Rumble Between the Junglers: Questions about the DotA name
by Mathew McCurley 
Feb 24th 2012 at 9:00AM
Behind the scenes, people are moving about, reading papers and commenting on filings and jockeying around the words of a paragraph to make it "feel" nicer. We don't like using the word "community," one might say, because it is a sympathetic word, and we do not need sympathy at this hearing. Thousands of dollars an hour are thrown at the problem for however long the team needs to work on it. I bet there were a few nice late-night sushi orders.
These are the stars of the show -- two copyright and trademark filing teams, potentially backed up by a litigation team, positioning over the DotA trademark ownership issue. Last week on The Lawbringer, I gave a summary of what is happening between Valve, Blizzard, Riot Games, and the DotA community, concluding that the fight over who owns the DotA name has to be fought now because of a fight brewing for years as the genre grew.
In order to expand our minds just a bit and start thinking like we want to understand the problem, we need to build a framework around the DotA issue with questions about what this is all about. Let's boil the issues down to simple questions.
Why would someone want to trademark DotA?
Trademark is a powerful tool that allows companies, brands, businesses, and creators have control over the brands they create, fighting against brand abuse, unlawful fraud or copying, and diluting a brand's good name through imposters. We like trademarks because they let Coke have the Coke trademark and we, as consumers, know where to go is something is wrong with our Coke. Brands matter, which is why DotA matters.
Not only is trademark powerful in protecting brand identity, but it is supremely powerful in making the trademark holder a glorious amount of money. When you hold powerful and popular trademarks, licensing becomes a second-nature monetary explosion. The Blizzard logo is not cheap, people.
So, money, really. And rights and protection of your brand. But mostly money. Having a trademark also has the added side effect mega-bonus of not being available to your competitors, who are now forbidden to use a popular acronym and name when advertising their products.
Who owns whatever rights there are?
You would think that this would be a simple, open-and-shut, follow-the-paper-trail type thing and we could see who did what work on the original Defense of the Ancients and subsequent versions. Sadly, that's not the case. No one at DotA-Allstars, Guinsoo, IceFrog, or any of the developers, from what I could gather, thought to or sought to trademark the DotA name because it was the community's label. If anything, I'd have pegged the fight would be over the "DotA-Allstars" name, which is still very trademarkable and probably already is.
Who owns what rights? The judge is going to decide, because we don't know. Guinsoo made the popular map, but Eul made the first one. IceFrog took over development of the map but not of DotA-Allstars, Inc., the company founded by Steve Mescon to run the distribution website for DotA-Allstars.
The community, which recently have gained a strong ally in Blizzard, believes the DotA name is a genre descriptor rather than a proper name, game name, or otherwise. The DotA-style map descriptor is synonymous with the game styles of hundreds of custom maps all over Blizzard's games currently, as well as commercial successes Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends, and Blizzard's own upcoming Blizzard DOTA.
Does IceFrog, the DotA developer who took over the project after Guinsoo and many other developers went off to work on their own mega-project, have claim to the DotA name? He did take over development of the most popular map variant, but what rights were even available to him when he took over the reins?
My biggest concern over Valve's attempt to trademark DotA is that Gabe Newell doesn't even like the acronym. In an interview with Gamasutra back in August of 2011, Gabe Newell and Erik Johnson sat down with Christian Nutt to discuss DOTA 2. Here's where things get a little weird for me. First, Nutt asks Newell about the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) genre coming into existence, using the genre name that Riot champions for League of Legends. Gabe responds by saying he doesn't know what MOBA means, and that "action RTS" better describes the genre:
Gabe's confusion as per the genre name is understandable -- we have not come to a consensus as to what to call this genre besides DotA, which we have been calling it since the original DotA days. But what is surprising is that he doesn't even want to lump DOTA 2 in with the other guys' genres -- he has his own.Gamasutra: Suddenly MOBA is a genre, right? Though I don't know if you guys consider Dota 2 MOBA -- that's what [League of Legends developer] Riot calls it.
Gabe Newell: We usually call it an "action RTS", just because that seems to make a lot of sense to customers. If you say that, they have a pretty good idea what you're talking about. I don't even know what MOBA stands for.
The next exchange is the poignant one. Gabe is told what MOBA means, and Erik Johnson acknowledges that naming a young genre is hard because it has to explain to gamers what experience they can expect. Gaming is all about experience control. Gabe professes his love for the "ARTS" acronym and then goes on to say the acronym doesn't matter as long as people know what you're talking about.
Gabe Newell obviously doesn't like the name DotA for the genre that DOTA 2 itself is a part of. If Gabe doesn't like DotA, why does he want DotA trademarked? Oh, right, brand recognition.Gamasutra: Multiplayer Online Battle Arena.
Erik Johnson: I knew that!
Gabe Newell: I didn't.
EJ: But yeah, naming your genre, especially a young one, is just tool to kind of help explain to customers what kind of game you have.
GN: I also like the acronym for ARTS -- Action RTS.
Gamasutra: That's more charming, I think.
GN: I don't think the name of the genre matters -- as long as customers know what you're talking about.
Here are my two reactions. First, if Gabe doesn't like the acronym DotA because it doesn't tell you anything about the game from the title, which he obviously wants you to be able to glean from the genre descriptor, does that comment on his naming of the product DOTA 2? If DotA is so weak and easily dismissed as the name of the genre, why is it on the front of your box and on Blizzard's upcoming game?
My second reaction was that if DotA isn't a good enough descriptor of the genre, what is? Gabe doesn't even mention DotA as the genre descriptor. Is it action real-time strategy? Maybe. It doesn't feel that way to me. Blizzard DOTA had a very unique feel to it, for instance, utilizing similar mechanics and ideas but introducing vast new concepts that change the flow of the game completely. It's still a DotA-esque online multiplayer experience with hero/champion selection, item purchasing, and lanes of battle, just like everyone else, with a twist.
So DotA is a weak community descriptor of the genre because it does not say anything about what the genre entails or explains the gameplay experience, but is strong enough to warrant trademark protection, exclusive rights, a million-dollar tournament, and the faith of a devout community of gamers? Interesting.
Foolishness
In my opinion, fighting over the DotA name is incredibly foolish. Valve is only stirring up a very passionate group of gamers by trying to take this name. It doesn't matter if that's actually what's happening, but the perception is that Valve wants to take DotA.
Yes, the DotA brand is a money sack waiting to be exploited. We all know this. The problem is that it seems like, for the game's sake, this is out of character. This is really all about the game, right? Games rise and fall based on their gameplay, creativeness, and polish. Valve has proven time and time again that its original products, characters, settings, and stories drive us wild.
For some reason with DotA, however, Valve is fighting a war for legitimacy in the community, one that I don't think it needs to fight. Valve's DOTA 2 will stand on its own merits because it is a Valve-developed title, not only because of the name. Is this really about the intricate and storied lore of the Defense of the Ancients brand, with its rich tale between two ancient forces? No.
The name DotA is fleeting at best, an early descriptor of a genre that will become something grander in the future. Gabe is 100% in the right -- DotA does not describe anything and it will be gone in a matter of years. Smaller, free multiplayer experiences are kings of a growing kingdom. The name DotA is too constraining and in the past. Look forward, look to the future, because the name DotA only lasts as long as you keep using it.
Only one game used to use the name DotA because it was the only game in town. We don't live in that world anymore. Let the community have DotA.
This column is for entertainment only; if you need legal advice, contact a lawyer. For comments or general questions about law or for The Lawbringer, contact Mat at mat@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Lawbringer
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Edymnion Feb 24th 2012 9:16AM
Hey Mat, just a word of advice. If you're going to spend the entire article using an acronym, especially when its pretty darned important, you might want to actually spell it out at least once.
Call me behind on the times, but I had no idea what DotA was until I went to hit google. Made this pretty hard to read considering I had no idea what you were talking about since you never spelled it out.
But thats just me.
AltairAntares Feb 24th 2012 9:43AM
He actually did spell it out under "Who owns whatever rights there are?"
Craig Knighton Feb 24th 2012 9:45AM
You should have just read the story, and then you would have seen it in paragraph 8?
hwacha Feb 24th 2012 9:47AM
In mat's defense, this is sort of an ongoing topic. You could have clicked the link to his previous Lawbringer article for some backstory, where Defense of the Ancients is actually the first phrase.
He really should have a clearer indicator that this is part of a series though, for those that havent been following it for the last two weeks. This new column naming thing is getting annoying.
Ata Feb 24th 2012 9:56AM
It wasn't a very clear way of saying that Defense of the Ancients is what DotA stands for. Could have been better written toward the start of the article, with something like 'DotA (acronym for Defense of the Ancients)'. I knew what it stood for but even reading and seeing the phrase in the later paragraph didn't really give a clear 'ah, thats what that stands for' sense for someone who doesnt know what it means.
1337 H4 Feb 24th 2012 10:12AM
Honestly, anyone who has enough knowledge on the subject to be reading this article other than because you know him personally and want to read whatever he writes (hi matt's mom!), should know what it stands for by now.
This issue has been going on for years, and this is just the culmination of the awkward naming debacle. DotA has been around for at least 5 years (not stopping my rant to go look it up), so at this point, he is writing a specialized article for a target audience who should have at least that minimal bit of background knowledge.
TL;DR: Play more WC3, know stuff.
Sir Broose Feb 24th 2012 11:41AM
1337 H4, your username and your response go together nicely. Just an observation.
I'll admit, I had no idea what DotA stood for either, and I kept waiting for it to be explained. I did finally click on the link to the last article, and from there, clicked on the link to the Wiki, and from there opened tabs to the various websites mentioned, and I ended up learning quite a bit (Oh glorious internet). But it still seems a quick (aka Defense of the Ancients) insertion would have been helpful. Kind of nit-picky, but a fair observation.
I'm glad I researched it, though. Interesting topic of which, until today, I had no knowledge.
Edymnion Feb 24th 2012 2:53PM
Its still considered good writing to spell out acronyms that aren't expected to be common knowledge to everyone reading. Hell, even going to someplace like elitist jerks where you have to be a hardcore WoW player (see, I don't have to spell that one out because this is a site dedicated directly to the game, and hence it can be expected that every single person here knows it) still have the various abbreviations spelled out at the start.
Side note, the preferred format is to spell it out once and then put the abbreviation in parentheses, like "...Defense of the Ancients (DotA) blah blah blah" and then continue using the abbreviation from there on out.
As for "Why are you reading this if you weren't reading the previous ones?", its WoWInsider, I probably didn't see the last one, and this one looked vaguely interesting. Until it got to where there was no way to figure out wtf he was talking about within the article itself.
Maymer Feb 24th 2012 9:52AM
To the whole thing on copyrighting:
I believe Tycho from Penny Arcade has summarized some VERY good points when discussing copyright issues, and though his mostly discusses the idea of copyrighting mechanics in games, I believe his words can apply to genre copyrighting as well
http://penny-arcade.com/2012/02/22/the-flashpoint
Otherwise, though I understand the marketing power behind having the entire name of DoTA at your finger tips, it seems incredibly stupid to try and copyright what many players, aka, the PEOPLE THAT ARE GOING TO BUY YOUR GAME, consider a genre, and not a proper game title!
Really, I was excited bout DoTA 2 when I first heard about it, mostly cause I adore Valve as a game publisher, but because I was intrigued how they would enhance the genre as a whole. I did not really think that DoTA 2 was ACTUALLY going to be the title proper, which only has me shaking and scratching my head at it. I'm sorry, but if a First Person Shooter game LITERALLY was called "FPS 2", I would pass over it, thinking this has to be a joke.
If anything, I truly believe Valve should cut it's losses, and try to create a unique and more marketable name than DoTA. Is DoTA marketable? Yes, to a degree. But games like League of Legends, a game that follows the exact same template as DoTA, has successfully marketed their game not only with a name proper, but with it's OWN catchy and unique acronym, LoL. Considering the creative minds working at Valve, I am shocked they just haven't tried to create something just as unique and intriguing.
TL;DR
Even if Valve wins, they have lost their hard earned respect from the gamer community, and should try and save face by rebranding their title a little better
Drakkenfyre Feb 24th 2012 10:22AM
DOTA WAS the title.
The genre got named because DOTA was one of the first of it's kind. While some people today may consider it a genre label and not a title, your example doesn't work. "Defense of the Ancients" was the original WarCraft 3 map name. And "Aeon of Strife" was the name of the StarCraft map which it was based on.
It only became cloudy when you had other games such as League of Legends come out and use the same genre. As such, while some people would consider it a genre, having the original name is still a powerful marketing tool. The fact that one of the supposed original creators (I said supposed because the fact is disputed) is working at Valve on the project may mean that ego won't let him change it (there's a whole big thing about how the whole situation of him coming to work for Valve is less-than-professional as far as gaming developers go.)
Maymer Feb 24th 2012 10:42AM
@Drakk
But here's the problem. I wasn't introduced to the genre through the original Defense of The Ancients map in Warcraft 3.
It was literally used as a description from my friend when he tried to explain what LoL was, and described it as a DoTA style game. Right there proves that not all people are familiar with the name of DoTA as a game map or variant of Warcraft 3, but for a few people like me and others, it's a description of a genre.
But after re-reading my post, it seems that I really muddied my original intention of my point.
It was mostly to say that because of this whole incident, I believe Valve should honest to god try and cut their losses and rebrand their title. I was unaware of the apparent problems with Icefrog, but I still think that Valve will, in the long run, save and create more revenue by trying to rebrand their product instead of continuing down this road. All this press does NOT look good on them, especially since they are held in extremely high regard in the gaming community.
DarkWalker Feb 24th 2012 10:49AM
Apart from both being exclusive rights on intangible things, Trademarks (what Valve is trying to do with the DOTA name) and Copyrights are completely different things. Different terms/durations, different ways of obtaining them, different consequences for improper use, different rules for losing them, etc.
And that Penny Arcade post is about Patents, which are another completely different thing from Copyrights or Trademarks. A trademark only protects a brand and it's representation, it doesn't relate in any way to how things work. How things work is the domain of patents.
TL,DR: You are mixing up completely different things that should not be mixed.
DarkWalker Feb 24th 2012 11:02AM
"""It was literally used as a description from my friend when he tried to explain what LoL was, and described it as a DoTA style game. Right there proves that not all people are familiar with the name of DoTA as a game map or variant of Warcraft 3, but for a few people like me and others, it's a description of a genre."""
I - and other people I know - often describe MMOs to friends and family with expressions like "It's like WoW, but with some things done differently". Simply because about everyone who has ever showed an interest in MMOs know what WoW is about.
Some games have it way worse. I lost count of the number of times I've seen a FPS game described as a "Doom-like" or a "Quake-like" game. I have seen more games described as "Diablo-like", "Mario-like", or "Zelda-like" than I care to remember.
Does this make WoW, or any of those other game names, any less subject to trademark protection? I don't think so. And neither do I think DOTA has lost the qualities that make it worth of trademark protection just because it's the best remembered game of it's nascent genre.
Drakkenfyre Feb 24th 2012 11:45AM
I was going to reply about the genre definition, but other comments explained what I would have said anyway.
If they did rename it, then people who come into it later, such as you did, would just have to learn the new term as well. It would start the "genre-recognition" problem all over again. This is a ARTS? What the hell is an ARTS? "Oh, it's like DOTA.", or more specifically, WarCraft 3, since that's what it was, and described as since the beginning.
To be fair, I don't care if they call the genre DOTA or ARTS, in fact "DOTA" as a genre, instead of "DOTA-style" does sound stupid but I do understand why Gabe Newell wants a more original acronym. Hell, with the way Valve has been lately (massive amounts of DLC, and ridiculous $100 wedding "rings" for TF2) a more negative person might see it as simply a grab to define the genre for all other games, and have people think you created the damn thing.
DarkWalker Feb 24th 2012 12:52PM
Just remembered another difference between trademarks and other kinds of intellectual properties: someone does not need to be the creator of a trademark to register it. He just needs to make sure no one else has registered the same or a similar trademark, or was using a similar trademark unregistered, in the same field or a related one, for some time prior to the trademark request. An unused trademark is ripe for anyone to claim.
I don't know the specific time frames for US law, but in the country I live, if no one has used the trademark without registering it in the previous 6 months, or if the owner of a registered trademark hasn't used it in the previous 5 years, it's open for anyone to claim.
In short, if the rules in the US are similar, in the absence of a previous register or valid contract, what matters is who was using the term, in the same field, prior to the trademark request. If the answer is "no one", or if the answer is "just the guy requesting the trademark", then it will most likely be quite hard to block the trademark request.
(Yeah, this does means anyone can "steal" any unused trademark. It's intentional, in order to clear the field of stagnant trademarks, and make them available for use anew. If someone wants to keep his trademark, he better use it.)
gapid Feb 24th 2012 10:08AM
How big is this community that considers DotA a genre? Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I never heard of DotA until the lawsuit, and I've played through WC3 both on and offline back in its prime. I don't mean to belittle the community, but is it a few thousand, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, billions? How many people would have to agree in order to call DotA a genre?
Shammytime Feb 24th 2012 10:54AM
I don't know how large the original DoTA community was or how large it is today, but the the genre became much more largely popular with the advent of the free to play game LoL, which attributed its game style to DoTA.
What I mean to say is, that many people who are familiar with the game/genre could have never played or touched WC 3.
DarkWalker Feb 24th 2012 11:15AM
Interesting tidbit, the LoL website does not mention the DOTA acronym even once. According to Google, the acronym only appears on the forums, on user posts - and from the first dozen results page or so, is almost always used to directly mention the specific games named DOTA, DOTA 2, and Blizzard DOTA, instead of being used as a generic tag or the genre name. So, it seems the LoL developers and community - or, at least, the players that post on it's forums - aren't using the DOTA name in any way that could suggest it's a description for the genre.
byronius_prime Feb 24th 2012 1:22PM
As said in the article, LoL players which afaik is the largest game of it's kind (something like 30m), refer to the genre as Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA. They indeed, never refer to DotA as the genre.
undeadgoat Feb 24th 2012 10:10AM
This is just so completely disgusting to me I can hardly form an opinion. I've seen a lot of reaction that Blizzard can't own DoTA the same way Apple can't own Angry Birds, but although I haven't seen Blizzard's entire brief I think anything that can point out the absolute ludicrousness of Valve's claim is a valid and good and legitimate thing for these corporate lawyers to be doing with their time (for a change). To me, this is like a guy that used to be the head of some MP3 player team in 1999 is now working for someone who, years after the iPod has risen to market dominance, tries to trademark "MP3 Player." It's just awful, and the fact that lawyers are even able to write these briefs coherently points to a serious flaw in our intellectual property regime as it relates to the modern world.