Riot Games is Suing Mobile Legends Developer For Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement

Riot Games, developers of League of Legends are suing Moonton Games, the Shanghai-based developer of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

The reason for the lawsuit is due to Mobile Legends allegedly plagiarising from League of Legends and committing copyright infringement.

“This action seeks to stop Moonton from continuing its deliberate and sustained campaign to free ride on Riot’s highly valuable rights in the mobile video game League of Legends: Wild Rift (“Wild Rift”) and related content. Moonton’s strategy is blatant copying.

As discussed below, over the years, as Riot updated its video game, Moonton would copy it. When Riot updated the game’s promotional materials, Moonton copied them. And when Riot released a new trailer, Moonton copied it. This is a critical issue for Riot.”

The lawsuit goes on to provide several examples of Moonton copying elements from League of Legends such as Riot changing League’s Logo in 2019, only for Moonton to change Mobile Legends’ logo to a similar new one in 2020.

Riot has also provided further examples of League of Legends releasing new characters or skins only for Mobile Legends to receive suspiciously similar content shortly after. An example of this is the character Ahri who appeared in League of Legends in 2018 and League of Legends Wild Rift in 2020. Riot claims that Moonton copied her for their character Guinevere’s “Psion of Tomorrow” skin, which was released only last month in April 2022.

Other examples in their lawsuit include:

• LOL’s Zac vs MLBB’s Goo
• Wild Rift’s Cosmic Jin vs MLBB’s Yve
• Wild Rift’s Braum vs MLBB’s Braxia
• LOL’s Flora vs MLBB’s Fanny
• LOL’s Leona vs MLBB’s Irithel

It is should be noted, Riot previously tried to sue Moonton in 2017 when Mobile Legends was known as Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA. Moonton did remove Mobile Legends from the Google Play Store but it was shortly re-released as Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and given minor changes.

Not everyone is supportive of Riot’s actions. The League of Legends: Wild Rift page has been review bombed on both Malaysian and Indonesian Google Play Stores. I can’t imagine it’s much better in other regional stores where Mobile Legends is more popular.

The two games have definitely similarities and Riot has given some compelling arguments for suing Mobile Legends. I suppose it’ll be up to the court to decide.

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