Tencent Holdings, the Chinese tech giant and parent company of Riot Games, was awarded $2.90 million (RMB19.4 million) in a lawsuit against Moonton Technology, according to a report from Dot Esports.
The awarded amount of about $2.9 million comes on top of the loss of Moonton Technology’s CEO, Xu Zhenhua over the game “Mobile Legends.”
Riot Games had originally filed the lawsuit in California in 2017 against Shanghai Moonton Technology Co. However, the case was dismissed at the behest of the court as it could be heard more conveniently in China.
Tencent filed a separate lawsuit against Xu, according to a court document obtained by Dot Esports. The original penalty was for the CEO to pay about $388,000, before the court deemed this amount insufficient.
In the lawsuit, Riot Games shared several images comparing their property, “League of Legends” to Moonton’s “Mobile Legends.” Other than the title, there were other clear indications that more than just coincidental similarities had occurred, including far too similar “Some of the champions, their descriptions, their abilities, ability descriptions, the map, and other assets were strikingly similar,” according to Dot Esports’ report.
The lawsuit also included Moonton’s “Magic Rush: Heroes,” which had far too similar playable characters.
Riot Games stated in the original lawsuit that Moonton had likely earned hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars from the games which clearly copied “League of Legends.”
Sources also told Dot Esports that the MOBA “King of Glory’s” creators may partner with Riot and Tencent to sue Moonton for copyright infringement of their title, as well.
Riot Games did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.
