Too Human Will Be Destroyed Thanks To Silicon Knight's Lost Lawsuit

Things aren't going well for Silicon Knights. Firstly, we learn that the developer has been reportedly reduced to five staff members in a less-than-flattering account from anonymous former employees of Silicon Knights. Now, in the fallout from Silicon Knight's lost lawsuit against Epic Games over Unreal Engine 3, it appears that the developer has been ordered to recall and destroy any unsold copies and source code of games they developed using the technology, including Too Human and X-Men: Destiny.

The lawsuit played out over 5 years of legal squabbling, but here's the short version: Silicon Knights felt that Epic Games didn't provide the developer with an adequate version of the Unreal Engine, misrepresented its abilities and effectively sabotaged the development of Too Human. Unfortunately for Silicon Knights, they were also in breach of contract for their modified version of Unreal Engine 3, the Silicon Knights Engine, which infringed on Epic's copyrights. Epic won the case, and was granted $4.5 million in damages. 

On pages 40 and 41 of these court documents detailing the outcome of the lawsuit, it is stated that "After Silicon Knights has removed all of Epic Games' Licensed Technology from Silicon Knights' game engine, and after Epic Games has, at Silicon Knights' expense, independently verified that Silicon Knights' game engine no longer contains any of Epic Games' Licensed Technology, Silicon Knights shall destroy the code for all prior versions of Silicon Knights' game engine in its possession," and "Not later than December 10th, 2012, Silicon Knights shall destroy all versions of the Licensed Technology in its possession, including (but not limited to) the video game code and game engine for Too Human, The Box/Ritualyst, The Sandman, X-Men: Destiny and Siren in the Maelstrom."

Too Human was fairly terrible (I would know, I suffered out the damn thing through to the end), but nonetheless, the idea of having to destroy source code for a game makes me feel uneasy. It's not just because it's people's hard work being destroyed, but also the principle of someone trying to flush a piece of videogame history, no matter how banal or low quality, into a black hole.

Too Human and X-Men: Destiny won't disappear as long as someone is hanging onto a copy of them. Still, shouldn't we be trying to preserve videogames as pieces of cultural history? Isn't attempting to obliterate a game from existence because of legal issues going a bit too far?