Chinese mobile developers have a long history of stealing intellectual property. Take for example 300 Heroes, a game for all intents and purposes is a re-skinned League of Legends. It’s a problem that has been rampant for the past five years, but every attempt to thwart it hasn’t ended well.
Dot Arena is the next up in a line of knock-offs brewing in mainland China. This particular game is as obvious as they come, filled with over 30 characters that each bear a striking resemblance to heroes in StarCraft, Warcraft, and Diablo. If the above image of Naomi (Jaina Proudmoore) didn’t convince you, check out these four fellows:
This is Dante, or so they call him. This dual-wielding demon hunter with purple skin is obviously not Illidan.
Say hello to Blake. No offense to all the Blakes out there, but Arthas would make a much better name for this blonde armor-clad gentleman.
Booster is this guy’s name. He’s a small, green goblin with machinery on his back. Not to be mistaken for Gazlowe, a character created a decade ago with the same traits.
Welcome Pandor. He is a panda who knows Kung-Fu. Just to be clear, he is not a Pandaren, so don’t mistake him for the unreasonably similar Chen.
The ridiculous part of all this is that if you go down the list of every hero in Dot Arena you can pinpoint a character in Warcraft, Starcraft, or Diablo that they are stolen from. Mind you, not all of them have made their way to Heroes of the Storm, and because of that maybe Blizzard is being beaten at its own game.
As it turns out, Blizzard took notice of this plagiarism faster than I did. Back in March it opened a lawsuit against the makers of Dot Arena in a Taipei court. Supposedly, this game is remarkably popular in China and several countries within Southeast Asia. Its attempt to expand to other territories was a bold one, that’s for certain.
Sadly, games such as this have a history of thriving no matter how obvious their intentions are. All we can do is support the game that actually required creativity to craft.
