The DOTA name will no longer be an issue for Valve to use, as Blizzard has confirmed that an agreement has been reached over the ownership of the property.
The agreement states that Valve will have the ability to use the name commercially, while Blizzard will continue its noncommercial use of the title in the community. To be clear, Valve’s upcoming MOBA will retain the DOTA 2 name.
“Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they’re looking forward to, so we’re happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that,” said Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design at Blizzard.
In addition, Blizzard’s original DOTA game will be seeing some changes.
“We’re going to be changing the name of Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars, which ultimately better reflects the design of our game. We look forward to going into more detail on that at a later date.”
There are no plans among both companies to speak of the agreement beyond this point. What’s important, though, is that both parties seem satisfied.
“We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one,” said Valve president Gabe Newell. “We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”
Is this the result you wanted to see? Were you rooting for a specific party? Be sure to let us know what you think by leaving us a comment below, or discuss DOTA 2 in our forums.