Riot Games Sues Game Developer Over League of Legends Knockoffs

Riot Games has many, many copycats out there. Some are legitimate games inspired by League of Legends' formula, and some are unapologetic knock-offs. In the case of Shanghai Moontoon Technology, Riot is apparently sick of it and has filed a lawsuit against them.

According to the lawsuit filed on Thursday last week, Riot claims that Moontoon knowingly and purposely infringed on the copyright for League of Legends with not one, but three mobile games: Magic Rush: Heroes, Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA, and Mobile Legends: Bang bang. They claim that the 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.”

Riot Games had even reached out to Moontoon about their games, upon which Moontoon engaged in "overt gamesmanship" by making minute changes to their games, but keeping the majority of it intact.

They even went as far as removing Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA from the Google Play store after Riot notified Google, only to later re-upload the game with very small changes under its new name of Mobile Legends: Bang bang in a clear attempt at dodging legal repercussions from an obvious copy.

The entire lawsuit linked above, spanning 44 pages, includes pictures of characters and abilities that were ripped straight from League of Legends, which serves as the bulk of the evidence against Moontoon.

Sounds like Moontoon may be out of business soon.