Blizzard: Valve Shouldn't Trademark DotA

[illas]

I feel like Blizzard is saying this because they're afraid that Valve will take DotA and do something amazing that they couldn't do w/ it. This is Valve, btw. Sure they run on their own time schedual and have been making gamers wait for Episode 3 forever. But this is a company that released a sequel to a game a year later, and is updating both. A company that gives it's fav. crowd (PC) of gamers free DLC and amazing deals when the DLC comes out.

I feel like no matter what Valve does, they do everything to make up for it. If DotA is what it sounds like, Blizz might be scared that Valve makes a competetor to WoW and takes away from their millions of dollars of money

QFT.

Given Valve's success with Team Fortress 2 (originally a Quake mod) I can imagine Blizzard being concerned by any game that might take away some of their revenue; particularly if the original IP was developed in their product.

Valve's Left for Dead games with their small-scale co-op scenarios are already undermining WoW's originally unique 5-man instance structure. Furthermore TF2's recent focus on gear/items would appear to be another step towards a pervasive experience. Valve are probably the only PC game studio on the planet who can boast superior talent and resources to Blizzard, so any steps that they take into Blizzard's market will be met with hostility.

 

[Jackpot]

acti blizzard dont think its the right thing to do? hahahahahahhahahahaha christ..

you have my sword...

 

[Computer-Noob]

Somehow I can't see myself believing Blizzards mentioning this out of love for the community. Feels like an attempt at a "be the good guy" stunt to me.

... though I was a little curious about Valve and the whole trademarking DotA, all things considered (community focused project, etc...)

By "the community", it more likely means its own. You probably wouldnt know about that.

Blizzard "Dammit, we didn't get the copyright first, hey Valve, not cool".

That makes sense. Its not like Blizzard has been aware of the existence of DotA all this time. Its not like they've hosted DotA tournaments at Blizzcon and other events. Its not like they had no intention of trademarking it in the first place. /sarcasm

I feel like Blizzard is saying this because they're afraid that Valve will take DotA and do something amazing that they couldn't do w/ it. This is Valve, btw.

...Except Blizz didnt DO anything to it. Its a community map. They had no intention of doing anything to it in the first place. Thats kind of the whole point of this.

Sure they run on their own time schedual and have been making gamers wait for Episode 3 forever.

You know the EXACT SAME THING can be said of Starcraft two from the perspective of a blizzard fanboy. And in THEIR minds its justified, the same way it is in yours about Episode 3.

But this is a company that released a sequel to a game a year later, and is updating both. A company that gives it's fav. crowd (PC) of gamers free DLC and amazing deals when the DLC comes out.

Once again, same can be said about any developer. Valve retains no uniqueness in that regard.
....and Blizzard updates all of their games since WC3.

Also, imagine if patches in WoW were optional, but you had to pay for them. Lets say a couple bucks for each MAJOR one, and maybe one for the smaller ones. Patches that are bug fixes are totally free. Suddenly the perspecive about blizzard being "money hungry" shifts a bit, doesnt it?

I feel like no matter what Valve does, they do everything to make up for it.

*cough* Fanboy alert

If DotA is what it sounds like, Blizz might be scared that Valve makes a competetor to WoW and takes away from their millions of dollars of money

HAH. Yeah right. Do you honestly think Blizzard is even remotely concerned about WoW competitors? They've been punting them left and right since before WoW even came out.

 

[Computer-Noob]

just shut up blizzard. you just want it for yourself

Yes yes, of course. They want something that they've been perfectly capable of taking for years now but just sat lazily around doing nothing. Flame off, please.

 

[Computer-Noob]

You just killed your own argument with your argument. If it is not CREATED on WC3's editor it does not get umbrellaed in the EULA. DoTA 2 is a COMPLETELY stand alone NOT created on the editor therefore that part that you are quoting is just a meaningless wall of text.

Do you know DotA 2 is called DotA by Valve?
and have the same heros in the WC3 DotA.
Those Hero was created in WC3 editor.
DotA by Valve is not a new DotA game, it is WC3 DotA with matchmaking and better graphics.
It is said that the 100+ heros in WC3 DotA is in the Valve DotA.
So how is that not created by WC3 editor.

I would like this question to be answered as well. Silence seems to be the best as the arguement that it was created in the editor is entirely valid.

 

[Torrasque]

I suppose if Valve got the developers of Evolves or some Tower defence variant, Blizzard would contest that too huh?

It seems inherently wrong for Valve to try and copyright the name of DotA, but the name doesn't really mean that much.
SC2 DotA-variant creators have already come up with better more applicable names, so the copyright would only affect the WC3 games still being played? ?

I am not too worried about this tbh.
Even if Valve is successful in copyrighting the name and making their DotA game.
What next?
Well? the DotA variants on SC2 would still be made, aaaaand? nothing really changes.

Copying Blizzard's units however, that isn't cool Valve =/

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Whilst I'm sure Valve can mace something excellent out of it, I don't think they should. If anyone other than the community made it, it should really be Blizzard, and they're right to call them out over it. Bit of a dick move if you ask me.

 

[Tinneh]

Can somebody tell me what DOTA is? I have never played a Blizzard game before.

 

[Dioxide20]

Somehow I can't see myself believing Blizzards mentioning this out of love for the community. Feels like an attempt at a "be the good guy" stunt to me.

... though I was a little curious about Valve and the whole trademarking DotA, all things considered (community focused project, etc...)

By "the community", it more likely means its own. You probably wouldnt know about that.

Blizzard "Dammit, we didn't get the copyright first, hey Valve, not cool".

That makes sense. Its not like Blizzard has been aware of the existence of DotA all this time. Its not like they've hosted DotA tournaments at Blizzcon and other events. Its not like they had no intention of trademarking it in the first place. /sarcasm

I feel like Blizzard is saying this because they're afraid that Valve will take DotA and do something amazing that they couldn't do w/ it. This is Valve, btw.

...Except Blizz didnt DO anything to it. Its a community map. They had no intention of doing anything to it in the first place. Thats kind of the whole point of this.

Sure they run on their own time schedual and have been making gamers wait for Episode 3 forever.

You know the EXACT SAME THING can be said of Starcraft two from the perspective of a blizzard fanboy. And in THEIR minds its justified, the same way it is in yours about Episode 3.

But this is a company that released a sequel to a game a year later, and is updating both. A company that gives it's fav. crowd (PC) of gamers free DLC and amazing deals when the DLC comes out.

Once again, same can be said about any developer. Valve retains no uniqueness in that regard.
....and Blizzard updates all of their games since WC3.

Also, imagine if patches in WoW were optional, but you had to pay for them. Lets say a couple bucks for each MAJOR one, and maybe one for the smaller ones. Patches that are bug fixes are totally free. Suddenly the perspecive about blizzard being "money hungry" shifts a bit, doesnt it?

I feel like no matter what Valve does, they do everything to make up for it.

*cough* Fanboy alert

If DotA is what it sounds like, Blizz might be scared that Valve makes a competetor to WoW and takes away from their millions of dollars of money

HAH. Yeah right. Do you honestly think Blizzard is even remotely concerned about WoW competitors? They've been punting them left and right since before WoW even came out.

*cough* Blizzard fan boy alert

 

[Koganesaga]

Setting aside my personal HATRED for DotA (mostly it's community), some type of joint trademark seems the best choice if it comes down too it, though the perfered situation should be to leave it in public domain, after all nobody forced Value to take on DotA as a game, they ultimately made the choice to take on the project, knowing of the strong pre-existing community. If neither of those are viable, as a last resort, leave the call up to the original creator of DotA (though considering he ripped off the idea from the starcraft one game Aeon of Strife (may have spelled that wrong) it should be up to whoever made that).

 

[LitleWaffle]

Why does Blizzard get a say in this?
Nobody from blizzard made it, it was just people making it on War Craft 3, so they really don't have the right to ownership or anything.

Seems pretty obvious at this point that they want it.

 

[TwilightSnail]

DotA is a great game, just takes a lot of time patience and dedication. As well as a willingness to work with people.

 

[Lewieroo0]

the only thing i'm annoyed about at valve is how long it's taking for them to release the next Meet the _____ Video :|

 

[Klepa]

Can somebody tell me what DOTA is? I have never played a Blizzard game before.

Defense of the ancients. A mod made for WC3, back in the days. You choose a hero, and you try to kill the opposing players' base with it, while trying to defend your own. Heroes gain levels and buy items, similarly to a lot of RPG games. You need to balance between trying to stop your enemy from leveling, leveling up yourself, and killing the enemy.

It's a very team oriented game, and a very competitive one.

I haven't played DoTA much, but I understand it's pretty much 1:1 to Heroes of Newerth, a game which was made after people realized that DoTA could make loads of money, if it was a standalone game.

DoTA and especially Heroes of Newerth, are renowned for having what are probably THE worst online communities in any game.

 

[XShrike]

Considering Blizzard is making their own DotA this sounds like they are just upset somebody got there first. If people really wanted to make sure nobody could lay claim to DotA they should have registered it as public domain.

From what I hear there were people that worked on DotA before Icefrog but, he was the one that put the most work into it. He is apparently responsible for fixing all the bugs and balancing it to its current state. Others related and unrelated to the people that work on DotA make games similar to it but, none actually call it DotA. Valve hires Icefrog to make essentially DotA: All-Stars for them a few years ago, announce they area calling it DotA 2 recently, and then this happens.

Upside to what Valve is trying to bring to DotA is a system to help new players with a mentor system and reward people that help this way. This will hopefully lessen the number of elitist pricks that infest that community.

 

[Nikokvaj]

This reminds me of back when the term "feta" was trademarked.

For all intents and purposes, everyone still calls it feta, all the copyrighters managed to do was make themselves out to look like massive cockheads because they were trying to interfere in the way we act and talk.

What I'm trying to say is that just like Feta meant, and in my book still means, brined curd cheese, DotA was, and forever will be, a gaming genre. LoL is a DotA game, HoN is a DotA game, that shitty assault mod in CoH that nobody plays is a DotA game. It's a genre. What Valve is trying to do the equivalent of copyrighting the term FPS or RTS. Sure, it's within your rights, but it will backfire because you are forcing a manner of speech upon other people.

That's not to say I find the Blizzard standpoint particularly sympathetic either: The last time I checked Blizzard was still the final boss of copyright bullshit, with their witchhunt of private servers and stubborn refusal to let community sites make money.

 

[TheBaron87]

The person who owns the DotA name is Eul, the original creator of Defense of the Ancients, before DotA-Allstars ever existed. Most people don't know that DotA-Allstars is just one of several spinoffs of a much older, simpler map, which itself was a recreation of the Starcraft map Aeon of Strife. The people behind the current DotA just copied and updated Eul's map and called it DotA-Allstars. So legally Blizzard has the rights as the game was made with their software, and morally Eul has the rights since he started it, but truthfully whoever made Aeon of Strife owns it because the entire game mode was their idea.

 

[Danzaivar]

Shouldn't DotA be protected under the Creative Commons license that comes from basically anything automatically? How does Valve get around that? It's not like they can't claim this DotA 2 was inspired by it or anything. Would be weird if they could take the trademark for it just like that.

Then again, if they copyright "DotA 2" but "DotA" is still free to use...that could work. Would be weird though.