PC Blizzard's Response To Valve

[Elemmire]

Blizzard game design boss Rob Pardo thinks that Valve's attempt to trademark DOTA "doesn't seem the right thing to do".

Pardo told Eurogamer that Blizzard was confused by Valve's move and believes it has the right to use the term in the name of its free StarCraft II mod, Blizzard DOTA, announced at BlizzCon today.

DOTA refers to the hugely popular online gametype born of the famous Warcraft III mod, Defence of the Ancients. Valve is currently developing DOTA 2 for its Source engine after employing some of the DOTA mod development community. Superannuation discovered that Valve had filed a trademark registration for DOTA earlier this year.

"To us, that means that you're really taking it away from the Blizzard and Warcraft III community and that just doesn't seem the right thing to do," said Pardo, Blizzard's executive vice president of game design.

Pardo described his reaction to the move as "a little bit of confusion, to be honest. Certainly, DOTA came out of the Blizzard community... It just seems a really strange move to us that Valve would go off and try to exclusively trademark the term considering it's something that's been freely available to us and everyone in the Warcraft III community up to this point.

"Valve is usually so pro mod community. It's such a community company that it just seems like a really strange move to us... I really don't understand why [they would do it], to be honest."

Valve's DOTA development is led by Abdul Ismail, known as IceFrog. Ismail was recently the target of an anonymous rant by a supposed Valve employee who called him a "compulsive liar", "unpleasantly domineering" and "poisonous to the company".

"He's one of the guys that most recently had been working on the DOTA Allstars map," said Pardo. "So I'm assuming, since he wants to continue making that map, that [Valve] felt like they should be able to trademark it."

Blizzard is showing internally-developed free mods for StarCraft II at BlizzCon this weekend. The biggest project of these is Blizzard DOTA, a Defence of the Ancients variant starring Blizzard characters from across its franchises, including Warcraft and Diablo ("a bit like Super Smash Brothers," according to the panel that unveiled it).

What if Valve were to object to Blizzard's use of the term for Blizzard DOTA, we aksed? "Our response is that they don't own the term DOTA at this point. It's something that they're filing for," Pardo said.

"Our contention is that it should continue to be available to Blizzard and to our community."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-10-23-valve-shouldnt-trademark-dota-blizzard

I'm with blizzard on this one

 

[Georgebobbilly]

Team Fortress was originally a Quake mod so... I don't really see anything different about this.

 

[Strid]

Team Fortress was originally a Quake mod so... I don't really see anything different about this.

You're missing the point, Blizzard isn't sayin', "It was made on one of our games, no way!" They're just sayin' that Valve, much like themselves, should not try to TM it away from the community that made it. Valve easily trademarked TF because they had the entire team hired on and they agreed to it. That's not the case with DoTA. That being said, I see Valve gettin' their way here, pretty easily.

 

[Hexx]

Yeah, gotta agree with Blizzard on this too. Its quite a bit of a dick move on Valve's part, even thought I <3 Valve to death.

 

[Strid]

Yeah, it's a total dick move. I can't even decide if it's a good business decision or not given the time and the popularity of the genre rising with -other- games within it.

 

[Uzor]

It's a really sucky move, I agree.

 

[Hexx]

Some people I've spoken to seem to think Blizzard had it coming for doing the same with some other game? Never heard of it, nor do I remember.......

 

[Strid]

It's not a matter of Blizzard "having it coming". They never claimed or tried to claim DoTA as their own in the first place. This is -not- Blizzard sayin', "No, you can't have it, it is ours" it's not that at all.

 

[Hexx]

Yeah, I see it that way too, I just thought maybe someone here knew what that was all about. Hope the backlash is big enough that they reconsider.

 

[Strid]

It's goin' to be fun to see how this works out. With the Blizzcon announcements relating to DoTA stuff it'll make this a fun event. You'll have Valve probably win the trademark, since by law it only seems obvious they will, and then Acti-Blizz, with all their money, face rape it off them. It'll be awesome, awesome.

 

[Elemmire]

Well, DoTA is only run through blizzard servers and stuff. Sure there are DoTA-esque games not on their servers, but DoTA itself is on their servers. And, even so, it's kinda in the public now. I'd say it's too late to be trademarked or anything. Create your own damn IP of that game type like Stardock did and others did >.>

 

[Strid]

Well, DoTA is only run through blizzard servers and stuff. Sure there are DoTA-esque games not on their servers, but DoTA itself is on their servers. And, even so, it's kinda in the public now. I'd say it's too late to be trademarked or anything. Create your own damn IP of that game type like Stardock did and others did >.>

Yup, that'd be the right thing to do, but for the good and the bad that comes with it, that's not the way it works. Honestly, it makes me not look forward to DoTA II, them thinkin' they need the name DoTA to beat out LoL, HoN, etc. etc. is speaking to me.

 

[Elemmire]

it doesn't even seem like a game type they have any experience in making... hell, they don't really do anything other than First Person (shooter or puzzle) sooo... *shrugs* Besides, DoTA was the worst AoS style map in all of history. Nubs liked it cause it was too easy to OP yourself. ToB was better :|

 

[Strid]

it doesn't even seem like a game type they have any experience in making... hell, they don't really do anything other than First Person (shooter or puzzle) sooo... *shrugs* Besides, DoTA was the worst AoS style map in all of history. Nubs liked it cause it was too easy to OP yourself. ToB was better :|

The guy who did DoTA Allstars was hired by Valve and is some sort of project leader on it. That's their ticket to the trademark, they own IceFrog and he was the last person to officially edit DoTA.

 

[Elemmire]

Doesn't matter, far as I can tell he didn't create the IP and even if he did, it's too late, it's been in the public (well at the very least Blizzard's battle.net) for too long now I'd say oh well. Still don't see why they can't create a unique IP and actually create a fun game instead of an unbalanced piece of ass with more going on than should have been. I personally think the item system sucked in DoTA and many of the games like it. No reason to have so much crafting type shit in a game that's short in that it only lasts like an hour or so long per match.

 

[Strid]

Doesn't matter, far as I can tell he didn't create the IP and even if he did, it's too late, it's been in the public (well at the very least Blizzard's battle.net) for too long now I'd say oh well.

And yet again, that's not how it works as of now.

 

[Elemmire]

Doesn't matter, he didn't create it so he doesn't have rights over it. Even if he modded it, he still doesn't have rights over "DoTA." Most courts won't let them trademark "DoTA." Last I knew they are still trying to get it trademarked, but I bet it won't go through.

 

[Strid]

Maybe in Ele Land... I told you, it doesn't work that way. Also, this a file for trademark not copyright make sure you're in the right boat.