A tweet that has me thinking.

[u/Axis251]

I don’t know if Riot can copy what valve has created with Deadlock. The atmosphere and setting so what I think makes deadlock so enjoyable. Yes the gameplay is amazing and the moba aspects are great but I just don’t think riot will even try to copy valve and make a deadlock clone. What is all y’all’s thoughts.

[u/Yarr0w]

Not just a jab at Valorant. Riot’s entire identity has been and always will be rip offs. League ripped Dota. Legends of Runetera ripped Hearthstone. Valorant ripped Counter Strike. Riot isn’t in the business of original IPs, and never has been.

EDIT: Already triggered Riot fan boys lol

[u/CharlieBluey → u/Yarr0w]

You missed arguably the most obvious example of Teamfight Tactics, which explicitly was Riot trying to rush a product to market as fast as possible to copy Dota Autochess. I mean fair play I guess because it was a mod, but I mean yeah anybody who pretends that Riot's successes are based on original ideas is not even worth engaging with

https://teamfighttactics.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/tf-t-minus-eighteen-weeks-the-story-of-tft-part-1/

[u/FundamentalAttribute → u/CharlieBluey]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that riots success are their original ideas. Their success is from innovating a proved product in time to cash in on a market and to keep pumping out updates until it doesn't work. Rip lor

[u/WRLD_ → u/FundamentalAttribute]

the entire company was literally founded on seeing dota 1 and thinking "we can monetize the shit out of this forever"

[u/BASEKyle → u/[deleted]]

I mean, tryjng to kill off the Dota by taking down the whole PlayDota forums which was the best and only place for communication, and leaving a "fuck Dota, play League instead" message isn't exactly kosher nor is it because the "team had different visions".

[u/EonofAeon → u/BASEKyle]

Hes going around defending Riot n saying they've done nothing scummy or illegal, and if they did it wasnt that bad, and if was who cares. I wouldn't bother lol

[u/WRLD_ → u/[deleted]]

the company was founded by two business majors who, after receiving like 1.5 million dollars from investors, recruited Steve Feak -- who, for the record and not strictly to diminish his work, was the third person to take the reins of dota. his time was before icefrog took over development and i think a lot could be said about icefrog cultivating dota into becoming as big and good as it is.

the founders have gone on record to say they were inspired to make league because "we were frustrated when developers would stop supporting us and the communities involved with the games we played" -- only to poach a developer of an actively in-development (granted, fan-created) game and proceed to try to sabotage said project.

with this context, it's hard to look at riot and not see a couple of nerdy business bogeys who saw an opportunity to make money while doing a thing they like while immediately getting a bit underhanded with things