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IGDA's Tim Langdell and Mobigame title Edge

Submitted by Paul Sinnett on Sun, 2009/05/31 - 15:00

A story is currently circulating the blogs about a trademark dispute between Edge Games and Mobigame over the game Edge for Apple's iPhone. As a result of this dispute the game is reportedly unavailable through Apple's App Store in the US or UK.


IGDA director Tim Langdell

 

But what started as frustration at the loss of a much loved indie game title from the App Store because of a legal dispute between two companies quickly became personal. Simon Carless, editor of Gamasutra, wrote an article on GameSetWatch calling out the behaviour of Edge Games' CEO Tim Langdell. The article was quickly removed but not before numerous copies had circulated the Internet.

In Simon's article he described a history of trademark disputes over the word 'edge' in games and other media and suggested that this is only a fraction of the total since most disputes would be settled out of court. He accused Tim of a pattern of behaviour that has him disputing the legality of anyone using the word 'edge' in their game.

In answer to this Tim responded on our Forums, Gamasutra, and our chapter lists, clarifying the situation with regard to Mobigame and Edge trademarks. He denies ever suing anyone over Edge Games' trademarks. He states that Edge Games notified Apple of the trademark infringement, Apple contacted Mobigame, and Mobigame voluntarily withdrew the title. In addition he claims that Mobigame have been attempting to bully him into agreeing not to use the Edge trademark in Europe. And that his refusal to sign up to this agreement prompted this campaign against him and his company.

Simon also accused Tim of writing his own Wikipedia entry through an account in the name of his wife. Since this story broke, that entry has been repeatedly vandalised and is currently locked by the Wikipedia admins and under a vote for deletion under their notability policy.

As well as being CEO of Edge Games, Tim recently became an IGDA director. And much of the outrage stirred up by these stories is now being directed toward the IGDA itself. Bloggers Daniel Steger and Derek Yu have stated that they feel the organisation should be against what they regard as unfair exploitation of IP; and were disappointed that this action should come from an IGDA board member.

Bob Bates has posted the offical response from the board in which he states: "the IGDA cannot take a position in what is actually a legal dispute between two companies regarding an alleged trademark infringement."

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