The IGDA announced Langdell's resignation in a brief statement this morning. In an email to Kotaku, IGDA Executive Director Joshua Caulfield said Langdell resigned voluntarily and was not asked to. Langdell provided a lengthy statement explaining his decision, the entirety of which is at the end of this story.

In his statement, Langdell says he left the board because opposition to his board membership comes from "a contingent ... who in their fanaticism will cause substantial negative press for the IGDA over the next month and place intolerable demands on the board and IGDA staff."

Late last week, the IGDA announced that a special meeting of the membership - essentially an online vote - would be held Oct. 3, the sole purpose of which was to vote on whether Langdell should be removed. Langdell had served on the board since March 1.

In his statement Langdell expressed confidence that he would survive such a vote but "my fear is that a quorum will not be attained and that consequently this vocal minority will not accept the outcome of the October 3rd meeting as bringing closure to this issue."

Langdell, who founded EDGE Games in 1979, is widely known for the aggressive defense of his long held trademark to the word "Edge" in video gaming. His latest dispute is with Mobigame, which released the iPhone/iPod Touch game EDGE in April. Their public fight has provoked heated commentary and accusations of bad faith dealings on both sides. Langdell himself has become more vocal of late, publishing a lengthy defense of his company and engaging in debates with members on the IGDA forums. The effort to remove him from the IGDA's board was begun back in July.

At the heart of Langdell's controversial public persona is the perception that his and EDGE's primary activity is litigation rather than actual development. Langdell claims EDGE has published more than 700 games, but an analysis, quoted by Eurogamer pegged the figure at 70, the most recent in 1990. EDGE's site does say it is working on four multiplatform titles at the moment.

Langdell said he would remain a full regular member of the IGDA. Caulfield, the executive director, told Kotaku that "it is my sincere hope that this issue is resolved. There are a lot of great people in the IGDA, and I hope we can get on with providing them with value for their membership."

Statement of Tim Langdell, CEO of EDGE Games, Aug. 31 2009

With the process barely started leading up to the Special Meeting announced last Friday and set to take place on October 3, it is already clear to me that despite my being confident that thinking members of the IGDA will vote for me to remain on the board for the balance of my term, there is a contingent who were involved in sending the defamatory email to all members by exploiting the IGDA email system a few weeks ago who in their fanaticism will cause substantial negative press for the IGDA over the next month and place intolerable demands on the board and IGDA staff. And while I am confident that were the needed quorum of at least 50% of the voting membership to be achieved at the Special Meeting that the vote would go in favor of my remaining on the board, my fear is that a quorum will not be attained and that consequently this vocal minority will not accept the outcome of the October 3rd meeting as bringing closure to this issue.

My great fear, then, is that this vocal minority — most of whom are not IGDA members — will continue their negative attacks on the IGDA beyond October 3, refusing to accept the outcome of my remaining on the board. It seems nearly certain they will continue to generate even more negative press for the IGDA for weeks or even months to come and persist in causing substantial drain on IGDA board volunteer and staff resources and time, which is not in the interests of either the IGDA or its membership. Especially not at this time when all key IGDA resources should be focused on the Leadership Forum, not on dealing with this issue.

Thus with the best interests of the IGDA at heart, and mindful of the unfair demand on the time of my fellow board members and our truly excellent IGDA staff, including the remarkable Joda Sapp and our incomparable new ED Joshua Caulfield, I therefore announce my decision to resign as a member of the board of the IGDA, effective immediately. I make this decision not because I have done anything wrong — on the contrary I am confident that all accusations against me were unfounded and purely intended to defame, and am confident that I have at all times acted in the best interest of the IGDA and its membership — but because I must make this decision between concluding a process that will show I did no wrong, and having that process irreparably damage the IGDA. I cannot permit the latter to happen, and this has to drive my decision today, taking priority over defending myself against these accusations to a conclusion. There are some who will take my stepping down as an admission of wrongdoing, but they are the same people who if the October 3 Special Meeting had gone ahead resulting in my remaining on the board would have refused to accept that outcome.

Last, I wish to say that the board is full of some incredible people, and you, the membership of the IGDA, are in excellent hands. For my part, I believe I made a solid contribution to the Association in my time on the board, taking on a somewhat disastrous web project which, as head of web tech these past months, I was able to bring round so that the new website should now be able to go live very shortly. I am sorry that I will not personally be overseeing the launch of the new website, but I know that this process is in the excellent hands of a colleague on the board.

I will remain an active member of the IGDA, still supporting it in any way I can as a regular member, and still serving on some fifteen SIGs; indeed my departure from the board will give me more time to devote to supporting the SIGs.

Dr. Tim Langdell, Pasadena, CA.

Despite the fact the WiiWare game has been reviewed by several outlets, and despite the fact it's already out in Europe, OTT have only now changed its name to "NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits". Which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Asked why the move was made after the game was already out, OTT CEO Rob Alvarez says:

There will be a new version of the game with the new name in the next days. That's the only change. It has to do with a trademark claim by another videogame company. We are a small indie developer and could not fight for our rights.

It's OK. We know it's Nintendo. Or not! A Twitter post from the developers explicitly says the move "has NOTHING to do with Kid Icarus".

Shame. The game had been getting some good reviews as Icarian. But now, I'd knock a point or two off just for "NyxQuest". Ungh.

Over The Top Games Forced To Rename Icarian: Kindred Spirits [Edge]

"No dice".

Why? Because the word "remote" is too common to be trademarked. Can't own a word that the world already uses, guys. Seems somebody at Nintendo ticked the wrong box, and they'll now have to go back and try again, this time with the realisation they can only trademark the the name "Wii Remote", not both words individually.

U.S. Patent Office Balks at Nintendo's Wii Remote Trademark Attempt [Game Politics]

After reviewing MKR's claims, the judge found that the game contained "profound differences" and dismissed the case.

Things nearly did not go quite as smoothly, though. Capcom presented "dozens" of zombie movies and games that it claimed showed the generic nature of the subject matter. The court rejected all them, however, because Capcom had just submitted synopses they had found on Wikipedia.

Dead Rising wins copyright case [Gamespot]

Bootant has received a takedown for Break Classic and BreakTouch 3D and SpiffyWare was given a talking to for SuperPong 2 - citing both Breakout and Pong infringements.

Thing is, while the Tetris clone Tris was pulled, this was due to the too-similar name - the gameplay was almost certainly not actionable. If Atari are applying the same legal principles, shouldn't they also be going after the producers of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo?

Atari’s Legal Team Attacking iPhone “Breakout” Clones [Touch Arcade]

Noah Witherspoon, who developed the game, received notice from Apple that they had been contacted by The Tetris Company, threatening legal action. Although Noah feels that he could probably win any legal case by changing the name of the app, he does not have the resources to see such a case through.

The trouble is, I'm a college student, and not an affluent one, and I simply do not have the time, energy, or resources to fight this battle right now. There's a point at which I am willing to give up and be practical, to let the world have its way with that ever-mistreated little ideal of “principle”.

The game will remain on the App Store servers — it will just not be listed — and Noah says he will be working to see if he can resolve the dispute and re-release the game under a different title.

Over, for now [Two Finger Play viaTouch Arcade]

GameSetWatch looks at the issue of casual games being blatantly copied by other games. It's alot like generic brands of cereal at the grocery store, sure, Tastee-Os are alot like Cheerios, but they are just enough different to skirt confrontation. The GameSetWatch piece suggests that "Maybe many of these ideas are too simple to be copyrighted, but something feels just a little over-ripe in casual games right now regarding game clones."

Puzzloop or Zuma, Diner Dash Or Roller Rush? [GameSetWatch]

I have yet to get any official statement from Tecmo, so i have no idea what kind of shit i'm sitting in... I'll make sure to keep you guys updated.

I don't know how responsable I am for the content found on my message board. I did not post any such code myself, and i was unaware that anyone else had... This could be anything from a slap on the wrist to a $100,000 fine. Only time will tell.

As always, thanks for your support. It's been a fun 2 years and hopefully it's not over yet.

He goes on to say that at least one of the people named in the suit is in fact not connected with running the site, he just hosted it for a friend. Cypher35 also says that he had no idea that posting renders of game characters was illegal, he saw it more as fan art.

NInjaHacker.net Dead? [Xbox-Scene]

We are known for being a technological leader in the video game industry, and we clearly support and respect the innovations which push the boundaries of gaming. However, we believe it is our duty to uphold the integrity of our work. Hacking of this kind will not be tolerated and we intend to take all necessary measures to protect our intellectual property.

They won t share the name of the site, in their press release at least, because they don t want to glorify these guys.

Major Video Game Publisher Sues Hackers [Business Wire]

One image we provided you with was of Anna Williams in a pink nurse s outfit, which resulted in unintended and possibly, unauthorized use of the 'Red Cross Symbol'. We are requesting that you immediately REMOVE this image from any current coverage and refrain from any future usage of this image, as this customizable outfit no longer appears in TEKKEN 5.

No One Messes with the Red Cross [Video Fenky]

Kids with wandering imaginations have long decorated school notebooks with pictures of fantastic and supernatural beings of their own design. The ingenuity of individuals, as expressed through the creation of characters incorporating timeless themes of mythology, patriotism, 'good,' and 'evil,' has been a source of entertainment in the form of role-playing games for ages.

Marvel & NCsoft Update [Terra Nova]

Makers of video games settle piracy claims against company [Associated Press]