Blizzard and Valve had come to blows over the DotA name. DotA, short for Defense of the Ancients, is a mod for Warcraft III that spawned the MOBA genre. Valve’s been developing the sequel to Defense of the Ancients, aptly titled DotA 2. Blizzard’s been developing a DotA sequel of its own and decided to take Valve to court, stating that since DotA was a mod for a Blizzard game and has been used in association with the Blizzard name, Valve had no right to register or use the DotA name.
The two companies have finally come to an agreement over the trademark dispute. Valve’s to retain the DotA commercial trademark and will be allowed to go through with titling DotA 2 as such. Blizzard will retain non-commercial use of the trademark, meaning that Blizzard will be allowed to continue promoting DotA material with its community. However, since it cannot use the trademark commercially, Blizzard has decided to rename its DotA sequel Blizzard All-Stars.
In regards to the settlement, Valve boss Gabe Newell remarked, “We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one. We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”
There have been plenty of ugly lawsuits in the videogame world as of late. It’s nice to be able to see two videogame publishing giants come to an amicable agreement for once.
