League of Legends' Riot Games files lawsuit against Mobile Legends developers
Like it or not, I think you'll agree that this was inevitable. I thought it was going to happen a bit sooner, but here it is. I'll admit, I do play Mobile Legends and I couldn't agree more when people say it's eerily similar to Riot Games' League of Legends. I even told myself that this game looked like League of Legends that was put in a blender.
Alright, to fill you in on the details. Last week, Riot Games, the creator of League of Legends, finally filed a 44-page lawsuit in the Central District Court of California for alleged copyright infringement against the Shanghai Moonton Technology for their three games, specifically Mobile Legends: Bang bang, Magic Rush: Hereos, and Mobile Legends: 5V5 MOBA.
Mobile Legends: 5V5 MOBA suddenly disappeared from the app stores then resurfaced with a different name and minor visual changes - Mobile Legends: Bang bang. That was sneaky and that meant that Moonton was aware of the infringement. Moonton even tried to engage overt gamesmanship with Riot, meaning they changed teeny parts of the game but keeping majority of the elements the same. In the end, Riot Games believes that Moonton made thousands or even millions of dollars from their League of Legends ripoff. Talk about being noticed by your senpai.
If you are a League of Legends player like myself, I think it won't be hard to see why Moonton is under heavy fire right now. It's never good to steal from the OGs.
I'm going to focus on Mobile Legends because it really is the one game that resembles League. Let's start with the logo. Before the logo that Mobile Legends uses today, Their old logo looked eerily similar to League of Legends, from the font choice to the shield backdrop, until, of course, they changed it due to the fear that Riot might notice.
The maps are also similar - the art style, textures, placement of each jungle monster and brush - all copied from League of Legends' Summoner's Rift.
For the champions, it seems like Moonton disassembled a League champion then mashed it up with another to end up with a new one. Let me give an in-depth example. Let's use Nana, one of Mobile Legends' champion and my most used champion as a support main.
So basically, Nana is the end product of mashing up four of League of Legends' champions. Visually, it's a mashup between Annie and Gnar, but is it all just in the visual aesthetics? Of course not.
Nana's passive is exactly Sivir's passive called Fleet of Foot, which gives Sivir a bonus movement speed every time her basic attacks or abilities damages an enemy champion.
Nana's 1st ability which makes hurls her boomerang in a target direction and returns to her is also from Sivir's Q - Boomerang Blade.
Nana's 2nd ability which turns enemy champions into an animal and applies a slow is exactly Lulu's W - Whimsy ability.
Finally, Nana's 3rd and ultimate ability which knocks up and damages enemy champions is Lulu's ultimate as well (R - Wild Growth) excluding the damage.
Now that's one way to rip off something.
I doubt that this will end with Mobile Legends still up, knowing that Riot Games is now under Tencent Games, which is a really big company.
For a more detailed look on Riot's infringement claims, you can view the full lawsuit here.