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Valve Trademarks 'DOTA'

Posted by Soulskill on from the vi-sitter-i-ventrilo dept.

An anonymous reader tips news that Valve Software has filed a trademark claim for the term "DOTA," fueling speculation that the company will soon reveal a new Defense of the Ancients game. Voice actor John St. John recently said he was recording for such a game in a post to Twitter. The tweet was subsequently deleted. Last year Valve hired 'Icefrog,' lead developer for the original DotA mod.

30 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Ok but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What about Half Life? Is this franchise dead or something?

    1. Re:Ok but... by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      What about Half Life? Is this franchise dead or something?

      I doubt it, they are supposedly working on the last Episode, but I'm not shocked that it is taking so long. Remember, whatever happens in the last episode, it sets the stage for the next game. You don't want to kill off people who would be handy later on. The franchise is still very popular, very profitable, and the highest ranking games on Metacritic's website. The rumors of the franchise's death have been greatly exaggerated.

      They are talking about making the last episode much scarier, which I think is the right thing to do. I remember the first Half-life literally giving me chill bumps, and making me jump with the head crabs and other assorted critters. The last interview that Gabe gave on it (that I am aware of) was a few months ago: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/03/26/valve-wants-their-next-half-life-to-scare-you/

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    2. Re:Ok but... by bcat24 · · Score: 4, Funny

      What about Half Life? Is this franchise dead or something?

      I'm afraid the franchise has reached its half-life.

      So it's only mostly dead? There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

    3. Re:Ok but... by Pharmboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Which is why I didn't say HL3 or HL4, just "the next game". There is also the potential for a prequel, or a game from a different point of view, like they did with Opposing Force and Blue Shift. Simply staying in the same time and universe, there is huge potential for a game where you don't even see Gordon, as a Combine, or play a citizen that organizes the underground railroad, etc. Personally, I would love to play a game as DOG, with the gravity gun and maybe one or two other "powers", doing combat while Gordon is elsewhere. Just kicking Combine ass and breaking stuff. These would likely be smaller/shorter games, but the potential is still there for some cool $19.99 games or part of a pack of games, like the Orange Box.

      They would be expanding on the current universe, and while not adding much depth, they would add breadth to the series while being easy enough to keep to the original canon. While Opposing Force and Blue Shift were not as good as the original HL, (the main issues that held them back was some game play quirkiness and some of the tasks were a bit too much of a grind) but they were still good games in the same universe and worth playing through more than once.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  2. Re:dota by omgarthas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I get your point, but the clerk and the store didn't hand me a copy of Warcraft 3 for free

  3. Business model by Issarlk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1 - choose a popular mod to an existing game.
    2 - hire the devs
    3 - release standalone Steam version
    4 - PROFIT!

    1. Re:Business model by Netshroud · · Score: 5, Informative
      That's exactly their business model.
      • Counter-Strike
      • Day of Defeat
      • Team Fortress 2
      • Alien Swarm
      • Portal

      It doesn't surprise me in the least,

    2. Re:Business model by Winckle · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Hey it's a sound business model that results in quality polished games. Can't knock them for it. :)

    3. Re:Business model by wynterwynd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except technically speaking, Portal was not a mod. It was based off of a proof-of-concept puzzle game called Narbacular Drop.

      Other than that, yep.

      I can't see it as anything but good for gaming. Gamers know what gamers want and so far the groundswell approach they use has produced some truly great games.

      --
      "Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
    4. Re:Business model by PrimalChrome · · Score: 3, Funny

      eh...how exactly are they profiting off of Alien Swarm? I suppose that with a $0.00 pricetag and the expense of bandwidth they make it up in quantity of sales?

    5. Re:Business model by Shanrak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Every additional download of steam (which is required for alien swarm) means an additional exposure to some of their weekend and special sales. Its an excellent way of getting your advertising out, and at the same time it inflates steam user count so it shows publishers how big of a customer base they are losing if they choose to not publish on steam.

      --
      This post may or may not contain cancer causing materials.
  4. Summary is wrong, as usual by Tridus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Icefrog is NOT the original developer. I don't know where that nonsense keeps coming from.

    The original developer is named Eul, and he made it way back before The Frozen Throne came out. He then stopped supporting it. Guinsoo then made DotA Allstars. Icefrog took that over at version 6, and is the current maintainer.

    I don't know how you go from "second maintainer of a remake" to "original author", but it's amazing how fast that spread around the Internet.

    --
    -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
    1. Re:Summary is wrong, as usual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I would like to add that genre is not "DOTA", it is "AoS".
      The original map that created these types of custom games was called "Aeon of Strife". It is a starcraft custom map.

    2. Re:Summary is wrong, as usual by sammysheep · · Score: 3, Informative

      Completely true. However, IceFrog has been developing DoTA since 2005. Eul created his version in 2003 (or 2002?). Which means Guinsoo probably developed DoTA for around 2 years. While not the original developer, IceFrog has developed the game for around 5 years and his contributions have made DotA very balanced and interesting to play.

    3. Re:Summary is wrong, as usual by Tridus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I played it all the way from the original Eul version, and those weren't buggy or newbie hostile at all. It got a lot more hostile to newbies in remakes as the complexity shot through the roof.

      There's really no problem with him maintaining it, he's done a good job. There is a problem with claiming they're in the moral right to trademark it because the original author is working there, because that's a bald faced lie.

      --
      -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
    4. Re:Summary is wrong, as usual by snorb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Been getting into LoL recently, and while I agree it's very polished (I really like the character designs and the free-to-play model is a good one), the one area that Valve could improve on is making it more newbie-friendly. While LoL may be more newbie-friendly than DoTA, that's like saying Venus is less hot than the sun. It's still not a very hospitable place. It's basically a full-time job to get up to speed with all the acronyms, jargon, and conventions. You join your first match of LoL and your teammate says something like: "I'm going jungle Amumu with an AP Sunfire build so I can tank the carry in the lane with my ult when they ping." and then they get mad at you when you have no idea what they're saying. Don't get me wrong, I do like the game, it's just really hard for beginners like me.

      Compare the steep learning curve of TFC where you have to master grenade jumping with every class just to compete with how easy it is to pick up TF2. So hopefully Valve will do something similar with DoTA, and make it accessible.

  5. Re:At first I was angry by Tridus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Except they don't. They have the second maintainer of DotA Allstars on board (the original developer of that worked on League of Legends). DotA itself was made by yet another person who isn't involved in either of them.

    I'd love to know how you trademark something made by someone else and which someone else has already used on released games.

    --
    -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
  6. Name by al3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's Jon St. John, not John St. John.

  7. I'm still stuck with yesterday's story by Yuioup · · Score: 3, Funny

    I read "Valve Trademarks 'HOPA'"

    Y

    1. Re:I'm still stuck with yesterday's story by thegarbz · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hot Of Piece Ass!

  8. Vi-sitter-i-ventrilo-dept by Hinhule · · Score: 3, Funny

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTJncWndUB8

    If anyone was wondering.

  9. Re:Valve should get its priorities straight... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah, right... http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_steam_announcement&num=1

  10. Re:History of use by GooberToo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Citation needed.

    Unlike other areas of IP, trademark must be actively defended. If you don't inform others of your trademark, you are not defending it. The fact a trademark was not previously filed and according to the gp post, declaration of trademark was never made. As such, it does appear safe to assume they have never made any effort to trademark or defend a trademark.

    Also, this is not Wikipedia or a researched document. "Citation needed". means you are incapable of effective, polite, communication and is frequently a sign of a dumb, lazy, douche bag. All too often, "Citation needed", means the author is too dumb and lazy to use a search engine. If you are not a douche bag, please stop using that phrase when outside of its proper context.

  11. How was this even found? by MikePikeFL · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know this is only slightly on topic- but how was this registration found? Did they have to pay money to search the system?

    What if I wanted to just go searching for a term? Or for all terms registered by a company? What stops people from doing that?

    --
    "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway" -Andrew Tanenbaum
    1. Re:How was this even found? by Qzukk · · Score: 2, Informative

      USPTO has a search engine, which if you know enough about how they categorize everything, you can find a lot of stuff in there. They even do neat things like categorize the shapes of logos (eg 26.19.01 - Spheres (geometric)).

      Mostly, though, the engine is a flaming pile of shit, driven largely by sessions that make it next to impossible to figure out how to link to results. Even if you find your specific trademark, the search results page link to the trademark document uses your session ID. In fact, you can't even link to the search page itself (anyone following it gets an invalid session error), you'll have to go through the index page so it can create a session for you.

      http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  12. Re:Alternative to "Citation needed"? by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    Patent law

    is not under discussion; trademark law is. I would imagine that regular Slashdot readers are far more familiar with patent and copyright law than with trademark law, simply because far more Slashdot stories have been about the use of patent and copyright law than about the use of trademark law.

    its not that hard to say, "I couldn't find what you were talking about. I did searches for x, y, and z. Can you please provide a reference of some kind?"

    Is it also characteristic of a douche bag to say "I did a search for x, but the vast majority of Google's search results had their full text behind the Springer, Wiley, or Elsevier paywall, and I am not willing to pay $30 per article just to participate in a Slashdot discussion"?

  13. And Steam is their real money maker these days by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One might notice that they've become extremely lax with regards to development. Source has badly stagnated and as such they aren't really selling any engine licenses. Their own game development proceeds at a snail's pace. However Steam sales are extremely brisk. They are making tons of money on it.

    Also Steam is very much a "One platform to rule them all," kind of setup. Steam doesn't play well with others. Their DRM, Steamworks is mandatory for all games on Steam, but also free for anyone to use. In fact retail titles use it now... But if a game is Steamworks then you have to install and run Steam to play the game. This also means you have to allow distribution of your game on Steam, but also that you game probably cannot be distributed on any other download platform. While they don't require that, it is how things go by default. After all, Impulse does not want you to have to download a game through their service, then once it is installing go and install Steam which will ALSO have to run.

    Valve really seems to want to push Steam as the one and only way to do games. Everything will be on there, even if you happened to buy it in a store. To that end, pushing Steam to the maximum number of people possible is a real smart idea.

    Don't get me wrong, I use Steam and own many games on it, but they do have a bit of the big brother, "We want to control all your media," type stuff going on. If that's your goal, putting out some free products to achieve it is worth while.

  14. Correct information - mod parent up by vecctor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The original DotA for WC3:RoC was very polished and MUCH less complicated.

    The thing I liked about it was that it didn't have the "avalanche" effect that all-stars did. The characters could only level to 10, and the items were not ludicrously powerful - so there was no point at which certain heroes became absurdly powerful. I always felt allstars devolved into item farming.

    --
    Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
  15. Re:dota by Haffner · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a fairly avid gamer who has played well over 2000 games of dota (TDA gamecount is in the 1200s), and someone who plays dota as his main game, let me be the first to say: DotA is NOT a good game to get in to. While I love it and think its a terrific game, it is extraordinarily difficult to get into. There are over 90 heroes, each of whom possess 4 skills. There are also probably 60 something (guessing off the top of my head) items. In order to be able to play and enjoy the game, you need to know 1) skills for every hero, and 2) item builds for the heroes you play.

    I have tried to get my friends to try dota- the ones that used to play have largely quit for HoN or sc2. The only people I can recommend dota to are the ones that a) are skilled strategy game players, b) enjoy playing wc3, and c) are willing to dedicate the roughly 50+ hours necessary to simply UNDERSTAND dota.

    Dota is a competitive, balanced, and rewarding game, but it takes a tremendous time investment before one can enjoy it. In my opinion, for beginners, dota will not be truly fun until you are able to understand the other team/players' strategies and counter them. Most low level dota consists of farming up items and then trying to kill things. While this might be fun for a while, this is like playing l4d2 with computers: it's fun, but you're missing out on the most crucial part of the game

    Lastly, most dota players are terrible people. They feign ignorance, love to blame others, and can singlehandedly ruin a game. This is something you need to understand - just one player can make an otherwise great game miserable. Especially in low level league play (like TDA or THR) where there are penalties for leaving a game early, having one of these people on your team can make for 45 minutes of hell. Also, most players won't really progress beyond these leagues, so if you're trying to get in to dota, this is what you have to look forward to.

    That said, best of luck... It would be great to have new dota players, or a standalone REAL dota game (that exactly mirrors the wc3 variant - my problem with HoN is it's too different).

    --
    "Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
  16. LoL, HoN, and DotA by twoallbeefpatties · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There's apparently some politics going on beneath the surface regarding the various people working on these projects, not the least of which is the mild enmity between people who play League of Legends and people who play Heroes of Newearth (LoL is more casual and follows a Korean-free-game pricing model while HoN is more similar to DotA and just charges an upfront fee). Another DotA figure, Pendragon, hinted at this split in philosophy when he wrote an open letter announcing that he would be leaving the DotA All-Stars project.

    "Although I doubt they can beat the price of LoL." There's also problems here. Speaking as someone who currently plays LoL (I might have a solo rating higher than 1250 if I played more than a few games a week), there's a lot of whinging right now about the constant nickel-and-diming of LoL's pricing structure. It is possible to earn nearly everything in the game through just grinding matches (character skins being the only true exception), but the point cost of purchasing new characters and stat-enhancing runes is so high that anyone wanting to play at a truly competitive level ends up needing to spend some money for boosts eventually. It's a model that works fine for purely casual play, but I count myself as one of the people that wishes we could just pay $50 flat and get everything so that we could play high-level matches right away.

    Having said all of that, I had no interest in DotA until my friends online got me into LoL, which has been a lot of fun despite some issues. I haven't had much interest in HoN, but I wouldn't mind seeing what the new DotA project ends up looking like.

    --
    Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.