Edge, the award winning game from Mobigame for the iPhone / iPod touch has recently been pulled from the app store pending a legal battle with Tim Langdell (artist’s impression to the left) over the trademark “Edge”.
Up to this point it seems Langdell has made a career of profiting from other people’s work, threatening to sue anyone who so much as utters the word “edge”. He has managed to cause problems not only within the gaming world, but also in movies and other popular media.
“We have legal issues with a man named Tim Langdell,” says Mobigame’s David Papazian. “If you already asked why Soul Edge (the Namco game) was called Soul Blade and later Soulcalibur in the US, you have your answer.” (Via Fingergaming)
Once upon a time Tim did make the odd video game. Who could forget such timeless classics as “Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal” and “Snoopy: The Case of the Missing Blanket.” Nothing has come out of Edge Games since 1994, yet Langdell is on the board of the IGDA, a non-profit organisation that strives to empower game developers and advocate on their behalf. Surely the entire point of the IDGA is to fight against everything this man stands for? Langdell was also a speaker at this year’s GDC, giving three lectures on how to cash in on a video game IP.
It boggles the mind how someone who makes a living from the harassment of others can be in such influential positions within the industry. All I can say is that in my opinion the world would be a much nicer place if people like our friend Tim Langdell didn’t exist.
Via TIGSource
I wonder if Tim reads Edge magazine or listens to music by U2’s The Edge.
Tim Langdell you sir are the very Hole of an Arse.
What about Mirror’s Edge, or is EA too big a kid for this guy to steal its lunch money?
He seems to not go after the largest companies head on, instead attempting to bait them into taking him to court over what would seem like he is infringing their copyright. Whereupon he provides a counter claim for uses of the “edge” trademark. Hence the similarity between the edge logo and that of edge magazine and the “Mirrors (a game by) edge” flash on their website. http://www.edgegames.com/
I don’t know the guy at all and had never heard of him until yesterday, but this needs a correction:
They were actually roundtables (as it says at the other end of the link you posted), not lectures. Roundtables always come in groups of three (one each day on the same or slightly different topics), and they are more about whether the topic would be interesting for attendees to discuss than about who the speaker is, and they go through a different vetting process from lectures.
You might want to correct the original post (Derek fixed the TIGSource article already).
Thanks,
Chris