Riot Games Sues Mobile Legends Developer For Allegedly Cloning League of Legends

Back in 2003 a group of modders decided to create a custom game mode for Warcraft III called DotA. The mod was a huge hit and pretty soon a number of DotA clones, such as League of Legends by Riot Games and Heroes of Newerth by S2 Games, emerged from the woodworks and MOBAs became the next big thing in gaming. These new MOBAs retained the same gameplay mechanics of DoTA but made a few changes to avoid copyright issues. Apparently, Mobile Legends developer Shanghai Moonton Technology didn't change enough because Riot Games is now suing them for alleged copyright infringement.

Riot Games filed a lawsuit at the Central District Court of California last Thursday claiming that Shanghai Moonton deliberately copied elements of League of Legends. These included map, unit, and mob designs, as well as LoL’s artwork and characters. Moonton also allegedly used a logo similar to that of LoL.

In addition, Riot also accused Moonton of engaging in “overt gamesmanship”, making “the most minimal adjustments” when they were sent an infringement claim, and taking down the original game Mobile Legends: 5v5 game only to be replaced by a “new” one called Mobile Legends: Bang Bang which featured the same elements with a few minor changes. The lawsuit includes both Mobile Legends: 5v5 and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and the mobile RTS Magic Rush: Heroes.

Shanghai Moonton recently released an official statement on their Facebook page denying the allegations.

“Recently, some media have published negative and unreal reports against Mobile Legends. Here is the statement of Moonton:

Mobile Legends is a MOBA game that is developed by Moonton independently, and its copyright has already been registered and protected in multiple countries all over the world. Moonton has independent intellectual property rights.

Mobile Legends and all the users will not be affected by these unreal reports and we will keep providing the best gameplay experience to players all over the world.

Meanwhile, for some media and competitors who have spread the unreal information and rumors against us, we reserve the right to protect ourselves and pursue legal actions.”

Mobile Legends was released for Android devices in July 2016 and on iOS in November 2016 and quickly became a worldwide hit. Check out the official trailer below.