The Hair-Pulling Continues
The legal scrap between Epic and Silicone Knights continues, with Epic counter-suing the developers of Too Human on numerous charges including, rather seriously, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. But which of them is in the right?
If Silicone Knight’s claims prove to be true, then they really have had suffered some pretty serious harm at Epic’s hands. That is to say, if Epic supplied a faulty engine, late, and sold it on the basis of false information, which they then deliberately hamstrung in order to make Gears of War look good in comparison, then they are guilty of the worst kind of corporate malpractice, and deserve to be punished accordingly.
On the other hand, is it just me that feels that if Epic really had done all that, then there would be far more people than just Silicone Knights kicking up a fuss by now? Instead, we have a solid chunk of our next generation titles being powered by Unreal 3: Bioshock, Mass Effect and Stranglehold to name but a few, and all of their developers, as far as we know, entirely satisfied with the licence.
Perhaps Silicone Knights simply choose the wrong engine for Too Human, or maybe they felt the need to try and explain away last years poor reception at E3. Perhaps they do have a genuine grievance. At the end of the day, though, this lawsuit seems likely to hurt them far more than it will hurt Epic, even should they be successful. They have more than likely cut themselves off from ever again using an engine that has consistently been at the cutting edge of gaming technology, whilst Epic are unlikely to see any shortage of customers beating a path to their beautifully rendered door.
And if they lose, and are successfully counter-sued, then we may well see the premature closure of a creative and talented, if somewhat under appreciated, development house.
Digital Nostradamus
Listen, good people of the internet, and listen well, for we are living in the closing of an age!. For long years we have enjoyed a golden era of freedom and uncensored expression, but all that is going to change. Ye, verily the end has cometh!
Don’t believe my half-crazed doomsaying? You should. We’ve all become used to the internet as a place where you can say, show or do pretty much what you like, and all for free to boot. But that state of affairs may be about to change.
Two recent news stories, both involving Google, set me on this train of thought. First to catch my eye was this, which centers around Google being taken to court in Australia for allowing an advert, which allegedly infringes another company’s copyright, to appear in their advertising section. If found liable, Google will be made responsible for, and thus have to begin screening, any adverts they sell with their web searches.
Back in good old blighty, there have been calls, both from the police and other groups, for Youtube (owned of course by those ever-industrious folks at Google) to take a far more active stance in monitoring what content is posted on their site, prompted in this instance by videos of kids fighting that have been posted on the site. They feel that the system of flagging inappropriate material is insufficient, and clips should all be thoroughly screened before being available to view. Read the full story here.
By now you may be asking yourself what effect this has on you. After all, you might think, I don’t buy internet advertising or film happy slapping attacks for the benefit of the masses. What is there for me to worry about?
The potential problems are twofold. Firstly, it is only a small leap from requiring that search engines monitor the content of adverts and the sights they link with to requiring that they monitor and be responsible for every link they display. Once that happens, it will definitely infringe of the web-use of Joe Blogs and the millions like him.
Even so, as long as your not posting anything offensive or illegal, that shouldn’t worry you, right? Wrong. Because this level of oversight of content will be expensive for webistes and search engines to maintain, and that cost is going to be passed straight on to us. What does that mean? It means if you want Google ( or whoever) to display a link to your website when someone types in a relevant search, then you’re going to have to pay for it, mister. Goodbye, largely unrestricted free speech, fan-made forums and homespun blogs and podcasts. Hello, big corporations and soaring credit card bills.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Gaming Wisdom of the Crafty Banana 