14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard, after just showcasing the first big details of its special Blizzard DOTA title, has once again shared its views on the whole trademark issue surrounding the DOTA name, as Valve is currently trying to secure it before releasing Dota 2 next year.
DOTA, or Defense of the Ancients, originated as a community mod for Blizzard's older Warcraft III real time strategy title, and went on to become extremely popular, spawning quite a few replicas, like League of Legends or Heroes of Newerth.
Now, after Valve hired some of the lead developers on the DOTA project, confirming that it's working on Dota 2, it has begun the procedures to trademark the name.
As you can imagine, Blizzard isn't that happy, especially as it's also developing its own take on the DOTA genre, called simply Blizzard DOTA.
The studio's president, Mike Morhaime, shared his thoughts with Eurogamer on the whole issue, saying that the DOTA name should remain in the community.
"I can share that our opinion about the situation is that the DOTA name really should belong to the community. I think that it's been part of the Warcraft 3 community for a very long time, and we would like to see the community continue being able to use that name, and having an exclusive mark owned by a competitor doesn't feel right to us."
Even with this disagreement, Morhaime highlights that the relationship between Blizzard and Valve are still quite good, saying that, "We're very friendly with Valve. So yeah, we do talk to Valve."
Valve plans on holding a special Dota 2 open beta stage soon enough, allowing anyone interested in the title to try it out before it official release sometime next year.
Meanwhile, Blizzard DOTA has just received the first actual details, showcasing a more lighthearted, simplified take on the genre, bringing together some of the most popular characters from Blizzard's variety of franchises, including Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo.