DOTA vs Dota 2: Valve and Blizzard go to war

Never mind the fuss over Scrolls/The Elder Scrolls – if you want trademark confusion, look to DOTA.

To recap. There’s the original DOTA, aka Defense of the Ancients, a Warcraft III map. There’s Valve’s Dota 2, which doesn’t actually stand for anything, acting as a direct commercial sequel. Next year, we can expect Blizzard’s official take, with a Starcraft map combining heroes from all of its units. And then there’s League of Legends, the same game at heart, whose creators want everyone to use the term MOBA – Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. Sound fair? Perhaps, except that even if you ignore that about 99% of online action games could qualify as that, the likes of Funcom’s Bloodline Champions apparently don’t, at least not in the eyes of the players… because they’re not DOTA.

That pain in your head is a migraine no amount of Neurofen will shift.

What’s interesting about this fight is that it’s set to be primarily one for the hearts and minds of players rather than a duel of lawyers. There’s still time for them to get involved, but so far all sides are holding back. Speaking with Eurogamer at Gamescom, Blizzard provided comments like “I don’t think it’s critical [to have the name DOTA] to delivering that experience to the fans, personally”, with Valve’s Gabe Newell responding “I haven’t had any customers or gamers react negatively to it. They seem to be pretty comfortable with it.” Maybe both sides are hoping to score that all-important last hit bonus?

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