Valve Files Trademark for ... DotA?

[John Funk]

Valve Files Trademark for ... DotA?

Popular PC developer Valve has registered a trademark for what is apparently popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients.

If you've never played Defense of the Ancients, it's a wildly popular custom game built using the Warcraft III map editor in which players control a single hero (rather than an army) in a team battle to destroy the other team's base. I also question why you clicked on this news piece in the first place, but that's beside the point.

There has been some intriguing buzz as of late regarding DotA and beloved Steam-powered kingpin Valve. It started back in 2009, when Valve hired DotA developer Icefrog to work on a project that would make DotA fans "since been deleted [http://www.playdota.com/forums/blogs/icefrog/892/q-session-4/]:

"Had a great time in Seattle last week recording for DotA. The guys at ValveSoftware are awesome! Going to PAX? Might see you there - Sept3-5"

Now, Valve has filed a trademark [http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=85102245] for something called "DOTA." While none of this is absolute concrete evidence that Valve is working on its own DotA clone - to join the ranks of League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth and Demigod - it's more than enough to make one wonder. Ah, maybe it'll just be a TF2 mod.

While DOTA is immediately recognizable to anyone who's ever played the original game, might I suggest some other alternate titles: GLeague of GLaDOS? Heroes of Newell? Demigordon, perhaps?

(Destructoid [http://supererogatory.tumblr.com/post/936208464])

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[Thumper17]

DOTA = Duke of the Ancients.

 

[ultimateownage]

Interesting stuff. Well, kind of, it has Valve in it. Hopefully it won't just be like what they did with Alien Swarm, hire people who made a previous game, and then let them release a version of that game which is boring and has practically no content to play.

 

[PurpleSky]

heheheh I made a thread a while ago about this

 

[FinalHeart95]

I always hated DOTA, but that's mainly because the mass amount of DOTA games reduced the number of tower defense and gladiator games.

If I try it now, I might like it.

 

[Evil the White]

DOTA = Duke of the Ancients.

Valve making Duke Nukem? Well, guess we can rest assured that's not coming out for another twelve years...

OT, I'm intrigued.

 

[Dexiro]

So are Valve helping to develop an RTS now? Sounds good to me, anything they help out with turns out amazing ^_^

 

[andeve3]

Interesting stuff. Well, kind of, it has Valve in it.

My feelings exactly.

 

[daftalchemist]

I hate DotA forever. It's not even fun. But if it'll get all of the DotA fanatics all clumped into one area of the internet, I'm all for it.

 

[John Funk]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-10-valve-still-working-on-dota-project

It is what they're working on.

...all of that is information that was in the original post, yes

 

[samsonguy920]

Hmm, fascinating. If this is true I would love to see what Valve does with it.

Interesting stuff. Well, kind of, it has Valve in it. Hopefully it won't just be like what they did with Alien Swarm, hire people who made a previous game, and then let them release a version of that game which is boring and has practically no content to play.

If Valve is filing a trademark then you can bet they aim to make money off of it. Alien Swarm is free to play, and as such doesn't really carry much expectations except some casual gaming to it.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

It'll have to be pretty good to dent LoL though, which has evolved into something fairly unique and polished.

 

[Jared]

Intresting...I wonder where they are going with this...Wouldnt mind some fresh DotA action!

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

"GLeague of GLaDOS? Heroes of Newell? Demigordon, perhaps?"

2 words: Fucking awesome.

 

[Alar]

Doesn't this run into some problems with Blizzard, or no? I mean, it was a map in a Blizzard game originally.

 

[NLS]

But, but, but what about Episode 3?
Oh well, hopefully Valve knows what they're doing.

 

[Moonmover]

Uh, doesn't Blizzard own "Defense of the Ancients?" Or am I misunderstanding how this works?

 

[Woodsey]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-10-valve-still-working-on-dota-project

It is what they're working on.

...all of that is information that was in the original post, yes

Haha, my mistake. I read down the first paragraph, and registered it as you weren't sure if they were; so I put "I'm pretty sure I saw this announced a few days ago" (still having only read the first paragraph) and then found that.

Nevermind then!

 

[Kair]

There is already Heroes of Newerth.

It is still being added to, but is even now far more immersive than DotA.

I'm surprised people haven't heard about it yet.

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com