Silicon Knights ordered to destroy unsold copies of all Unreal Engine games
Earlier this year Silicon Knights lost a legal battle with Epic Games over a breach of its Unreal Engine license agreement, and the disclosure of Epic's trade secrets. A newly-discovered document from the case shows that the ruling has forced Silicon Knights to recall and destroy every unsold copy of Too Human, X-Men: Destiny and other games made in Unreal, entirely the developer's expense. Get the details below.
Eurogamer reports that a legal document has surfaced online that discloses the terms of the legal battle between Silicon Knights and Epic Games. The case took place in May and resulted in Silicon Knights owing Epic $4.45 million in damages following its Unreal Engine agreement breach.
The document was unearthed by NeoGaf user Xenon. Page 41 pertains to the recall of all Unreal Engine games created by Silicon Knights:
The page above states that Silicon Knights must erase all of the code and recall and destroy copies of the following games:
- Too Human
- X-Men: Destiny
- The Sandman
- The Box/Ritualyst
- Siren in the Maelstrom
The ruling has given Silicon Knights until December 10th 2012 to do so. Quite how it will manage to recall every unsold copy of each game by then remains unclear. Eurogamer adds that the dispute between Silicon Knights and Epic started in 2007 after the studio accused Epic of withholding money from Unreal Engine development and was pumping it into funding the Gears of War franchise instead.
Recently it was suggested that Silicon Knights was operating on a skeleton crew. Check out our coverage here: