Macguffin Games

Tim Langdell and the IGDA

Many of you may have heard of the current bruhaha over Tim Langdell.  If you haven’t, here are several links to stories relating the ongoing trademark issues bsetween his company Edge Games^®:

• Today’s Eurogamer Article
• Derek Yu’s compilation of info on things.  Openly Anti-Tim.
• Corvus Elrod’s thoughts & his petition for IGDA members (more on this later).

The short summation is – Mr. Langdell is being accused of legal but unsavory practices in the arena of trademark / intellectual property litigation.  The case that blew this up in the dev community is regarding the French indies Mobigames and their iPhone game Edge.

Besides a general outpouring of condemnation towards Mr. Langdell and Edge Games^®, this whole incident has been another black eye to to IGDA… Tim Langdell happens to be on the IGDA Board.

A lot of people have criticised the IGDA for not doing anything about this – well, the board doesn’t have a lot of good options.  They possibly could try to oust him, but I think that would trigger an even bigger mess over bylaw interpretations and, who knows, even lawsuits.

On the other hand, we (again meaning the members of the IGDA) can indeed do something ourselves.  Corvus Elrod has put together a petition to call a special IGDA meeting to remove Tim from the board.  His blog post linked above explains his reasoning, and you can find the petition directly here.  You’ll need to have an IGDA membership number to sign it.

My personal interpretation?  Regardless of how stinky Langdell’s tactics may or may not be, and regardless of the merits of his trademark claims, the current mess is another blow to the IGDA’s credibility.  If Tim cared much about the reputation of the IGDA, I think he would step down voluntarily.  Since he is not doing so, I think we have a duty to get him out before his presence does any more damage to the organization.  In the greater world of politics and corporate governance, heads would have rolled long before this point in time.

So, please read some of the above info, dig up whatever else you need to feel like you can make an informed decision, and please then go sign that petition.  You can vote either yes or no for calling that meeting, so if you think he should stay you can make your voice heard via the petition that way as well.

But if you’re in the IGDA, please care about this and take action – one way or another.