Blizzard's Morhaime firm on DOTA trademark

By Oli Welsh Published 23 October, 2011

But "we're very friendly with Valve".

In a Eurogamer interview at BlizzCon, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime has reiterated the company's opinion that Valve should not trademark the term DOTA.

Valve has moved to trademark the term for its game Dota 2, a direct sequel to the hugely popular Warcraft 3 mod. Blizzard is developing its own version in the form of an official StarCraft 2 mod, which it is continuing to call Blizzard DOTA.

Asked if Blizzard was in talks with Valve, Morhaime told Eurogamer that he wasn't able to comment, but added: "We're very friendly with Valve. So yeah, we do talk to Valve."

But he then went on to repeat the stance first outlined by Rob Pardo at last year's BlizzCon. "I can share that our opinion about the situation is that the DOTA name really should belong to the community. I think that it's been part of the Warcraft 3 community for a very long time, and we would like to see the community continue being able to use that name, and having an exclusive mark owned by a competitor doesn't feel right to us."

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 7 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • schnide #1 7 months ago

    The Eurogamer URL keeps redirecting me to Blizzardgamer today, you should really get that fixed.

  • UncleLou #2 7 months ago

    Don't click on Blizzard news if they don't interest you. Quite weird to complain about news from Blizzcon - on a gaming site, and on a Sunday no less, where there are usually no news.

  • hiddenranbir #3 7 months ago

    More game reviews!

    So many games missed.

  • dustofnations #4 7 months ago

    This is a rather underhand thing for Valve to attempt, as the term effectively became a sub-genre as well as being used for a variety of community projects well before Valve became involved.

    At this point I think it is akin to Valve attempting to trademark 'Real Time Strategy'. "Sorry, you may have used it for years before, but now it is all ours. Get lost."

  • Canyarion #5 7 months ago

    I was wondering... because DotA was created in Warcraft III, a game owned by Blizzard, wouldn't they also get the rights to DotA?
    There could have been some agreement every player accepted when they started to play around with the map editor.

    But I guess if it was as simple as that, we wouldn't have this discussion...

  • Shikasama #6 7 months ago

    At least you can be fairly certain Blizzard didn't pay for the content, as it is Blizzcon. Unlike a certain First Person Shooter being released soon.

  • FireMonkey #7 7 months ago

    @Canyarion - "I was wondering... because DotA was created in Warcraft III, a game owned by Blizzard, wouldn't they also get the rights to DotA?"

    No, otherwise MS could claim the rights to every game that was created in Visual Studio or Black & Decker could claim ownership of every shed built with their tools.

    A tool owner can not own the rights to the item that it created and that is a very good thing.
    Blizzard have absolutely no rights to DOTA. They guy who created it and works for Valve should have full rights.

  • hiddenranbir #8 7 months ago

    Well it is a typical Valve strategy isn't it?

    Whatever the community makes, Valve come in and claim it. Of course, first time they've taken something from outside the Valve community :D

    " They guy who created it and works for Valve should have full rights."

    But doesn't the original actual guy now work at Riot games? They should take it!

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #9 7 months ago

    Actually the original creator of DOTA, I'm not sure anyone knows where he is. The guy after him is with Riot working on League of Legends and the guy after that is at Valve. And none of them can claims exclusive rights because it's a genuine community game. Full story here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-16-the-story-of-dota-article

    Sorry if the Blizzardgasm seems excessive but it's because BlizzCon takes place at the weekend when no-one else is updating the site. It's over now although I'll be doing a few more bits and pieces.

    As for reviews, I'm afraid we don't have the time and resources to cover every game released at the best of times, never mind during this busy time. We're doing out best to stay on top of the most interesting releases. If there's anything you'd particularly like to see reviewed please do drop me a message.

  • hiddenranbir #10 7 months ago

    Cool, thanks for that.

  • tubonjics1 #11 7 months ago

    @hiddenranbir It's not the first time that Valve has taken in talent from outside of their community. The developers of Team Fortress and Alien Swarm were from outside of Valve's community.

    Also, the original developer of DotA isn't working at Riot.

    @Oli Valve knows where the original creator of DotA is, since he works for Valve. Gaben confirmed that Eul has worked for Valve for a while now in an interview that was done during the International.

    http://www.1up.com/previews/dota-2-valve-fanboys-developers

    "IceFrog was the catalyst; he's the main reason why we're making DOTA 2" -- says Johnson. "A lot of us are DOTA fans also from a game-design perspective, and at Valve we already have the original creator of DOTA, Eul." "So," continues Newell, "Adrian made sure that the Source engine could support this kind of game, and then more and more people got into the project." He notes, "It grew out of the same enthusiast fan-spirit that brought Rob Walker and John Cook to build the original Team Fortress out of their love for Quake."