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The sad sad tale of Tim Langdell

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but unlike Tim Langdell, Mike isn't on the board of IGDA anymore, and he's not pulling shit out of his about having worked on 200 games in the last 30 years.

Speaking of Edge, I wonder if "David Howell Evans" is also a creation of Tim Langdell :)

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If this was already linked, my apologies

http://tigsource.com/pages/edge-games

One section which jumped out at me:

Trademark filings by Edge Games:

- Edgy (filed in US on May 16, 2009)

- Mirror’s Spore (filed in UK on May 19, 2009)

- Soulspore (filed in UK on May 19, 2009)

- Edge of Twilight (filed in UK on June 1, 2009)

"Mirror's Spore"!

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Looks like he changed the company name from "The Edge Interactive Media Inc." to "EDGE Games Inc"

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-find-adp?propnum=0743484001

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-find-adp?propnum=0950413001

Some more US trademarks off "EDGE Games Inc":

- SCIENCE FUSION (reg:3381826) January 10, 2006

- T-BONE (reg:3259345) (it bones Ts?) July 15, 2005

- WINDOJO (reg:3248467) July 15, 2005

- COLLECTROCOIN (reg:3277026) April 25, 2006

- ELECTROCOIN (reg:3266065) July 15, 2005

- ELEMONTALS (reg:3257040) July 15, 2005

- SCIENAUTS (reg:3245501) July 15, 2005

and that's just the trademarks that are still alive, there are also dead ones like: TOP DICE, MASTER OSCIE, SCIELATE, SCIEMATE, PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMON, SCIENATE, PHOTO FINISH RACING

The Us trademark registrations of "The Edge Interactive Media Inc." also contain some interesting dead entries: MASTERS OF THE GAME, LEADING EDGE, CUTTING EDGE, SOUL EDGE

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What a douche.

Periodic Table of the Elemon sounds rad, though.

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Also, allegedly, saying that they like to hire people who are having marital difficulties because they know they'll want to spend more time at the office. Saw a few people referring to that, but can't find it in print right now.

If true, that's shamefully cannibalistic. :(

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I've looked twice and can't find any reference for that at all. I remember hearing it at the time the story broke, but it's almost certainly scurrilous. Sorry for spreading it a bit further :/

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To clarify: I wasn't meaning you were a cannibal, Nachimir, but that the employers rumoured were cannibalising relationships for perceived gain.

It's worth hearing this stuff as it travels around the industry, whether you can validate it or not. It's how EA Spouse came to light.

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Oh, I interpreted it correctly but thanks for clarifying :)

Rumours can be interesting, but I'm not convinced at the value of gossip; it can undeservedly ruin people and is so often nothing to do with the facts.

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What the hell. He got some sort of shady post-dated deal with the Edge of Twilight devs.

:(:frusty::finger:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/edge-of-twilight--edge--trademark-dispute-resolved

PUBLIC STATEMENT

23rd August 2009

FUZZYEYES™ approached EDGE® Games several months ago, with the intent to resolve any issues arising out of both companies use of the mark "EDGE." Fuzzyeyes, developer of the game titled "Edge of Twilight," sought to address any potential trademark conflicts. Through amicable negotiations, Fuzzyeyes and Edge Games have arrived at a satisfactory arrangement that addresses the concerns of both parties. This arrangement allows the highly anticipated Edge of Twilight to proceed with its title unchanged, and without infringement on any trademarks held by Edge Games.

Lu, Wei-Yao

CEO of FUZZYEYES™

About EDGE OF TWILIGHT

Edge of Twilight is a 3rd person action adventure game in development for the PC, PLAYSTATION®3 and Xbox 360 platforms. Gameplay is split between combat, puzzle-solving and exploration. These elements will in turn be split between the two parallel planes of reality that only the player may traverse; the spiritually influenced, Lithern night realm, and the industrial, Athern dominated, day realm.

Official Website: www.edge-of-twilight.com

For latest trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/someone-special-edge-of/51345

About FUZZYEYES™

FUZZYEYES is amongst the freshest and most innovative game developers within the Australia/Asia Pacific region. Founded in 2001 with headquarters based in Brisbane Australia, FUZZYEYES focuses on developing original IP for video-gaming platforms.

Let's put that on a timeline, shall we?

So, Langdell waited until a game was well into development, saw it was getting popular, trademarked the game's name 2.75 years after the developer's first public use of the title (and six years after Nod's), then exerted legal pressure close enough to the game's release date that the publisher would be daft to change the name?*

There is an important date missing from the timeline: when the developer "approached" Edge Games. "Several months ago" is too vague to determine whether this this happened before or after Langdell trademarked "Edge of Twilight," even without the oddity of the anachronistic date on the press release. I wager afterward, but then again, Langdell has previously trademarked a title in the middle of negotiating with a victim to make his side appear more legitimate.

If we take the press release at face value and the developers approached EDGE themselves, this is a frightening development. Every content producer, whether magazine editors or Hollywood producers, hardware manufacturers or software developers which succumbs to Edge gives them legitimacy. The biggest defense against Edge is that they haven't produced anything since the 80s, and everything since then has been associated with their brand through abusive trademark disputes. Settling out-of-court like this only requires convincing company lawyers that Edge has a case, and the stronger the Edge brand appears, the weaker his victims feel. Weak enough to approach Langdell himself and throw their hard-earned money at his undeserving face.

Of course, the scarier thing is that he actually won his lawsuit against Velocity Micro over Gamer's Edge PCs, although Tigsource has been digging up that he potentially falsified evidence during that trial. Seriously. He presented a false magazine cover attempting to link together Edge Games, Edge Magazine, and Edge-branded computers.

:spiraldy:

* Scarily close to the optimal strategy in Edge Tycoon, apart from the falsifying prior use step. :buyme:

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Just bought Edge from the App Store. Was it only removed from the US/UK one?

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Eurogamer have published a lengthy piece on Tim Langdell versus Monbigames today, written by Simon Parkin.

In it, Parkin writes about his discussions with Mobigame's co-owner, David Papazian, about Langdell's approach to the company and later calls out Langdell on his apparent bullying tactics. Which Langdell strenuously denies

(spoiler!)

.

Rather annoyingly, however, Parkin doesn't mention Langdell's involvement with the IGDA, nor the considered indie game backlash of the past few months (I expected a cursory mention of - if not a link to - noyb's poignant critique).

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Rather annoyingly, however, Parkin doesn't mention Langdell's involvement with the IGDA, nor the considered indie game backlash of the past few months (I expected a cursory mention of - if not a link to - noyb's poignant critique).

Well, could he have done that and retained any amount of neutrality? If he brought up the IGDA, he would already be passing judgement.

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Why? It would just be stating the facts, just like any other piece of information in that article. Of course people could extrapolate that into accusations, but there's a lot more in the article people can turn around.

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I thought that article was great.

I think that throwing in the wider concerns of the internet backlash, and then muddling it with other movements from Langdell (eg IGDA, or the apparent sexual harassment suit) would have cast the article's net a little too wide. I liked how it mostly focused on relevant context, and getting as much access to the original correspondence / statements from those involved. It was already a chunky 4 pages in the first place - and most of that seemed to be based on Parkin's own research or interviews, so I can understand wanting to keep it straightforward.

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Why? It would just be stating the facts, just like any other piece of information in that article. Of course people could extrapolate that into accusations, but there's a lot more in the article people can turn around.

Hmm... yeah, I guess he could have just mentioned he was on the IGDA board, but somehow trying to associate it with this TM business would have been wrong.

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Hmm... yeah, I guess he could have just mentioned he was on the IGDA board, but somehow trying to associate it with this TM business would have been wrong.

Agreed; no interest in smear, just highlights the complexities of the situation further I think.

As for including the backlash stuff - like the TIG Source competition - granted, that's probably too biased. Still, I only bring it up as noyb's game helped me grasp exactly what was going on the best.

So a personal bias, admittedly. :getmecoat

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While stalking on Twitter, I came across this little exchange between Parkin and Clint Hocking, which sheds a little light on why these extra bits weren't discussed in the article:

--

ClickNothing: @SimonParkin did you omit Langdell's restraining order and his expulsion from BAFTA from the article as not relevant? http://is.gd/20Iip

SimonParkin: @ClickNothing Yes. They've peripheral relevance but many of EG's readers will be new to the story so I wanted to keep it clear and focused.

--

So, yeah, seems he just wanted it clean and polished as a whistle. I completely understand where he's coming from. He's writing a big bastard, old-school feature - something that is trying to communicate the basics to those who don't know much about the situation. And I guess you can extrapolate that out to why he didn't lean too much on the other comments/arguments/representations of the story around the net, too.

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A pair of delightfully contradictory emails that got forwarded to me. Apparently, the petition now has enough IGDA members signed up to it to call an emergency meeting, but as many as possible would really hit the point home.

This has put the board in a really awkward position, as developers are rallying with pitchforks to kick the fucker out, but the board can't really be seen to lend weight to that publicly. An emergency meeting follwed by the expulsion of Tim might be the only way to avoid an horrific implosion of support for the IGDA.

From: Concerned Members of the IGDA <[email protected]>

Date: 4 August 2009

To: *

Subject: Message via IGDA Profile: Concerned Members of the IGDA

Concerned Members of the IGDA sends you the below message via your IGDA Member Profile:

Dear *,

The actions of IGDA board member Tim Langdell since his election in March 2009 have raised questions regarding his suitability as our elected representative. As you no doubt know, the IGDA's mission is: To advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers by connecting members with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community.

Tim Langdell's company, Edge Games, has trademarked the word "edge" and they leverage this trademark against any media that contains this word--threatening legal action should their target not enter into a licensing arrangement with the studio. Such targets have included David Mamet's film The Edge, Marvel's comic book Edge, EA's Mirror's Edge, and Namco's Soul Edge, which was released as Soul Blade and later, Soulcalibur in the west as a direct result of Edge Games' actions. Most recently their actions have resulted in the removal of the indie game hit, Edge, from the iPhone app store.

Meanwhile, Edge Games has not been associated with the direct production of an original video game in the last fifteen years.

After his election to the IGDA board, in a lawsuit against Cybernet regarding Edge of Extinction, Tim Langdell presented himself to the court like this: "Dr. Tim Langdell is considered to be a pioneer in the field of computer gaming and is widely publicized on the Internet and has been engaged as a legal expert in the field of computer gamin." He adds "He presently serves on the Board of Directors of the International Game Developers Association, which is the largest game association worldwide".

Many of us believe that this is a gross misrepresentation and feel that Tim Langdell is able to use his position on the board of the IGDA to work directly against the mission of the organization. As IGDA members with voting rights, it is our responsibility to elect a board that we can trust to represent us. But no election system is perfect and sometimes corrections need to be made.

We are asking that you take some time to consider this issue, do a little research online, make up your mind how you feel about it, and take action.

Under the IGDA bylaws, we are able to call for a special meeting of the membership to vote on the removal of Tim Langdell from the board of directors. In order to do this, we need 10% of the membership to request the board call the special meeting. We are hosting a petition to this effect here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=68SOsjTK_2f9qJvOQ_2b2Zw7_2fA_3d_3d

Thank you for your consideration,

Concerned Members of the IGDA

From: IGDA <[email protected]>

Date: 5 August 2009

To: *

Subject: IGDA: Message from Executive Director Joshua Caulfield

Dear Members,

Recently an email went out that appeared to have originated from IGDA. The return address of this email appeared as: "[email protected]."

That email address was spoofed and the communication was not an official IGDA communication. We are currently reviewing the methods by which it was sent to see if this was sent out by people ignorant of proper use of the IGDA website or if there was malicious actions involved. We are also reviewing the method by which your email addresses were obtained and if that was done ethically or not. It is my hope that this was done by someone simply overzealous about their cause and not for destructive reasons.

Please be aware IGDA was not responsible for this email and does not have anything to do with the content or the links provided. You should read and use such links at your own risk.

We will investigate this issue and provide you with information on our findings as they are confirmed.

Thank you,

Joshua Caulfield

Executive Director

IGDA

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