to understand that the jury decides damages and will hear evidence from many people and see many case documents. Mr. Lloyd’s testimony was only one piece.
It remains an inescapable fact that Epic is going to trial for Fraud, Unfair Competition, Deceptive Trade Practices, Breach of Warranty, and Breach of Contract, and the voluminous evidence of Epic’s wrongdoing will be heard by the jury.
We also think it is important that the full extent of the rulings in the case be known: Epic filed over 20 separate motions to exclude essentially every aspect of the voluminous evidence against them, including all of Silicon Knights’ expert witnesses (beyond Mr. Lloyd) and all of the third-party information regarding Unreal Engine 3. Other than this one ruling on Mr. Lloyd, they were not successful.
Silicon Knights has patiently waited for five years for this trial and is looking forward to Epic’s misconduct finally being aired in the light of day. We are glad that there was such interest from the press during the holidays, as this case is important for the video games industry. It is a classic struggle between a small and a large company and something that should be covered factually and accurately. We look forward to the facts being brought into the public eye so that everyone can finally understand what truly happened to Silicon Knights and others who licensed the Unreal Engine 3 from Epic Games.
For those of you who haven't been following the case, Silicon Knights essentially accused Epic of not providing proper Unreal Engine support to the developer during Too Human's development, choosing instead to move company resources towards the development of Gears of War.
