Riot Games Sues ‘I Am Hero: AFT Tactical Teamfight’ as ‘League of Legends’ Rip-Off

“League of Legends” publisher Riot Games is accusing the mobile app developer Imba Technology of stealing their characters’ design, lore, and dialogue.

These contents are allegedly used to build the “Teamfight Tactics” rip-off game called “I Am Hero: AFK Tactical Teamfights.”

There are hundreds of turn-based games on the internet, so creators can be inspired by the same ideas.

However, according to Riot Games, “I Am Hero” stole the content from their “League of Legends” library.

‘Teamfight Tactics’ Ripoff: ‘I Am Hero AFT’

Sources from Reuters explained the details of this complaint.

The accusations said that the Imba Technolgy was blatantly copying from “League of Legends” and infringing its copyrights.

The complaint emphasized that “paragraphs of texts from League of Legends verbatim” had been stolen, along with “nearly identical visual designs, names, abilities, and background stories” of the characters.

These are used to generate the playable avatars for the “I Am Hero” mobile game.

A few examples cited are characters who share the same name except for one letter, like Zac (League of Legends) to Zak (I Am Hero) and Viktor (League of Legends) to Victor (I Am Hero).

Their game icon also features characters who look similar to “League of Legends” Ahri, Elise, Gragas, and Braum.

The complaint also pointed out that the company name had been copied, with the word “Riot” being translated to “Imba” in a different language.

Lastly, the game itself was heavily inspired as a turn-based knock out system with the character playing on the field.

This means gamers get to pick their “heroes” and send them to the field, where they will show off skills and fight as a team.

Riot Games sent Imba Technology a cease-and-desist letter in December, but the latter denied the infringement. This prompted Riot Games to officially file a complaint to the Los Angeles federal court on Jan. 20.

According to PCMag, neither Riot Games nor Imba Technology responded to their request for comment.

The situation is still progressing, so interested fans are recommended to watch out for updates, which might drop in the coming months.

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‘I Am Hero AFT: AFT Tactical Teamfight’

At the time of writing, “I Am Hero” is still active and downloadable in the Google PlayStore.

Fans in the comment section share split opinions about the game offering a good gatcha system and how it might have been copied from “League of Legends.”

Regardless, the game reached more than 500,000 downloads and maintained a rating of 3.8 stars.

Riot Game ‘Teamfight Tactics’

It is worth mentioning that Riot Games’ “Teamfight Tactics” also features differences when compared to “I Am Hero.”

“Teamfight Tactics” is a free-to-play game for mobile and desktop.

This game is heavily inspired by their multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game “League of Legends.” This means “Teamfight Tactics” has a bigger pool of heroes to choose from, together with a massive library for content like costumes, maps, and playable avatars.

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