This seems like a unnecessarily antagonistic comment. It's not like Eul & Guinsoo are gods & IceFrog's cretin. As I understand it, Guinsoo had some good ideas but couldn't balance them well enough to make the game fair & IceFrog's done a far better job of that.
It's not like Valve or Blizzard should own the DOTA trademark.
Antagonistic toward whom? It's a fact that Valve hired IceFrog, apparently thinking it an acquisition of DotA (like they did with Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, etc.). It's also a fact that IceFrog was neither the original creator of DotA (Eul was) nor the person who elevated it from a merely very popular mod to a worldwide sensation (Steve Feak was[1]). So it's always seemed to me that Valve skipped their due diligence on IceFrog -- otherwise why hire him? He didn't create DotA, was only tangentially responsible for its success, and doesn't own it[2]. On the other hand, he brings with him the good will of the community and a claim to the DOTA trademark based on use, regardless of whether the underlying IP belongs to him.
Thus, Valve's decision to hire him has always puzzled me[3]. Did they do it simply because of his claim on the trademark and his relationship with the DotA community? I have no idea. Based on this article, it seems there's at least one other possibility: they were too trusting and didn't have the organizational infrastructure to do a thorough background check (and possibly still don't realize where IceFrog stands in the history of DotA development). We'll never know what Valve's real motivation was, but I[4] at least have lost a fair bit of respect for them since this whole thing started.
Edit: I agree with you that neither Blizzard nor Valve should have the trademark. Ideally I'd like to see it ruled generic.
1. For all that it matters at this point, Feak did this without Eul's permission, and has profited enormously from infringing Eul's work.
2. Though trademarks are different from other forms of IP and it's not impossible that Valve will end up with the mark anyway. But regardless of who owns the mark, the characters and such in DotA aren't IceFrog's IP, and could be used by other people in other games.
3. This because, aside from these considerations, he's a not a great coder and has no art or other skills. So Valve can't have hired him for technical expertise. If he was a superstar developer I'd happily chalk it up to that.
4. Disclosure: I was heavily involved in the Warcraft III modding community from before the original DotA up to the release of StarCraft II. I watched this all play out in real-time, which absolutely colors my take on it.
What makes you think there wasn't a complete background check?, I don't know how you can rate his coding skills (much less say that he lacks others) but having worked with him I realized that he is really committed to the players (trying to give everyone a great playing experience), has an excellent work ethic and was overall a really nice person to work with.
I also remember the times where Guinsoo and Eul where in charge of development (not fondly) and in my opinion it's thanks to IceFrog that the game achieved it's current popularity, even while developing DotA2 he still delivers new versions with new content regularly to the community.
Disclosure: ex-Forum Moderator dota-allstars.com,playdota.com ex-Beta Tester
I wasn't saying I think there was no background check, just that that would be a plausible explanation for the hire. And by background I meant the background of DotA, not IceFrog. I'm quite sure he's not a felon or a KGB spy.
About his coding skills, see my reply to MrJagil below. About art and other skills: IceFrog didn't create any of the art in DotA. It all came from community sites (wc3c.net, hiveworkshop.com, the now defunct war3sear.ch, etc.). The game design was overwhelmingly done by previous DotA maintainers and the DotA community via the sites you moderated. Even the tools on which DotA depends for its life (in particular The Widgetizer[1], without which, as a practical matter, DotA can't be loaded because it has too much object data) were all made by other people.
This is why Valve naming their game DOTA 2 and attempting to trademark DOTA has angered so many people, and why Blizzard is now going after them. DotA isn't IceFrog's to give, which Valve should know if they did any research into its history. But because they're Valve, people on the outside don't seem to care. If it were Microsoft or EA, I'm sure we'd be having a very different discussion.
At this point, no, I don't believe it is. There have simply been too many people involved, too many fingermarks in the clay. Even if Eul, Guinsoo and IceFrog teamed up together, Blizzard would still have a valid claim.
> who is also a Valve employee.
I also don't really believe this. People keep repeating it, and the source is always that same, single, ambiguous sentence of Gabe's. Hopefully some real information comes out during the trademark litigation.
Anyone can open up DotA and read the source. It was easier before IceFrog started using WC3 Map Optimizer[1], but even obfuscated JASS/processed vJASS is easy to read. The archive's "protection" is easily defeated by editing a few bytes in the MPQ header[2] or using a non-WinMPQ tool. (Sadly, Blizzard never gave us a way to protect our content, which is why Guinsoo was able to take DotA from Eul in the first place.)
In any case, I shouldn't have brought this up on HN. Most people here are acquainted with Valve and have no reason not to trust them (short of being burned by Steam[3]). By the same token, most people here aren't acquainted with WC3 modding and have no reason to believe me, which is entirely reasonable. And it probably sounds like I'm insulting IceFrog when I say he's not a great coder, which isn't at all my intent. He's exceptional at community building and other things, just not at what I'd call traditional "dev skills."
To be fair, DOTA isn't great because the code is well-organized (and I believe you that it isn't), but because of the balance and design the heroes and items produces fun matches.
That's cool man, I just remember Valve saying he was one helluva brilliant guy, so i was a bit skeptical of your assesment. I'm not a coder, so I can't really judge for myself.
It's not like Valve or Blizzard should own the DOTA trademark.