14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer Silicon Knights might no longer have a case in the lawsuit that it has brought against Epic Games, the creator of the Unreal Engine tech, because one of its key expert witnesses and his testimony have been excluded from the trial by a judge.
Terry Lloyd was both an accountant and a financial analyst and he stated that Silicon Knights suffered 58 million dollars (44.8 million Euro) in losses because of problems linked to the Unreal Engine 3 technology and the way it was licensed.
The court said that his statements would have no effect on the lawsuit after Chief District Judge James Denver III sided with Epic Games, who described Lloyd as unreliable and his statements as speculative.
The developer has maintained for years that the problems with Unreal Engine 3 have caused it to deliver its AAA title Too Human two years late and have then lead to lower than expected sales on the Xbox 360 home console from Microsoft.
Silicon Knights stated that, “during the parties' license-agreement negotiations, Epic made false representations concerning the license agreement and the functionality of UE3.”
The developer also claims that the deal made “caused decreased sales of Too Human, caused [publisher] Microsoft to end negotiations to develop two sequels... damaged Silicon Knights reputation, and impaired Silicon Knights' ability to secure future development projects.”
The Silicon Knights suit was filed in 2007 and Epic Games immediately launched a legal counter-attack, claiming that it never promised to deliver a fully operational version of Unreal Engine 3 six months after the Xbox 360 was introduced.
Silicon Knights has failed to rebuilt itself after the botched launch of Too Human and it was recently forced to lay off a number of its employees and report that another big , unannounced project was cancelled by a publisher at the last moment.