The Dota series began in 2003 with Defense of the Ancients (DotA)—a mod for Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos—created by the pseudonymous designer "Eul". An expansion pack for Warcraft III, entitled The Frozen Throne, was released later that year; and a series of DotA clone mods for the new game competed for popularity. DotA: Allstars by Steve Feak was the most successful, and Feak, with his friend Steve Mescon, created the official DotA community website dota-allstars.com and the holding company DotA-Allstars, LLC. When Feak retired from DotA: Allstars in 2005, a friend, under the pseudonym "IceFrog", became its lead designer. The popularity of DotA increased significantly: it became one of the most popular mods in the world, and, by 2008, a prominent eSports title. IceFrog and Mescon had a falling out in May 2009, which prompted the former to establish a new community website at playdota.com. You can watch DotA 2 videos at here: dota 2 top10 weekly Valve's interest in the Defense of the Ancients property began when several veteran employees, including Team Fortress designer Robin Walker, became fans of the mod and attempted to play it competitively. The company corresponded with IceFrog by email about his long-term plans for the project, which culminated with his being hired to direct a sequel. IceFrog first announced his new position through his blog in October 2009, and Dota 2 was unveiled by Game Informer on October 13, 2010. The resultant surge of traffic crashed Game Informer's servers. You can watch DotA 2 videos at here: dota2 top10 weekly Valve adopted the word "Dota", derived from the original mod's acronym, as the name for its newly acquired franchise. Producer Erik Johnson argued that this word refers to a concept and is not an acronym. Shortly after the announcement of Dota 2, Valve filed a trademark claim to the Dota name. At Gamescom 2011, company head Gabe Newell explained that the trademark was needed to develop a sequel with the already-identifiable brand. Holding the Dota name to be a community asset, Feak and Mescon filed an opposing trademark for "DOTA" on behalf of DotA-Allstars, LLC (then a subsidiary of Riot Games) in August 2010. Rob Pardo, the executive vice president of Blizzard Entertainment, similarly stated that the DotA name belonged to the mod's community. Blizzard acquired DotA-Allstars, LLC from Riot Games and filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011, citing Blizzard's ownership of both the Warcraft III World Editor and DotA-Allstars, LLC as proper claims to the franchise. The dispute was settled on May 11, 2012: Valve retained commercial franchising rights to the "Dota" brand, but non-commercial use of the name by third-parties was allowed. You can watch DotA 2 videos at here: dota 2 top 10 weekly
