During the past some years DotA has evolved into a game with one of the hugest community in cyber gaming. Obviously more and more companies have interest in exposing the possibilities of this genre and to get their slice from the cake. The war to protect the Ancients has begun.
Defense of the Ancients is originally a custom map in Warcraft III that was based on the Aeon of Strife map that was played in the first Starcraft. People refered to these type of maps as AoS style maps, but ever since IceFrog is developing the map it became so popular that everyone is calling it the DotA Genre. There are a total of 4 map creators to mention: Eul, Guinsoo, Neichus and IceFrog. To understand why there’s a big fight and chaos around the trademarking of DOTA we need to get in details of how DotA developed and how much each creator contributed to it.
Many people forget about Eul who is the original creator of the Warcraft III custom map the one who transferred the AoS style of maps to the fantasy realms. Many people tried to copy his work without success as he put protection to it. There have been several other type of DotA’s like DotA Darkness Falls, DotA Chaos and DotA-Allstars.
This is where Steve Guinsoo Feak comes in. He was the one to successfully overcome the map editor protection and being able to take over Eul’s DotA. He later copied heroes and ideas from other DotA map creators and that’s why he named his version as Allstars as it had all the best ideas implemented in one map. Many people refer to him as the original creator as they were misinformed by the marketing strategy of Riot Games (developers of League of Legends) which tried to draw attention by saying “The game by the original creators of DotA”. Guinsoo is not the original creator and the only other known DotA character Steve “Pendragon” Mescon was just the administrator and owner of the biggest DotA fanpage, the dota-allstars.com and had nothing to do with the development of the game. His site became the official forums only after IceFrog decided to pick it up.
The next two developers in line are Neichus and IceFrog. When Guinsoo suddenly disappeared (noone knows the real reason, some think he was sucked in by WoW, some think he was simply bored of developing the game and couldn’t handle it anymore) that was the time these two guys appeared making sure the game does not die. They had a lot of work to do as the loading of the map took several minutes (10-15 for some users) and some heroes were totally imbalanced making the game quite boring for those who wanted to dominate with all the other heroes too as it was almost impossible to do so. After two versions Neichus left, leaving IceFrog alone to finish this robust work which seemed to be a mission impossible. IceFrog realized that he had to build up a real beta testing team who not just play the game but also contribute to the development by giving advices on how to balance the game and what nifty eye-pleasing changes to add.
And that’s why the map stayed alive and managed to grow to a game; a game played by 10 millions over the World. That was the first time when balance became a real focus and the developer listened to his community. That’s why everyone calls DotA a community game because it is developed upon the feedback of the community and the developer tries to please their needs while keeping sanity in all changes.
Now that’s where the problem lies. Several companies realized the potential of releasing a standalone DotA. Demigod by Gas Powered Games was the first in line which was rather a let-down accordingly to the feedback of DotA players. The next in line was League of Legends by Riot Games which had a greater success thanks for their marketing strategy but most of the hardcore DotA fans opposed playing it because of the childish graphics and the fact that it had less strategical options (denying was completely removed for example). Eventhough it’s a free game, for being able to use all champions you need to buy some of them and that’s again a drawback considering that you can play WC3 DotA completely free. The third DotA based game is Heroes of Newerth by S2 Games that was taken by mixed feelings of the players. Most people liked it because they thought it was IceFrog’s secret project as the changelogs totally resembled to IceFrog’s DotA changelogs. Also it had all the strategical elements that LoL didn’t and it was closer to what DotA is. However it turned out that IceFrog wasn’t working on it when he announced him working on a PC game under the wings of Valve.
But that’s not the end of the line. Many people expected IceFrog to continue DotA’s legacy on Blizzard’s next diamond the Starcraft II. Blizzard probably was one of these too and must have been surprised by that statement of IceFrog joining Valve, a company that never really had any RTS type of games before. However with this move they became a potential competitor of the legendary company so they had to make a step forward to draw attention to their SC2 as much as possible. On the latest Blizzcon many special custom maps were announced to be released and worked on. Left 2 Die and the SC2 DotA are obvious teasing towards Valve who are also the developers of Left 4 Dead, a popular game with its second edition having been released a year ago.
Everyone who has ever played DotA even a bit seriously or long enough to know how much the game has moved into a good direction would agree that the copyrights serves IceFrog jolly well right. He has been developing the game for almost 6 years now for a longer time than Eul & Guinsoo together summed up. He and his beta team made the game to what it is now: a competitive and balanced game with great strategical depths, a game that you can hardly get bored of. However not everyone thinks like that. Both Riot Games and Blizzard think that the DotA trademark belongs to the community. Seeing how many offending posts and offensive articles have popped-up against IceFrog and Valve it seems clear that the war, the Defense of the Ancients has begun.
But it seems pretty strange to have something being trademarked by a community. It’s not even possible at all. Also, if Riot Games developed a fairly different game that is just a DotA based game, but not DotA’s next version then what rights do they have to DotA at all? And if Blizzard refers to the game having been developed in their map editor, then would they file a lawsuit against Hajime Kanzaka? That’s not going to happen of course and what I sense that it’s all just a marketing movement again which might distract some hundreds of players but the real DotA hardcores will keep real.
DotA is often called as a community game not because the community is developing it but because there have never been a real company behind it yet it grew so big that it rivals with games like World of Warcraft or Counter-Strike. It also has a tie-bonded community, players are aggressively defending their favourite game and it’s hard to please them. IceFrog in the end did manage to do so and seeing all the positive feedback on the big sites (GosuGamers.net DotA-League.com myMYM.com) it is clear that they look forward to the release of the standalone DotA.
To close my lines, DotA would have never grown this big without its community: all the beta testers that sacrificed their nights finding all the possible bugs, the forum moderators and forum crew that built up a site where everyone would return to read upon guides, watching replays or discuss latest DotA matters. But the body cannot live without the head, and DotA’s head is IceFrog, he has proven it during the past 6 years with his hard work and enthusiasm, a real gamer for gamers.
