A legal battle that’s lasted for almost a decade comes to an end.
Riot Games lay down their lawsuits as they and MOONTON Games have quietly come to a settlement. Per a press release by MOONTON on April 2, the two companies “have reached a global settlement on their intellectual property disputes,” with Riot deciding to “formally withdraw the related lawsuits.”
The legal battle between the two have been going on since the release of MOONTON’s popular mobile MOBA, Mobile Legends. That amounts to eight years of legal friction for the two biggest MOBAs in their own respective platforms. With this chapter coming to a close, one has to wonder how the two companies will proceed.
For MOONTON, the stigma of their game being a “League of Legends knock-off” will likely never truly go away, especially with the quiet nature this settlement was announced. On the whole they might be fine with that as it didn’t really seem to hamper their popularity. Whether it’s through notoriety or their own merit, Mobile Legends is one of the biggest mobile games in the market. There’s little Riot can do to overturn that at this point.
Riot, on the other hand, may just have bigger things on their plate and decided that a settlement with MOONTON is better than pursuing more lawsuits. They are more than just League of Legends now with their brand expanding into different genres. As a prominent name in the MOBA, FPS, autochess, and potentially in the fighting game genres, it’s likely that Riot felt that it’s better for them to focus on their games rather than trying to pin down MOONTON for potentially another eight years.
The Timeline
First released on app stores back in 2016 as Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA, the game drew Riot’s ire when they noticed that it bore many similarities to their own popular PC MOBA, League of Legends. Riot asked for the game to be removed from app stores and MOONTON seemingly complied. Later in November 2016, MOONTON cheekily reuploaded the game under a different name – Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.
In 2017 Riot decided to take a more heavy-handed approach and filed a lawsuit against MOONTON over copyright infringement. However, the case was dismissed by the Central Court of California. The reason given was that the dispute should be settled in China, where Tencent Holdings, Riot’s parent company, and MOONTON are based.
Tencent did find some success a year later in 2018. They won a lawsuit against Xu Zhenhua, MOONTON’s then-CEO, for violating non-disclosure and non-competition agreements. Tencent received 2.9 million USD in settlement, though that was against Xu and not MOONTON itself.
Forum Non-Conveniens
Another attempt was made by Riot in 2022, this time claiming that MOONTON was also copying Wild Rift, their own mobile version of League of Legends. This was quickly dismissed by the Los Angeles Federal Court on the same grounds as the 2017 lawsuit.
It’s clear that Riot tried and failed twice to get a lawsuit against MOONTON in a US court, where the settlement would likely be in their favor. As Riot is 100% owned by Tencent, it was always going to be difficult to have a ruling favor them in this manner.
Currently, there are no further details to Riot and MOONTON’s settlement.
Banner image by MOONTON Games.
Related Stories:
What the M5 World Championship’s Success Means for Philippine Esports
Will League of Legends Make a Comeback in the Philippines with the Empyrean Cup?
AP.Bren Unveils Their Choice for the M5 Champions Skin