The great Silicon Knights-Epic Games slapfight is at last underway in a courtroom, but already a judge has suggested that even if the maker of Too Human wins, it could lose. He's said that the damages up for grabs are $1.
That's because Silicon Knights failed to provide him with a timely, or acceptable, itemization of the damages they were claiming, reports Polygon. The judge got sick of waiting and, on May 7, entered an order saying the damages total up for grabs is a crisp one-dollar bill, per claim.
To recap, Silicon Knights alleges that Epic failed to provide a working game engine for Too Human withheld an improved version of the Unreal engine, and used licensing fees to, in bad faith, fund its development of Gears of War and not improve Unreal.
Polygon notes this has no bearing on whether Epic can be found guilty of those claims against it, and the damages could be appealed. Presumably, Silicon Knights would be owed attorney's fees and court costs, but to get a damage award that made it whole would take a bunch more lawyering.
This isn't the first scrape Silicon Knights has had with this judge over the subject of potential damages. Back in January, a judge denied the developer's attempt to enter expert testimony on the estimated damages it suffered when the deal with Epic went sour.
Silicon Knights Vs. Epic trial has big names, but little money [Polygon]