Riot Games, makers of League of Legendsis again suing a Shanghai-based mobile game developer, this time claiming the Chinese studio is ripping off League of Legends: Wild crackthe iOS and Android adaptation of Riot’s globally popular MOBA, which launched in open beta in Spring 2021.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California — the same venue where Riot 2018 sued Shanghai Moonton Technology Co. In the earlier case, Riot sued Moonton for his game Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBAwhat Riot called a direct lift League of Legends.
A federal judge declined to hear the case, ruling that China was a better jurisdiction to bring the lawsuit. China-based Tencent Holdings, Riot Games’ parent company, then stepped in and won a verdictvalued at $2.9 million, against Moonton and his managing director.
The latest complaint concerns a game called Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, currently available in North America on both Google Play and the Apple App Store, where it ranks #67 in the strategy category. Riot’s lawsuit begins as if the court were already familiar with Moonton, saying the US company is “trying to prevent Moonton from continuing its deliberate and ongoing campaign to seize Riot’s extremely valuable rights in the mobile video game League of Legends: Wild Rift and related content.”
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23449359/unnamed.jpg)
Riot’s lawsuit notes that after complaining to Google and Mobile Legends removed from the Google Play Store, Moonton was secretly launched Mobile Legends: Bang Bang“a minimally optimized version of Mobile Legends‘ the complaint said. Since then, Moonton has updated MLBB to take over extensive expression elements wild crack, to continue its cycle of knowing appropriation of Riot’s intellectual property.”
The latest action is similar to a lawsuit Riot filed against a Vietnamese developer in January, alleging that the studio apparently copied Teamfight Tacticsthe auto battler spinoff of League of Legends that Riot Games launched on mobile platforms in Spring 2020.
Given that Riot is suing an offshore company, and given the outcome of its previous lawsuit against Moonton, the company may have filed this lawsuit as a procedural step to sue Moonton again in China.
Nonetheless, Riot’s complaint is well documented, with comparisons of marketing materials, character designs, and even community reactions claiming that Moonton is copying Riot’s work. Riot Games is seeking a jury trial and an injunction stopping Moonton from distributing the game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang in the United States.
A copy of Riot’s suit is embedded below.
