The Edge: 8-Bit software house in IP troll scandal.

[AlleyKat]

I can't find another thread on the forum about it and I'm not sure how much detail I should go into, but the (alledged) story starts here:

http://tigsource.com/articles/2009/05/2 ... f-insanity

...and gets worse the more you read. At the very least, it explains why Fairlight 2 turned out so badly. The (alledged) attempts to provoke EA into a copyright war over MIRRORS "a game from" EDGE, really do show the whole enterprise in a very ugly light.

Fairlight's Bo Jangeborg:

"I had to get a lawyer to get them [Tim and Cheri Landell] to pay me the money they owed me for Fairlight. They refused to pay me, unless I signed up to make more games for them. As a result, Fairlight II was released without my approval, with several known bugs. In the end, I ended up getting some money but they ended up with the rights to Fairlight [My note: that Langdell is now releasing for the WiiWare, according to his website]. I didn't sign up for any more games..... ;o)"

"Generally speaking you could definitely say I'm not very fond of the Langdell's or their way of doing business. I can only state that they have spent a lot of time in court."

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=6456.390


The coders of the C64 version of Soldier of Light:

What made you stop the scene activity ? (and do you remember when?)

"We stopped programming after the disastrous court case with The Edge, a software house in London directed by Tim "slimy" Landell. We converted Solder of Light to C64 from the arcade which was completed in 6 months but according to Tim Landell should have been completed in three months (yeah, right) so they refused to pay us. So we decided to take the Edge to court but Tim Landell left the country for America. With no money we were forced to sell all our equipment to settle outstanding loans from the bank. So we both went esparto ways and concentrated on normal careers."

http://imr.ip-design.com/imr/iview/c33i_m.htm

I'm not sure how much I should post here, but the initial link will tell you all you need to know. This all came to light because of Edge games getting rough with an indie I-Phone developer, and their game Edge. The devs offered to change the name to Edgey, only to find that name trademarked by Edge games the very next day....alledgedly....

Shocking stuff, all in all. Comments?

[AlleyKat]

Oh, and some more info here:

http://tigsource.com/articles/2009/06/0 ... e-part-two

[TMR]

Oh, and some more info here:

Ah, that's the one i stuck me oar into... =-)

[AlleyKat]

Yeah, good work for pointing out those non-existant C64 games, man.

Its a real shame, I have a lot of fondness for Bobby Bearing and Fairlight in particular, and the clearly unfinished Fairlight sequel and the aforementioned shenanninagans make it even more frustrating. I really don't get why Martech's Zoids, for example, was included in that rather eyebrow raising list of games credit was claimed for.

What a disappointment.

[Xyphoe]

Yeah, good work for pointing out those non-existant C64 games, man.

Its a real shame, I have a lot of fondness for Bobby Bearing and Fairlight in particular, and the clearly unfinished Fairlight sequel and the aforementioned shenanninagans make it even more frustrating. I really don't get why Martech's Zoids, for example, was included in that rather eyebrow raising list of games credit was claimed for.

What a disappointment.

Should you take credit for games that were never released? On their list there The Punisher and Ugh! never made it to the Amstrad CPC

[TMR]

Should you take credit for games that were never released? On their list there The Punisher and Ugh! never made it to the Amstrad CPC

There are also games on that list for C64 and Spectrum that weren't released and the Edge website takes credit for each title several times over as well, despite a lot of them not being localised in any form and merely shipped in other countries. In many cases the only real involvement was as publisher, it's not as though any creative input was involved; i pointed to part of the story Pete "JCB" Dabbs told about Darius+ over at Games That Weren't where the creative input seems to have equated to "asking for the impossible" (despite the demo coders managing to really push sideborder work on the C64, nobody has ever written a game to the spec they were asking for) and i'm guessing the big boss was Langdell.

i've still not worked out what the connection was regarding Zoids on the C64 or why it's only that version listed. What's laughable is that a few of the people trying to fight for Tim (assuming they're not actually Tim himself...) are going on about how many games he's got to his name but if his old Wikipedia entry was right (s'been deleted) there were only three games that Langdell had actual credits on and if memory serves i've got nearly that many!

[rainbird rich]

Having penned the recent article on The Electronic Pencil Company (who designed and coded Zoids) I think some of the guys from EPC would be interested in the claim on Zoids for the C64!

[mikeb]

To be fair "The Edge" - with the stupid 'the' prefix -was a rubbish name and an equally rubbish software house in my humble opinion - Fairlight being about the only decent thing they ever published - and that quote from Bo is quite telling. Scandalous he lost out so badly, financially, with the original, and that it'll probably happen again with the Wii Ware release. Such a talented guy...

What's extraordinary is the lengths to which Langdell seems to go to protect his so-called IP, while provoking other companies and their trademarks simultaneously - witness his company's home page http://www.edgegames.com/ which promises a forthcoming game called MIRRORS (by) EDGE - only the logo is a deliberate attempt to get EA's gander up. Did you lose that one then Tim?

And I love how his games company now sports the exact same logo as EDGE magazine, despite having nothing to do with it editorially.

Would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at Future and see what the EDGE staff feel about being linked with this mess?

[Matt_B]

To be fair "The Edge" - with the stupid 'the' prefix -was a rubbish name and an equally rubbish software house in my humble opinion - Fairlight being about the only decent thing they ever published - and that quote from Bo is quite telling. Scandalous he lost out so badly, financially, with the original, and that it'll probably happen again with the Wii Ware release. Such a talented guy...

In true "What have the romans ever done for us?" style, I'd add Bobby Bearing and Brian Bloodaxe too.

Still, I'd agree that Langdell is playing a dangerous game here. What is his trademark worth other than a bunch of twenty-odd year old games and some vapourware?

[Coopdevil]

Perhaps he should go after that ghey pr0n mag called Edge as well!

[Matt_B]

Perhaps he should go after that ghey pr0n mag called Edge as well!

He should go after the U2 guitarist as well.

[AlleyKat]

Eurogamer have an article with more detail here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-edge-of-reason

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has more anecdotes about Langdell or The Edge. Reading those comments on Eurogamer, it seems something even more unsavory has come to light.

*Considers buying more old games by The Edge out of morbid curiosity*

[AlleyKat]

Please excuse my multiple bumps on this, but things seem to be getting very interesting now. This thread on the IGDA forum has recent comments both from Edge games and a certain notable industry figure.

http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.p ... enumber=27

[the_hawk]

This is the first time I've come across all of this.

It made for some really interesting lunchtime reading. Thanks for posting AlleyKat.

[FatTrucker]

Looks like they've finally bitten the wrong dog.

EA are suing them for infringement on every mark they own, citing non use and fraudulent submissions and statements.

If EA win, then it seems every company they've (Langdell) shaken down would have a route to claiming damages. Looking at the history I would imagine it will be a pretty long que.

EA's petition is HERE.

Check out all updates at the ChaosEDGE site. Some of the history is truly staggering, makes for very interesting reading.

For once I wish EA every success in their endeavours. Quite how someone so allegedly corrupt can have continued to get away with it for so long (even with some big names like Future) is beyond me. Would be interesting to know if he still actually gets some kind of royalty from Future for the 'EDGE' mark?. Would certainly prevent me from wanting to buy the magazine again.