Riot Games sues app maker over alleged League of Legends rip-off!

Riot Games Inc filed an accusation against Shanghai Moonton Technology Co Ltd for "blatant copying" of the game's mobile version.

League of Legends' characters

Is Mobile Legends: Bang Bang just a copycat of League of Legends?

The maker of the famous computer game League of Legends took this case to Los Angeles federal court yesterday. According to the owner of Riot Games Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, Moonton's "Mobile Legends: Bang Bang" copies sizably from League of Legends: Wild Rift. 

Allegedly, Moonton infringed copyrights in various elements of the game and its promotional materials. The source said that ByteDance and Moonton did not immediately reply to the request for their statement regarding this legal issue.

But then, Riot Games added in a statement that the lawsuit followed "years of serial copying" by Moonton. The complainant said that Moonton has been copying "League of Legends" in mobile games since at least as early as 2015.

It also made a legal action in the same court in 2017, claiming that "Bang Bang" and other Moonton games imitated League of Legends. 

The case was dismissed after that year, concluding that it would be better settled in China. According to this recent lawsuit, Moonton engaged in a "deliberate and sustained campaign" of copying and imitating new aspects of "Wild Rift" when Riot updates its game.

According to the lawsuit, Moonton's "Bang Bang" has been installed more than 500 million times from the Google Play Store.

Riot said the games' similarities include their user interfaces and characters' designs, skills, and accessories.  In addition to this, Moonton reportedly ripped off promotional materials for "Wild Rift" including trailers and customized Nike sneakers.

A unit of ByteDance, which also owns TikTok, bought Moonton for nearly USD 4 billion last year, outbidding a buyer from Tencent. Moonton was founded by a former Tencent employee.

Riot Games, on the other hand, is based in Los Angeles-based. To recall, it rolled out Wild Rift in the United States last year.

What do you think?

Source: Polygon