Riot Games Suing Several Mobile Game Creator For Ripping Off League Of Legends Content

League of Legends owner Riot Games has filed a lawsuit against a mobile game developer known as Shanghai Moonton Technology for copyright infringement of Riot Games' intellectual property.

The company in question that's being faced with the lawsuit is responsible for creating several games such as Magic Rush: Heroes, Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA, and Mobile Legends: Bang bang, all of which are games that are included in the lawsuit as examples of the company utilizing Riot's properties. According to the lawsuit that Riot issued, these three games have "a vast array of elements that were directly and deliberately appropriated from LoL, including but not limited to LoL’s characters, artwork, map designs, and unit and monster designs."

This lawsuit isn't the first time that Riot Games has interacted with Shanghai Moonton though. Before Mobile Legends: Bang bang, Shanghai Moonton's game Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA was available for download via the Google Play store and was basically the same game that Mobile Legends: Bang bang is now. When Riot Games notified the store, Shanghai Moonton took the game down and later reinstated it within the Google Play store with a few tweaks to the gameplay and under the new name of Mobile Legends: Bang bang. The lawsuit that was filed contains examples of occasions within the game where characters and abilities were allegedly taken directly from League of Legends.



If you take a look at the game's page within the Google Play store, you can browse through a couple of screenshots that show several characters from the game that are quite similar to some of the champions of League of Legends. A trailer also shows some gameplay taking place in a map that very much resembles Summoner's Rift.
While the lawsuit is justified as it definitely appears accurate that the content was pulled from League of Legends, some users of both games have already expressed conflicted opinions about the legal action. Players have said that while it's fair, Mobile Legends: Bang bang has been reviewed as one of the smoother mobile MOBA options, one that might not be on the market for too much longer.

The full text of the lawsuit can be read here.

 Update: One of the Admin/GM on PH ML posted on group

<ANNOUNCEMENT>
To all ML Players,
I just want to remind you that we should ALWAYS.. ALWAYS wait for Riot and Moonton's OFFICIAL announcement. Do not jump into conclusions before we hear the whole story. THERE WILL BE AN OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT LATER FROM MOONTON.
Thank you guys!
Mobile Legends Philippines GM Team.

Update: The Mobile Legends Facebook page issued a statement calling the report “unreal,” and saying the game was developed by Moontoon independently with intellectual property rights. It made no mention the lawsuit. Below is the full statement:

Recently, some media have published negative and unreal reports against Mobile Legends. Here is the statement of Moontoon:

Mobile Legends is a MOBA game that is developed by Moontoon independently, and its copyright has already been registered and protected in multiple countries all over the world. Moontoon has independent intellectual property rights.

Mobile Legends and all of the users will not be affected by these unreal reports and we will keep providing the best gameplay experience to players all over the world.

Meanwhile, for some media and competitors who have spread the unreal information and rumors against us, we reserve the right to protect ourselves and pursue legal actions.