Inspired by the success of his YouTube channel, popular Dota 2 highlights personality NoobFromUA has partnered with a new game company to create what they call a “Dota 2 Highlights” game that focuses on the “exciting” aspects of Dota 2, like teamfights and sieges, while cutting out the “boring” or “tedious” aspects, like turn rates and denies. NFUA and the company, tentatively called “Riot” has announced that their game will be titled “League of Legends” (abbreviated “LoL”), and hopes that it will make the Dota experience more accessible to the average gamer.

Dota developer Icefrog has denounced “League of Legends,” claiming that it unethically uses and monetizes his work without his permission. However, the community for both games, comprised entirely of PC gamers unfamiliar with IP law, seem to disagree.

“I really don’t see anything wrong with ‘League [of Legends]’ copying major game elements and art style from Dota,” said LoL fan /u/NoobFromKR. “If Icefrog and the other devs didn’t want their content to be copied, why don’t they just spend time, money, and manpower making their own highlights? Unless they make their content 100% convenient for the community, they deserve to have their work stolen.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what Dota 2 people are complaining about: they play and pirate music and movies all the time,” said one Dota 2 highlight player. “Everyone knows hypocrites can legally have their rights violated.”

Valve has clarified that major game elements and art from Dota 2 are off limits, but in-game replay footage is fair game for any interested party to use as highlights. Ironically, Riot has managed to copy nearly everything except the replay system, including the Dota community’s toxicity and flaming, in order to “better accurately market Dota 2.”

“Valve should see ‘League of Legends’ as free advertising,” said another LoL fan. “LoL is huge marketing for Dota 2, just like Adobe Air is for literally every other cross-platform runtime system.”

In response, Riot Games has begun sending tweets and other messages to Valve Corporation, all repeating the same statement:

“Hello. I am Riot. I wanted to ask if you give me permission to use your game in my game.”

Riot has been sending out a copy of this message for every League of Legends game played. The recipients have typically been Valve IP addresses, including the server IPs for The International 5.

At the time of writing, the free advertisement boasted 67 million unique players per month compared to Dota’s 12 million.





