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[Craig Stern]

10 points to whoever can spot the addition

Gamer's Edge ^TM

[Mipe]

Porn site?! 

This is gold.

[Craig Stern]

Searched a bit, found no info on it except for the following:

--the company's apparent former address at 3009 Daimler St., Santa Ana, CA 92705.

--an EDGAR filing for Simpletech, located down the street from XYZ Inc., listing "Manouch Moshayedi, Mike Moshayedi and Mark Moshayedi" as "the sole beneficial stockholders of MDC Land Corporation, MDC Land LLC, XYZ, Inc. and QualCenter, Inc." (EDGAR is the database for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, for those who don't know.)

--An EDGAR search for XYZ produces no hits with the correct name and address, which I assume means it wasn't a publicly traded corporation. A search on the appropriate CA Secretary of State page, however, returns this:

XYZ, INC.
Number: C2086773    Date Filed: 5/20/1998    Status: dissolved
Jurisdiction: California
Address
3009 DAIMLER ST
SANTA ANA, CA 92705
Agent for Service of Process
MANOUCH MOSHAYEDI
3009 DAIMLER ST
SANTA ANA, CA 92705

That matches up with the other stuff I found. I haven't been able to find any information on what the corporation actually did or whom it employed yet, however. Someone needs to to step forward with more information before I'll believe that this was a porn site, and that Langdell worked for it.

[Radix]

EDGAR

I'm having trouble reading this with a hard G.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Yeah I was gonna say that without some evidence, I wouldn't really believe anything someone says about Langdell at this point. Simply because it's too easy and he'll become some sort of mythical jackass.

We want to have a guaranteed EXISTANT jackass. 

[Craig Stern]

Did some digging on DivaDee.com.

--doing a WHOIS search on GoDaddy.com, I found that the URL is registered to DomainsByProxy.com; which basically means that the current site owner doesn't want his or her personal info to be available to the public.

--this website says DivaDee.com is owned by a company called Blackboard, Inc. That doesn't disprove anything, though, since XYZ Inc. is dissolved. They might well have owned it in the past.

--the website itself is just a GoDaddy parked page; there's nothing there.

--on this site, DivaDee.com is listed as an online DVD store. Some posters (all anonymous) lament the loss of the site, one of whom notes that it was "tasteful." The address is listed as 17922 Fitch Ave, Irvine, CA 92614.


Again, no proof that Langdell worked there, or that it was owned by XYZ Inc.

[Lurk]

Craig: It might be something linked to his internet venture http://www.the--edge.com/index.htm. He might only have been responsible for creating websites for them. And according to his bio, he's a leading game guru http://www.the--edge.com/langdell/. Funny, the original quote is

Leading British games gurus Tim Langdell and Geoff Brown are taking on the United States with the launch of Langdell Brown Associates, the first agency focused on the convergence of the movie and video game industries.

.

[Mipe]

How can he be a leading game guru if he hasn't written a single line of code since eighties? 

[Oddbob]

Still, an understandable fit considering most of Geoff's business for the best part of 10 years in the Eighties consisted of sorting out licensing deals and getting your US games out over in the UK.

Oh, and repackaging shit football games and hoping no-one notices. A behaviour you'd never see today.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Hmm... interesting. Does anyone know whether Langdell or Brown have worked on any games based on... Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, and The Godfather?

Also that "paper" is apparently from "2004". Yes. I'm sure that's a full-page story right there. Some guys are hoping to make some sort of movie-game connection thing. Why... this certainly is brand spanking new stuff! Obviously film and game have never collided before. No, we've never seen films used in games. Or even a movie which has some game elements in it!

Oh and this line: "...too many people in Hollywood look at games as just another license along with the T-shirt and mug."

Yes, I'm sure that Hollywood people see that way. I mean, it's not like Peter Jackson would team up with Michel Ancel or anything.

To drop the sarcasm, here's some more idiocy. The article keeps saying "vidgames" instead of "videogames". They also begin a paragraph by saying "Firm has begun working on licensing..." I think that's all we need to know, seeing as how the only organization wikipedia knows of called "firm" is a criminal gang active in the East End of London.

This article is either meaningless or faked because any good newspaper knows that you don't cut off mid-paragraph and continue on a different page. Hell, even the locally run small-town paper from where I live knows that. But just out of curiosity, has Langdell or Brown worked on games based on The Hulk and Zorro as well?

This one might be real, but I doubt it, since Langdell is linking to it.

Also, Geoff Brown doesn't have his own page, but it does seem as if the guy exists. His company, U.S. Gold, does seem to have had a presence. Which include games based on Zorro, The Godfather, and Indiana Jones, but none based on The Hulk, or Tomb Raider. And no, they didn't work on them. They just republished them overseas. So that's still nothing. Just more bullshit.

I wouldn't mind hearing Geoff's opinion on all this, if he's still alive and Langdell hasn't gotten Firm to silence him yet.  :D

EDIT: Oh shit, I was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

[mrfredman]

I think the most exciting part of that page is that we all get a new picture of Tim to be disgusted by!



 

Here's to you, you king of all douchebags.

[Oddbob]

US Gold were set up with the explicit intent of licensing popular US games and bringing them to UK shores. It's how we ended up seeing Zorro, Beach Head, Raid Over Moscow and others in this part of the world.

Brown used to own Core (I think, subs please check...) so yeah, he'll have had a hand somewhere down the line in Tomb Raider no doubt and other properties.

As far as I can see, there's nothing disingenuous about Brown's claims.

[Mipe]

Here's to you, you king of all douchebags.

your*

Surely you do not mean that we are kings of all douchebags. Surely?

[Shade Jackrabbit]

US Gold were set up with the explicit intent of licensing popular US games and bringing them to UK shores. It's how we ended up seeing Zorro, Beach Head, Raid Over Moscow and others in this part of the world.

Brown used to own Core (I think, subs please check...) so yeah, he'll have had a hand somewhere down the line in Tomb Raider no doubt and other properties.

As far as I can see, there's nothing disingenuous about Brown's claims.

There's no actual evidence that they are Brown's claims. The page likely belongs to Langdell. I'd like to hear Brown's opinion on all this (if he's still alive) merely to clear this sort of thing up.

[Lurk]

Also, Derek, here's another link you should add to the Ian & Mic footnote on your Langdell page http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:hll9pzLgfPsJ:www.c64.com/scene_display_interview.php%3Finterview%3D200+%22tim+langdell%22+england+courts&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-a

Around this time, we also had a long court battle with a games publisher called The Edge (owned by Tim Langdell) who's only ambition in life was to rip off as many programmers, musicians and graphic artists in every way he could. He used every delay tactic known to man to resist payment, so we decided justice will prevail using legal aid and try to reclaim our earnings through the courts. We eventually won the court case with his company but we did not receive the money that was owed to us or the Maniacs of Noise for the music as he cowardly left for America. But we got some comfort that he ceased trading in the UK through our efforts, with their reputation in tatters. In those last months we would spend days and nights without sleep for weeks on end writing routines and games that had tight deadlines. There was no fun in games development anymore so it was the right time for us to move on.

Seriously, those guys were the true game industry pioneers; Langdell should be ashamed of himself, for trying to wear the mantle they truly deserve.
Also, for all of you who enjoy fresh Langdell pics http://www.timlangdell.com/
That should be a kind of contest in itself, have your picture taken with internet sleazebag Tim Langdell. Should'nt be too hard. Also, you need to hold one of Edge's games while posing with him. 

[Oddbob]

There's no actual evidence that they are Brown's claims. The page likely belongs to Langdell. I'd like to hear Brown's opinion on all this (if he's still alive) merely to clear this sort of thing up.

Umm, it doesn't matter who claims what in this case. As far as my knowledge of George Brown and US Gold and onwards goes, they align pretty much perfectly with what I know of his career.

He was far, far from some two bit operator. US Gold were pretty damn fucking heavyweight (for a giggle, see this quote from the Urbis exhibition) in the UK and later he branched out into mocap stuff as well as having his inhouse team and a couple of other studios under his belt. One of which was Core who aside from inflicting Rick fucking Dangerous on the world also developed Tomb Raider.

So, y'know, nothing unexpected or untoward there.

There's absolutely no reason to doubt the veracity of them no matter what the source and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I see the point of pursuing that line of investigation anyway, man.

However, at least that Variety article clears up that yes, that is the interactive movie Mr Payback that Timmy Boy was involved in. I really need to start updating that Google Doc.

[Oddbob]

Craig, site via Archive.org (obviously not entirely safe for work)

http://web.archive.org/web/19990903014302/www.divadee.com/divadee/default1.asp?pid=

© 1999 XYZ, Inc. All rights reserved
contact the [email protected]
privacy statement

Good enough?

[Shade Jackrabbit]

I just meant that I think Tim may be lying and may not know Brown at all. Hence why it would be nice to hear if he knows about this, and if what Langdell (or them, if it is) says is true.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

I just found a picture of cheri davis

[Oddbob]

I think I just did a little sick up. Cheers!