I can’t imagine anybody who bought Mirror’s Edge did so because they thought it was made by Edge Games. In fact, I doubt many people even knew who Edge Games was until this whole fiasco started — indeed, the name has now become popular enough that it might require trademark protection. But it certainly didn’t need protection before — it had no products to be confused with and no reputation to lean on.

If you want a great example, look for a company named Paragon Manufacturing. Or distribution. Or lawn care. Yes, that’s right, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of companies whose name is Paragon. It certainly doesn’t cause trademark issues.

Langdell’s only weapon is the inability for most indies to put up with a court battle. Even if Langdell couldn’t bring it to court, the very threat would cause many people to settle (see the RIAA/MPAA lawsuits).

I hope EA has a hey-day with him. Anybody willing to abuse the system deserves to feel its wraith come back on them.

This guy seriously deserves to die.

How did he instruct us in the arts of video game production? With some kind of incoherent speech about design process and 40 WoW beta subscriptions he conned Blizzard out of.

err, no, it rose to the surface after simon parkers edge of reason article at eurogamer http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-edge-of-reason at the start of august, every blog covered it, and he was off the igda board by the end of the month.

http://www.edge-racers.com/

Or the what happens when you hit the “games” button the the Edge website: you get a non copy and pasteable list of various games for the Commodore 64 and “ZX Spectrum”.

Or this, supposedly from an old wikipedia page: “prior to entering the nascent game industry, Langdell had two quite different careers: first as an astrophysicist and then as a clinical psychologist where he used his training as a physical scientist to do some of the first computer-based research into Autism using eye tracking and face perception techniques.”

Apparently he is faculty at some online university, that looks to be about as reputable as he is:

http://tr.im/ERGs

Or this, from a description of the game Mythora: “Mythora is an older product in our range, launched in 2004. It does not currently have up to date video or sound card drivers and thus may not work on all current PC systems.”

Who the hell ever heard of a game containing drivers in the first place?

And, if Mythora is “an older product in [their] range,” published in 2004, doesn’t that pretty much demolish their 30 year old software company claim? ;)

I’m not a big law and order type, but there is a name for this: criminal fraud, and he’s asking and deserving of about five years in federal prison.

I have very little sympathy for those who use the threat of government power to harass and intimidate others.

Btw, Rockpapershotgun mentioned it as well: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/11/12/going-over-the-edge-indie-mass-protest/

but we do have huge letters spelling out ‘edge’ on the building, the company website, the foyer, all our cars, and hundreds of thousands of business cards. I’m sure he can find us if he wants to