Riot Sues for Ripping Off LoL; Chinese Copy Their Game Again
League of Legends developers sued a Chinese mobile game developer. The company allegedly created a rip-off of the popular Wild Rift.
- The creators of LoL sued a studio from Shanghai;
- Their production was to be a knockoff of the popular Wild Rift;
- This is another lawsuit filed by Riot Games against the company.
Riot Games sued a Chinese game developer for allegedly creating a fake console-mobile version of League of Legends, the Wild Rift.
Interestingly, this is not the first lawsuit directed at the company by the creators of LoL. The two entities already had the opportunity to meet in the courtroom a few years ago.
Another attempt at fraud
The Shanghai Moonton Technology Co. in question got into trouble with Riot Games back in 2018. Back then, the Chinese developers released a mobile game called Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA.
The game, of course, very much resembled League of Legends, which was not to the liking of the original creators. According to them it was just a knockoff, trying to ride on the popularity of the original.
The case was settled in a Chinese court, where Riot Games interests were represented by Tencent, which owns the studio. As a result, the CEO of Moonton Technology was forced to pay the holding company a compensation of 2.9 million dollars.
The Shanghai-based company apparently doesn't learn from its mistakes, because it decided to copy Riot Games' work once again.
This time we are talking about the game entitled Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. According to the creators of LoL it is another attempt to reap benefits from the success of their work.
Bang Bang is to be only a partially revised version of the previous game, i.e. Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA. The Chinese studio not only did not get rid of the similarities, but copied even more elements from Wild Rift.
Riot Games has therefore issued another lawsuit in a US court. However, it is possible that the whole case will again have to be moved to China and one again Tencent will be involved.
In the document provided to the court by the developers we can find a whole list of similarities between Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and League of Legends: Wild Rift.
Not only Moonton
Moonton Technology isn't the only studio that Riot Games has been dealing with recently. Earlier this year, a lawsuit was also filed against Imba Technology.
It is a Vietnamese developer of mobile games, which is responsible, among others, for a game called I Am Hero: AFK Tactical Teamfight. According to the creators of LoL this is a knockoff of Teamfight Tactics, which is a spin-off of the main game.
The games are similar not only in terms of graphics and gameplay mechanics. The Vietnamese developers did not even want to change the names of individual characters.
Riot Games therefore demands that the studio be blocked from profiting from Tactical Teamfight. The case is pending.
