Tag: Riot Games

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News Video Games

Riot Games (League of Legends maker) builds mobile team, gets RiotGames.mobi

Riot Games Dublin Office

Riot Games may dominate the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) market in the PC universe with League of Legends, but today, it has yet to enter the mobile MOBA market.

A market that is very small but has big possibilities.

Though League of Legends may not be ready for gaming on the go, Riot Games is ramping up its mobile development teams as shown by job openings posted online.

This week, the company even acquired the domain name RiotGames.mobi (Whois).  Dotmobi is the top-level domain introduced for the mobile web.  Of course, while obtaining the name may be nothing more than a move by the company to protect its intellectual property, there are plenty of signs that Riot is focusing efforts in the mobile arena.

In late August, Riot posted a job for a Mobile Product Manager in Santa Monica.  The listing says the company is building a dynamic, fast-moving Riot Mobile team to help the company develop and create mobile solutions.

Riot Games mobile product manager job listing

The website RiotGames.mobi is currently a parked web page at the time of this story.

It’s unknown whether Riot had to fork out cash to get the name or if it simply had its legal department contact the previous owner.  The domain was acquired through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.  According to Whois history, the name was originally registered anonymously in 2010 and changed ownership to Riot Games this week.

There are developers in the mobile MOBA market.

This October, Gameloft will be releasing the mobile game Heroes of Order & Chaos.

Heroes of Order & Chaos
As Pocket Gamer points out in a recent story, Gameloft will be copying the League of Legends tactic of making six characters free for a week at a time, with the option to buy them outright with real money should they take your fancy.

There hasn’t been much news out of Riot regarding its mobile game plans, but with all the mobile job openings being posted, it may not be too long before more is known.

And in case you’re wondering, Riot Games does own the domain leagueoflegends.mobi.  The company has owned the web address name since 2008.  Today, the web address redirects users to LeagueofLegends.com.

Talking about this story: Kotaku

(Image of Riot Games Dublin offices via RiotGames.com)

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Disputes News Video Games WIPO

Riot wins LeagueofLegends.co dispute, web address redirected users to porn site

Riot Games Dublin

Riot Games Dublin

In June, Riot Games won a case against a scam website claiming to offer online support for its smash hit PC game League of Legends.  Now, the company has won another dispute that it had filed in early August against the owner of LeagueofLegends.co (missing the ‘m’) which redirected users to a porn site.

Although the case (Case Number: DCO2012-0024) remains active on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) website where it was originally filed, the Whois records for LeagueofLegends.co reflect Riot as the owner of the name.  In addition to the change of ownership, the URL resolves to a blank web page, instead of a porn site filled with photos of nude women.

Considering LeagueofLegends.com ranks among the top 1,500 websites in the world, according to Alexa, it’s likely a lot of users entering a typo by forgetting the ‘m’ in .com, found themselves on a porn site, after typing the Colombia dot-co domain.

Right now if you type leagueoflegends.co into Google search, you can still see the hit for the porn site as shown in the screen shot below.

LeagueofLegends.co

Since details of the ruling haven’t been posted online yet, it’s unknown whether the previous owner Martin Hornak handed over the name before a decision was even issued or if he was ordered to transfer the name.

One thing’s for sure, Riot must be relieved to have control.

However, the company isn’t finished going after owners of domain names with its popular hit video game ‘League of Legends’ in the name.

In late July, the company also filed a complaint over the domain name LeagueofLegendsPorn.com (Case Number: D2012-1516), which has yet to be decided.  Unlike the dotco domain that pointed visitors to a graphic porn site, LeagueofLegendsPorn.com has a harmless “Coming Soon” page online.  But given that Riot has trademarked the term “League of Legends”, it too will likely end up in Riot’s hands.

UPDATE:  The case is now showing up as ‘terminated’, meaning the parties agreed on a settlement before the panel reached a decision.

Talking about this story: Kotaku, Joystiq, The Verge, Techdirt, GameStar, GamePolitics, MeriStation, GameDynamo, VG247, OnlineWelten.com, The Escapist, Kotaku Australia and Polygamia.pl

(Image of Riot Games Dublin Office via riotgames.com)

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Disputes News WIPO

Riot Games files complaints against League of Legends porn domain names

League of Legends porn sites

Riot Games, the maker of League of Legends, the most played PC game in North America and Europe, has filed two separate complaints with the World Intellectual Property Organization over the domain names LeagueofLegendsPorn.com (Case Number: D2012-1516) and LeagueofLegends.co (Case Number: DCO2012-0024).

While LeagueofLegendsPorn.com displays nothing more than a coming soon page with a message that reads, “Future home of something quite cool”, LeagueofLegends.co redirects unsuspecting users to a Spanish porn site.

According to Whois records, LeagueofLegendsPorn.com is currently registered to a resident of Temple Terrace, Florida and was created on February 2, 2012.

In July 2010, dotCO the country-code top-level domain for Colombia became available for registration globally.  That’s when LeagueofLegends.co (Whois) was first registered.  According to a rough traffic estimate by Compete, LeagueofLegends.com receives nearly 2 million visitors per month, so you can imagine there are plenty of unwary users typing LeagueofLegends.co (without the ‘m’) only to find themselves greeted by a not-safe-for-work adult website.

These disputes aren’t the first for Riot Games.

In June, Riot secured the rights to the scam site support-leagueoflegends.com (notice the hyphen in the web address).

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To win these disputes, Riot Games must demonstrate that all of the elements enumerated in paragraph 4(a) of the Policy have been satisfied:

(1) that the disputed domain name registered by the Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and

(2) that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name; and

(3) that the disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

Based on the circumstances, both cases should be open and shut in Riot’s favor.

(Image of Battle Bunny Riven via LeagueofLegends.com)

Categories
Disputes National Arbitration Forum News Video Games

Riot wins battle over League of Legends scam site, domain ordered transferred

Riot Games

Riot Games has won a case (Case Number: D2012-0744) against a scam website claiming to offer online support for the real-time strategy game League of Legends (LoL).  For those not aware, Riot Games provides official player support at the web address support.leagueoflegends.com, not support-leagueoflegends.com (notice the hyphen in the web address).

In a decision handed down on May 31, 2012, by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the domain name has been ordered transferred from the respondent Maik Baumgartner to Riot Games, Inc.  Baumgartner first registered the name in early March according to Whois records.

This appears to be the first domain dispute brought by Riot Games and its no surprise the company won.

If you visit the scam site at support-leagueoflegends.com (screenshot below), it’ll try to get you to download a file.

League of Legends scam site

Riot Games announced over the weekend that League of Legends was hacked.  While this case appears to be unrelated, as its free-to-play game continues to grow in popularity, it will likely find itself victim to attacks online, as well as scam websites and cybersquatting of its well-known “League of Legends” trademark.

At the time of this posting, the domain has yet to be transferred, but it should only be a matter of days before the name is secured by Riot.

UPDATE:  Details of the ruling have been published online.

Riot Games demonstrated that all of the elements enumerated in paragraph 4(a) of the Policy have been satisfied:

(i) the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights;

(ii) the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name; and

(iii) the disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

On the point of bad faith, the panelist had this to say:

In the present case, the Complainant has made a convincing case that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name with the deliberate intention of targeting the Complainant’s trademark for the purpose of acquiring various data from the Complainant’s customers by effectively impersonating the Complainant. In particular, the Complainant has demonstrated that the appearance of the Respondent’s website is highly likely to be confused with the support website of the Complainant. The Complainant has also demonstrated that the Respondent has intentionally selected a confusingly similar domain name to the Complainant’s trademark, being likewise a close typographical variant of the uniform resource locator of the Complainant’s support website, which in the Panel’s opinion is likely to heighten the possibility of consumer confusion. In addition, the Complainant has presented uncontested evidence that after registration of the disputed domain name the Respondent subsequently changed the function of the associated website in order to persuade Internet users who visit the said website unknowingly to download “malware”.

UPDATE 1:  The website has been suspended according to a message on the home page.

Talking about this story: VG247 and Lazygamer

(Image of Riot Games office lobby via Riot.com)

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News Video Games

New League of Legends (LoL) Supremacy game likely on the way [UPDATED]

League of Legends: Supremacy

[UPDATE 5 October 13, 2013:. A hacker by the name of “Jason” posted images of card templates for the yet to be released League of Legends: Supremacy digital card game.]

[UPDATE 4 October 13, 2013:. Marc Merrill’s Twitter account has been breached, and information about a Supremacy card game has been leaked.]

[UPDATE 3 June 15, 2012:. The identity of Supremacy.com’s owner is no longer a secret.  The Whois privacy on the name has been removed, showing the name “Riot Games, Inc.” as the registered owner. Details: LoL big announcement soon? Riot now reveals itself as owner of Supremacy.com.]

[UPDATE 2 May 27, 2012:. Riot Games filed a trademark application on May 22, 2012, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for “League of Legends: Supremacy”.Details: Riot Games makes it official, trademarks League of Legends: Supremacy.]

[UPDATE 1 May 19, 2012:. Despite all the best efforts of MarkMonitor, a company that prides itself on protecting the brands of the world’s leading companies, it failed to add Whois privacy to leagueoflegendssupremacy.org. Details: Proof that Riot Games is behind the League of Legends Supremacy domain name registrations.]

ORIGINAL STORY: Domain names can often be a good indicator of a company’s plans.  And based on the large of amount of domain registrations and acquisitions recently, it looks like Riot Games is preparing to release a brand new game mode for League of Legends called Supremacy.

Back in late February, another domain blog Rogue Domaining had noted that leagueoflegendssupremacy.com and .net had been privately registered by the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor.  While registering two domains may signal nothing more than a company trying to protect its intellectual property, I’ve discovered additional strong hints that Riot Games will be introducing League of Legends: Supremacy in the near future.

First off, Riot Games is a client of MarkMonitor, a firm that over half the fortune 100 rely on for brand protection online.  While the key is to be discreet when registering names for yet-to-be-released games, months ahead of its Dominion game mode release, MarkMonitor registered names like leagueoflegendsdominion.com (Whois).

This week, MarkMonitor registered a slew of typos of League of Legends: Supremacy domains including:

leageoflegendssupremacy.com
leageoflegendssupremacy.net
leagueoflegendsupremacy.com
leagueoflegendsupremacy.net
leaugeoflegendssupremacy.com
leaugeoflegendssupremacy.net
lolsupramecy.com
lolsupramecy.net
lolsupremecy.com
lolsupremecy.net
lolsupremicy.com
lolsupremicy.net

Now add to that, Riot Games has apparently acquired the generic domain names Supremacy.com (Whois) and Supremacy.net (Whois), which you can most certainly assume did not go for cheap, dropping hints that League of Legends: Supremacy is definitely on its way.  You don’t spend the kind of money it takes to buy generic names like these for defensive purposes unless you have a plan.

Days ago, both names transferred from their previous owner to MarkMonitor.  The tie-in between Supremacy.com and the other League of Legends names, is that on the same day MarkMonitor registered the typos of leagueoflegends.com and lolsupremacy.com, it also picked up typos of supremacy.com like supramecy.net, supremecy.net, supremicy.com, and supremicy.net.

While nothing is official yet, with all these new domain registrations revealed here in the past week, news of a new game mode seems very close.

Talking about this story: League of Legends subreddit, GameZone, VG247, League of Legends Community, Neoseeker, IchSpiele.cc, OnlineWelten.com and Gameplorer.de