Earlier we reported that an alleged Valve employee who was unhappy with the developer known as IceFrog, had voiced his ire in a blog post. IceFrog is one of the co-developers of WarCraft III custom map Defense of the Ancients, and he was taken on by Valve to develop their new DotA clone, aptly named DOTA 2.
The anonymous Valve blogger alleged that IceFrog’s real name was Abdul Ismail, and that he had previously shopped around to find someone interested in commercialising a DotA style game. This included Riot Games, whom developed the free-to-play DotA inspired game, League of Legends.
Ismail supposedly ended up at S2 Games where he contributed to another DotA inspired game, Heroes of Newerth. The anonymous blogger also alleged that Ismail lied about his previous work experience when joining with Valve, and he even took a swipe at Valve’s project lead, Erik Johnson.
We warned readers to take all this info with a pinch of salt, and it appears justly so. Joystiq contacted the various parties involved for comment. S2 Games had none. Valve bluntly stated “It’s fake.” Riot Games had more to say: “At no time did Abdul Ismail, or anyone known as ‘IceFrog,’ work at or for Riot Games in any capacity.”
The cherry on top is a tweet from none other than George Broussard, 3D Realms head honcho. Broussard states: “Ex / current Valve employees tell me the IceFrog/DOTA blog post is all false. Good to hear. Now, where’s Half-Life Ep3? :)”
Good question George. As for the IceFrog debacle, it seems that it could all be hot air. The next question is, who has it out for IceFrog?
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