Freeza Under The Shower
Member
How on earth can someone sue names that have been around long before the name was trademarked? That makes no sense whatsoever.
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IGDA (not) stepping up to possibly remove Tim Langdell from board
- Thread starter TurtleSnatcher
- Start date
I don't think someone who ekes out a living with nuisance lawsuits is really what you'd call a ruthless leader though. Sure he lacks integrity, but he also lacks vision and scope. He's not interested in dominating a field.....just in scraping out a living with as little effort as is possible.Ferrio said:
someguyinahat
Member
My guess? Right place, right time. It happens every so often in a board/association that nobody really wants to be the leader, so some douchebag goes "fine, I'll run" and is therefore acclaimed. I'm not saying that's how it went down, but it's a possibility.
Cat in the Hat
Member
.fernoca said:
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
I love how the IDGA board is concerned about someone using their name in a bad way over an email whilst Tit LongBell continues to make a mockery of everything they apparently stand for.
they've stoodby and watch this happen, aware what a large section of their members think
they've stoodby and watch this happen, aware what a large section of their members think
polyh3dron
Banned
:lol It's about time.
LabouredSubterfuge
Member
And not a single gratuitous picture of that awful U2 guitarist in sight...
Graphics Horse
Member
Wait, you guys were thinking that the IGDA boardmembers sent this? :lol
This should explain what happened.
http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?threadid=36585&perpage=15&highlight=&pagenumber=1
Sent by IGDA members using their website's message system.
SecretBonusPoint
Banned
So IGDA are indeed making no movement at all, indeed seemingly ignoring the massive quantity of members that have weighed in on this?
I hope no-one renews their membership en masse. What a fucking useless organisation. What use is it to any dev if theyre supporting Langdell over every single dev signed up? You might as well be paying money to have someone punch you in the face every time you use the word "Edge".
I hope no-one renews their membership en masse. What a fucking useless organisation. What use is it to any dev if theyre supporting Langdell over every single dev signed up? You might as well be paying money to have someone punch you in the face every time you use the word "Edge".
ephemeral garbage
Member
Who thought it was sent by IGDA?
Why would an organization sent out an email calling for the ouster of one of its board members?
Why would an organization sent out an email calling for the ouster of one of its board members?
Langdell's response on that thread, for those who don't want to go looking:
The message system they used to distribute the e-mail to members has been disabled. Apparently Langdell is the one in charge of the tech side of things, though in the thread he still couldn't understand how it was done without hacking. The guy is just useless on all fronts.
The message system they used to distribute the e-mail to members has been disabled. Apparently Langdell is the one in charge of the tech side of things, though in the thread he still couldn't understand how it was done without hacking. The guy is just useless on all fronts.
jstevenson
Sailor Stevenson
Beaulieu said:
I never thought it was the IDGA, I'm surprised people did. The IGDA wouldn't send out a mass e-mail to get people to sign a petition, some concerned members might though.
*shrug*
Graphics Horse
Member
Chrange said:
And to explain how they got names for "Dear [first name] [last name]" from a random number, the contact form displays the name matching that ID, even if it's set to hidden.
Here's Tim Langdell's, who isn't hidden but you get the idea.
http://www.igda.org/member/emailer.php?mid=20050011
"Please fill in the information below and click Send to email your message to Tim Langdell."
Slavik81 said:
Apathy on the part of the constituents combined with what appears to be a complete lack of a reasonable background check. Or at the very least, anything they found (a history of not paying developers and throwing cease-and-desists around like they're his business card) was deemed not important enough to prohibit him from running.
Look, the IGDA's upper management wasn't even really thought of as relevant until this story broke, so it shouldn't be any surprise that people voted for the guy who said that he made some videogames back in the 80's and could technically say he was somehow related to Edge magazine.
The real question on my mind is whether they take the collected signatures seriously. If they're legit signatures by legit IGDA members, I don't see why they should ignore the issue - even if the e-mail that was sent out was done by hackers. Prosecuting the guy who cracked your system and then dealing frankly and directly with the interests of the people you represent is the surest way for the IGDA to get over this and move on as an organization. But if they pretend these signatures never happened while making vaguely threatening posts on their own boards about "Who did this!?" then they're just going to make things a whole lot worse for themselves as people feel ignored.
charlequin
Banned
SecretBonusPoint said:
Oh, there's been movement. It's just movement towards closing ranks to defend Langdell and to call their paying members whiners for complaining about the situation. :lol
Burger
Member
The worst thing about this douche bag is the 'compromise' he sent to Mobigame for their iPhone game:
Pay a license fee to use the 'Edge' brand, change the name of the game to 'Edge: A homage to Bobby Bearing' and place 'EDGE (Inc) presents:' on the title screen. Oh, and hand over 25% of revenue so far.
IGDA board member. Really...
Pay a license fee to use the 'Edge' brand, change the name of the game to 'Edge: A homage to Bobby Bearing' and place 'EDGE (Inc) presents:' on the title screen. Oh, and hand over 25% of revenue so far.
IGDA board member. Really...
GrimReaper
Member
I was wondering what this e-mail (the real one, from Joshua Caulfield) was about this morning. :lol I don't remember having received that "fake" mail.
the_painted_bird
Member
Is the survey closed for anyone else? I hate this guy.
Burger
Member
tirminyl said:
Because you can trademark a word in context. For instance, you could sell a Halo that goes on your head in shops, but you couldn't sell a videogame with Halo in the title, as it is trademarked.
This Tim Langdell cunt has trademarked EDGE and its derivatives, and sues any poor sap that uses the word. How he manages to sue people like Fox for the movie "The Edge" I don't know, although I suspect it's because he has the word trademarked for general entertainment purposes. I'm not terribly familiar with US copyright law.
I don't think I've ever hated someone I don't know so much.
How someone involved in the Commodore 64 days, bascally the bedroom programmer days and the beginning of the industry (especially in the UK) can now be actively making life so hard for small developers is beyond me. The iPhone especially is the much needed rebirth of those days, and a way people can make an impact and get into an industry that had become closed-off and feeding off itself for years. How it's allowed when his strategy is so transparent and without merit is also beyond me. And how is on the board of an organisation like this just boggles the mind.
What's sadder is that Fairlight was actually a really good game for it's time, one I actually enjoyed. Then again, how much did this guy really have to do with it?
Seriously, he can go to Hell.
How someone involved in the Commodore 64 days, bascally the bedroom programmer days and the beginning of the industry (especially in the UK) can now be actively making life so hard for small developers is beyond me. The iPhone especially is the much needed rebirth of those days, and a way people can make an impact and get into an industry that had become closed-off and feeding off itself for years. How it's allowed when his strategy is so transparent and without merit is also beyond me. And how is on the board of an organisation like this just boggles the mind.
What's sadder is that Fairlight was actually a really good game for it's time, one I actually enjoyed. Then again, how much did this guy really have to do with it?
Seriously, he can go to Hell.
SecretBonusPoint
Banned
Burger said:
Wow. Members need to grow a spine and conduct a mass walkout. Organisation has clearly lost any merit or standing at this point, and the "games media/journalists" should be propagating this as a far bigger story than it is currently.
Dr Zhivago
Member
DECK'ARD said:
He ripped off the guy who wrote it, by all accounts.
I also heard a story that Langdell got thrown out of a Sony GDC party because one of the people he ripped off in the 80s turned out to be Phil Harrison's brother-in-law.
More Fun To Compute
Member
Dr Zhivago said:
I used to read British Spectrum magazines as a kid and had heard of Bo Jangeborg as the person who created Fairlight. I had never heard of this Tim Langdell character until this controversy started.
Burger said:
The worst part is that, while he uses "Edge" as the name of the company, he doesn't use it in games or other stuff. He's a fucking trademark squatter, going after anyone who uses "Edge" even as part of a name. Then he does incredibly blatant stuff like that "Mirrors" crap in the (shitty) site or registering "Edgy" after Mobigame suggested the name change. And I like how in the (crap) site, on the project list, he has this incoming "Racers" multiplatform game. It's like after all the questions regarding "what has the company produced these last few years", which he avoided, he thought "lemme just put something up", and there ya go: "Racers", great name, with some crap Wipeout derivative ship design.
Oh, it really seems like he's still involved in some "bedroom coding" because all of his actions and the quality of his site make me think of some douche amateur doing MS Paint work in his old PC in his bedroom, googling for "Edge" every day, slapping some more shit in that sorry excuse for a site and trying to make a living off of honest, hard-working and talented people, which is what he'll never be.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
The fact that he, the person responsible for the tech side of things had to ask the very people on that forum who now can't stand him about something like this is just too funny.Graphics Horse said:
charlequin
Banned
freddy said:
Because the IGDA is a joke.
Dr Zhivago said:
So he's always been a parasite feeding off people more creative and talented than he is?
Someone with more money and lawyers than he has needs to step up to the plate and crush him. Isn't most of what he's doing scaring people who can't afford to defend themselves in court anyway?
What he's trying to do with Mirror's Edge looks ridiculous and surely wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. Trademark laws can't be this vague can they?
I hope EA do something good with their power for once and take him to the cleaners, and set a precedent that will maybe stop it in future.
And yeah the IGDA has been shown to be about as useful as a chocolate teapot, and are flying against everything they are meant to stand for. They deserve to suffer a mass exodus of members and go down the toilet as well.
It would all be quite funny if it wasn't bad for the industry, amd especially small developers. The whole situation is quite ridiculous.
DECK'ARD said:
The height of its ridiculousness is that he's trademark hijacked 'Edge of Twilight' and bullied the devs into paying royalties on it while this has all been going on. Business as usual.
He fits the profile of a sociopath so well that we should probably be thankful his life's work is screwing other creatives rather than, say, abducting hitchhikers.
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