Last week it emerged that Valve had filed for a trademark of the name ‘DOTA.’ This pretty much confirmed the rampant rumours that Valve was in the process of making an Aeon of Strife game, a DotA clone – we’re just waiting for the official announcement.
As the news spread, the DotA community began to voice their opinions on whether or not this is a good thing. Steve “Pendragon” Mescon and Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, two of the original DotA-Allstars developers have also weighed in.
Speaking to Joystiq, the pair said that they believe that DotA should remain a “community-owned product that modders, independent developers and game fans can continue to modify and play as often as they’d like.”
Mescon and Feak have since left their DotA modding days behind them, and have started their own Aeon of Strife style, free-to-play game, League of Legends. Mescon said that whilst he clearly understands Valve’s motivation to make a DotA inspired game, he’s “surprised that [Valve has] decided to try to trademark the DotA name, because it goes against what [he] and others believe DotA means to the community.”
Mescon feels that by trademarking the name, Valve is going to be taking control of the future of the genre which has come to be defined by the name ‘DotA.’ “[The] DotA name should remain the property of the community at-large, as it always has,” said Mescon.
These fears aside, like most of the DotA playing community, the duo are anticipating Valve’s entrance into the genre. “We are actually really interested to see what they can do with this genre because we are excited to see companies of Valve’s calibre enter the space that we’ve been working in for the last few years.”
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