Remember a while back when we posted that rumor about Valve releasing a standalone DOTA (Defense of the Ancients) client, and how we made tons of jokes about how League of Legends already did that? You don’t? Well read our blog some more asshole! Anyway for those loyal fans who do remember this (we love you) apparently the whole situation has evolved into much more than a few assorted jokes. In fact, DOTA’s creators themselves are pretty pissed about the whole situation. A little more than just rumor now, Valve has found themselves in the middle of a tradmark battle over who truly owns the rights to DOTA.

Steve Mescon, one of DOTA’s creators, and Riot Games, the creator of League of Legends and employer of Mescon, has filed a competing trademark application for DOTA in order to block Valve from taking hold of the DOTA brand. League of Legends is, for all intents and purposes, DOTA but without using the DOTA name. Part of the reason LoL didn’t take the DOTA name is because the DOTA creators felt that DOTA should forever remain a mod which could be altered and tweaked by fans.

Mescon expanded on his thoughts in an interview with PC gamer:

“As someone who worked with DotA for years, seeing developers of Valve’s caliber take an interest in this genre is always exciting. Hundreds of people have worked on DotA in its many forms over the years, and millions have played the game, and certainly this type of attention demonstrates how far DotA has come.

However, the idea that one single company is taking control of the name of something that hundreds of people have contributed to is surprising. I believe DotA should always remain a community-owned product that modders, independent developers and game fans can continue to modify and play as often as they’d like. Guinsoo and I had hoped that the DotA name would live on in perpetuity as a community project that is both free to play and free to modify and expand.

The situation is not as simple as a single person having total ownership over the name. But now we are exploring options to protect the DotA name. We [Dota-Allstars, LL--the company run by Pendragon] have filed for the “Defense of the Ancients” trademark to protect the work that dozens of authors have invested to create the game and on behalf of the millions of DotA players all over the world. If we were to obtain the trademark, we would keep the game and the DotA name freely available to the mod community. That way the game can continue to be worked on and enjoyed by the independent community. We want to ensure that the DotA name remains in the hands of the community and that it is free for all to use.

We think Valve is a great company that has put out some amazing products–many based on mods. They have done a lot to grow and support the mod community and we are excited to see what they bring to the genre. As far as potentially offering positions for modders and DIY developers, we totally support that movement. After all, Guinsoo was originally a modder that helped create DotA Allstars and he’s now one of the lead developers for League of Legends.

We give Valve the benefit of the doubt because of their history, but our concern is that by a single organization taking ownership of the name, the community at large would no longer be able to contribute to DotA like they have for years.

I think the best-case scenario would be that nobody owns the trademark to the DotA name. But if Valve were to ultimately gain the rights, I hope that they would abandon the trademark and release it to the community to allow them to continue to modify, play and experience DotA for free. That’s what DotA is all about.”

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• The Truth Behind Valve and the DOTA Rumors
• DOTA Coming to Steam?
• What Is in Store for the Valve DotA Project?
• Valve is Done with Single-Player
• Valve Delivers on PS3 Steam Promise With Portal 2
• Team Fortress 2 Opens Public Beta for New Content