Cult of Mac readers with long memories will remember our reports on Tim Langdell’s battle with Mobigame. In essence, Langdell claimed ownership over the word ‘Edge’ for videogames (and a bunch of other products) and set about suing anyone that infringed on these rights. The problem for Langdell is that many claimed his marks weren’t valid and that he’d doctored submissions to the USPTO.
Langdell then sued EA (over Mirror’s Edge, due to the title being similar to Langdell’s ‘Mirrors (a game by) Edge’—seriously), waking a sleeping giant. In tandem with the ChaosEdge project, set up to assist Mobigame, EA set about dismantling Langdell’s arguments via some savvy lawyers; luckily for all concerned (bar Langdell) the judge that dealt with the case was equally savvy, and he stripped Langdell of his marks (Joystiq), and he’s now been booted out of the IGDA as well (Pocket Gamer).
But Mobigame wasn’t the only indie that suffered due to Langdell’s actions. Nalin Sharma had created the game Killer Edge Racing (see this Pocket Gamer interview for more), a fun, arcade racer that had rapidly evolved from a tech demo. Naturally, Langdell figured the game was passing off his ‘famous’ brand and would confuse gamers worldwide, who wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between an indie iOS game and Langdell’s own Edge Racers (in reality a redressed PC game called Voltage, as outlined by ChaosEdge).
In a word: gah.
But this tale has a happy ending. Sharma contacted us the other day to note that his game is back on the App Store. “Given the EA ruling, I thought I would take a chance, and in four days, it has done 6000 downloads and was the #15 racing game in the USA on Saturday,” he says.
To celebrate his racer’s return, Killer Edge Racing is currently on sale for 99c/59p (App Store link).
