Tim Langdell Still A JerkResues Edge iPhone Game Maker Over Rights Issues

Oh, how we all love you, Tim Langdell. You sit there on the IGDA (International Game Developers Association) board, and boast about your 30 years of experience in the gaming industry. And yet you seemingly spend your life suing the crap out of anyone with the audacity to use the word ‘edge’ in gaming, due to trademark ownership relating to your videogame company, EDGE Games.

For this reason, Mobigame’s Edge was pulled from the App Store in May (it’s now returned), and Langdell now has his sites set on console game Edge of Twilight (no, we’re not kidding, sadly). Unfortunately, he’s also not quite done with the Edge iPhone game.

On Twitter, Mobigame reported “Tim Langdell is threatening us again… is this love?”, and a report on FingerGaming notes that Mobigame’s David Papazien says Langdell’s now not only affirming his rights to the Edge trademark, but claiming Edge ripped off an ancient EDGE game, Bobby Bearing. Sorry for the italics, but this statement actually make me nearly choke on my cup of tea.

I’m somewhat oldish, and I remember playing Bobby Bearing. (I also remember paying ten quid for the cassette version and discovering that the idiots at EDGE had shipped it entirely without sound—thanks, Tim!) In fact, here’s a screen grab, taken from C64 gaming website Lemon64:



It's Bobby Bearing, a tiresome isometric arcade game from 1986!

And here’s Edge, taken from the Mobigame website:

Edge - a fun iPhone isometric game from 2009!

On the face of it, you might, if you were a bit soft in the head and hadn’t actually played the games, argue that Langdell has a point. Both games use an axonometric projection viewpoint, commonly referred to as ‘isometric’ in the games industry. Also, both have you controlling a small geometric character around a blocky, retro-oriented videogame world where you can move reasonably freely in several directions.

But wait! I’m sure I’ve seen something like this before somewhere…

Hey, kids! It's Atari's Marble Madness, from 1984!

Oh, look! A game with an axonometric projection viewpoint, where you control a small geometric character around a blocky, retro-oriented videogame world where you can move reasonably freely in several directions! From 1984!

Having done some digging, it wouldn’t entirely shock us to discover that Langdell’s aggression and, well, ‘jerkness’ are in part down to Bobby Bearing Remix for iPod touch being on its way. But with Edge already being available and great, the fab Marble Madness due soon for Apple portables (and Atari’s iPod touch games being rather good) and Bobby Bearing these days being slightly less fun than being repeatedly punched in the face by someone wearing an extra-large boxing glove stuffed with a brick, we’d suggest, Tim, that you put your energy into actually making your old, tired IP into a decent game, rather than suing the perceived competition. And here’s another free tip: just try suing Atari over Marble Madness. (No, really, please do, because it’d be really funny and we’d love to see you try.)