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.

While it wasn't clear whether the IGDA's Education SIG would take up the issue, DigiPen's Comair says that a policy change is not out of the question. "Students come to DIT to learn and get the most out of their education, not to ship a game they created at school for profit," he says.

"We are a school, not a production house, and therefore our goal is for the students to gain the knowledge and experience they need to be successful in the field. We may lose students based on our IP policy, but this is not as important to me as is maintaining the quality of the education.

"I am not saying that we will not change in the future," he adds. "But, in order to do that, we need to talk to the industry to see what they feel would be best. Our program advisory committee is made up of the best of the best companies in the world. So far," he says, "they are very happy with our policy."

The commercial aspect adds some special challenges, but there's something that rubs me the wrong way about schools retaining the IP of student work. The idea that students shouldn't have control over their own work because 'it was a homework assignment' really strikes me the wrong way, probably because plenty of my fellow graduate students have and will publish work that was a 'homework assignment' (a very, very big homework assignment). As long as the policies are clearly spelled out, no one has much room to complain for current projects, but it seems like something that deserves to have a second look.

Controversy In The Classroom: Whose IP Is It Anyway? [Gamasutra]

Spacetime Studios Acquires Blackstar IP from NCsoft®

Blackstar is a highly stylized science-fantasy universe from developers of Wing Commander, Privateer, and Star Wars: Galaxies

AUSTIN, Texas - May 8, 2008 - Spacetime Studios, LLC announced today it has acquired the rights to the Blackstar IP from its previous publisher NCsoft. Spacetime Studios, an independent game development studio made up of industry veterans, now fully owns all the tools, technology and intellectual property from their previous publishing deal.

Set in the far future, Blackstar is a fresh universe full of wildly original space fighters, horrifying demonic enemies and epic drama. "The IP lends itself to almost any kind of gameplay that one could ask for, and was specifically designed to be a long-term franchise," said Cinco Barnes, creative director and co-founder of Spacetime Studios. "It's a nice sweet spot when you own all the puzzle pieces and we now have extraordinary flexibility in where to take the game universe next."

"After two years of development, the Blackstar universe is quite near and dear to our hearts" said Gary Gattis, executive producer and co-founder of Spacetime Studios. "Owning the IP as well as the engine and tool set puts a tremendous amount of potential in our hands. With all the developed components under the Spacetime team's control, the options for the IP are diversified."

The new "Blackstar Chronicles" development underway is a space fantasy combat game based on the single-player traditions of "Wing Commander" and the multiplayer feel of "Descent." "The Blackstar Chronicles is a very powerful product," said Jake Rodgers, art director and co-founder of Spacetime Studios. "The Blackstar universe has the potential to be something special and it's great that we are able to bring the IP to fruition."

Download a PDF about the IP at http://www.spacetimestudios.com/downloads/brochure_LoRes.pdf
More information about the studio can be found at http://www.spacetimestudios.com.

I see conferences and talks on the future of games and design, and the true integration and collaboration of games with other media, and many of these ideas are sound, genuinely intriguing, and some of them are even possible to implement. Yet, where are they?

There are so many fantastic ideas out there not getting realized ....

That's the big question. How do you take that plunge? I can't count how many people I've talked to who have great ideas for games, or who had better concepts for sub-par games that were eventually released. Why don't their games get made? Too daunting? Too many bosses? .

Why Do Good People Make Bad Games? [Gamasutra]

BRIGHTON, England (10th April 2008) - NCsoft®, the world-leading, publisher of massively multiplayer online games such as Guild Wars®, Lineage® II and City of Heroes®, today announced that it was stepping up its fight against the growing menace of intellectual property theft. This action comes as a direct response to the rise of illegal online game servers throughout Eastern Europe, particularly in Greece and Russia where NCsoft's fantasy-based online role playing game, Lineage II, is extremely popular.

The fraudulent servers in question are being used by players playing at home and in internet cafes, but such unauthorised servers often feature - or require users to download - illegally modified and potentially harmful game data, thereby changing the intended online experience.

NCsoft's European office has identified several prominent illegal servers across Europe and is in the process of taking action against individuals and corporations deemed to be in breach of international copyright laws. In a lawsuit that was commenced last year in Greece, NCsoft successfully obtained a court order against Internet Cafe business, 'e-GLOBAL' following which four of its cafes were raided and illegal software was seized. This led to the shutting down of illegal servers on which pirate copies of Lineage II software was loaded. Georgios Katostaris - Chairman of the Board and Managing Director, Constantinos Zygouras - Vice-Chairman of the Board and Managing Director, Athanassios Dobros - Deputy Managing Director and Dimitrios Koutsoukos - Administrator of the company under the name 'INTERNET DYNAMICS LLC' have all been made personal defendants to the proceedings that are continuing in the Greek Courts in which NCsoft is seeking damages as well as criminal remedies.

"Illegal game servers, such as those operating from e-GLOBAL, have a hugely negative impact on both NCsoft Europe and its customers," commented Max Brown, NCsoft Europe's Sales & Operations Director. "They seriously affect the player's experience of our products and rob the company of potential revenue that is used to further enhance the player experience on official servers. NCsoft's loss in revenue from e-GLOBAL's operation is estimated in excess of six million Euros. We are defiant in our resolve to stamp out theft of NCsoft's intellectual properties and are prepared to take the strongest measures to do so."

NCsoft has a proven track record in combating illegal servers, having worked with the FBI in November 2006 to shut down a substantial unofficial Lineage II server run by US-based website, L2Extreme.com. Following multiple raids across cities throughout the US, L2Extreme's fraudulent servers - which claimed to support 50,000 active users - were taken offline, as was the L2Extreme.com website.

So a new IP is coming from Insomniac in the semi far to far future? Sounds good to us.

Insomniac's Ted Price Talks 'Ratchet' Sales Surprises, New IPs [MTVmultiplayer]

2k Tech JT writes: The other way to view this, is one USER has purchased the game. Not the whole family. So why should your brother play for free?

Especially with bed wetters.

2K Thread [via maxconsole]

Update: 2K has contacted us to let us know that 2K Tech JT is in fact not an employee of 2K, but rather an outside contractor who is now, it seems, being investigated by the company.

Please note that the forum moderator has been incorrectly quoted as a 2K employee. The individual, "JT Tech 2K" works for an outside tech support group and is not an employee of 2K. Additionally, 2K is investigating the validity of the post.

Before starting Lair we said we would never use a licensed IP again, but now I'd pray to do one...[but] if you have a small idea...absolutely grab that opportunity.

But if Eggebrecht ships a million copies of Lair, we'll see if he changes his tune and dragons triumph over X-Wings once again.

Over at N'Gai Croal's LevelUp, Midway's Steve Allison breaks down what developers must do to make games that sell. And one of those things is not make new IPs. Allison states:

According to our numbers, the actual success rate of new IP over the past four years is just seven percent. In other words, 93 percent of new IP fails in the marketplace. So while the 90-plus review scores and armfuls of awards create the perception that titles like Psychonauts, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami and other great pieces of work were big successes, the truth is that they were big financial disappointments and money losers.

It's a shame that developers aren't often rewarded for making something new. Blame customers, not companies for the gazillionth Madden/Final Fantasy/Gundam game. Brian Ashcraft

What Devs Can Do [LevelUp]

Wingnut Interactive was created in partership with Academy Award-winning screenwriter Fran Walsh, Jakcson and Microsoft Game Studios.

Wingnut's first two projects will be Xbox 360 exclusives. The first will be a cooperative effort with Bungie Studios to create a new IP, not Halo 3 and not Halo Wars, built from the Halo universe. The game will be co-written and co-designed by Jackson, Walsh and the Bungie team.

Scott Henson, director of strategy for Xbox and Games for Windows, told me that they haven't yet announced what form the game will take, so it could be anything from a shooter to a role-playing game to an MMO.

The second game will be a brand new franchise built around an "entirelty original property targeted at bringing new audiences into the captivating world of interactive entertainment."

"Microsoft has built an amazing living canvas with Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, which allows the storytellers of our time to express themselves in a new medium. They have fundamentally changed how people think about games," Jackson said. "My vision, together with Microsoft Game Studios, is to push the boundaries of game development and the future of interactive entertainment. From a movie-maker's point of view, it is clear to me that the Xbox 360 platform is the stage where storytellers can work their craft in the same way they do today with movies and books but taking it further with interactivity."

Henson wouldn't go into the business relationship behind the new studio, but I suspect they will be only creating games for the 360 and perhaps Vista, since it is backed by Microsoft Game Studios. Brian Crecente

Under the terms of the new deal with Crytek, Ubisoft will take ownership of all the existing Far Cry IP, as well as a perpetual license to use the version of the CryENGINE technology implemented in Far Cry.

The agreement means that Ubisoft will be able to develop sequels in the franchise - which has become a major property for the French publisher, with Far Cry Instincts Evolution (Xbox) and Far Cry Instincts Predator (Xbox 360) both shipping this week.

It also grants Ubisoft and its studios the ability to use the Far Cry engine to develop other titles, which is another string to the company's bow in development terms - with a statement this morning outlining the firm's enthusiasm about taking the engine "to the next level."

I'm sure Ubi broke out in a cold sweat when they heard Cry was working on a title for Electronic Arts, this should help some of their execs sleep better at night.

Far Cry Gets Pwned [Blue's News]