Mobile legends

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Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (Chinese: 无尽对决; pinyin: wújìn duìjié)[Note 1] is a mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) developed and published by Moonton. Released in 2016, the game has become popular in Southeast Asia and was among the games chosen for the first medal event esports competition at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines.

In July 2018, Tencent on behalf of Riot Gameswon a lawsuit in Shanghai against Moonton CEO Watson Xu Zhenhua for Mobile Legends'plagiarism of League of Legends, and was awarded a settlement of $2.9 million.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game designed for mobile phones. The two opposing teams fight to reach and destroy the enemy's base while defending their own base for control of a path, the three "lanes" known as "top", "middle" and "bottom", which connects the bases. Weaker computer-controlled characters, called "minions", spawn at team bases and follow the three lanes to the opposite team's base, fighting enemies and turrets.

In each team, there are five players who each control a character, known as a "hero" using analog/joystick controls. Heroes can be grouped into 6 different roles, Marksman, Assassin, Mage, Support, Fighter and Tank.

Additionally, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang have different kind of arcade games, featuring different gameplay mechanic respectively, such as:

Survival, a battle royale game mode
Chess-TD, a tower defense game mode
Magic Chess, an auto battler game mode

After Moonton's staff of 20 finished developing its first game called Magic Rush: Heroes, released in 2015 to commercial success, they proceeded with developing the company's next project, a mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game later titledMobile Legends. The staff's experience with engineering Magic Rush for a global market, such as in customizing its features for the differing cultures and state of telecommunications of various countries, became beneficial for them to more effectively design Mobile Legends as an appealing game for global players.

Mobile Legends was released by Moonton with the subtitle "5v5 MOBA" on 14 July 2016. The game became highly popular in Southeast Asia, notably in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, where it was the most-downloaded free mobile game app among iPhone users in 2017. The game is distributed by Elex Tech in the United States.

Lawsuit

After the game's initial release, Riot Gamessuspected that the game was imitating the intellectual property of League of Legends, and contacted Google to remove the game from Google Play. Moonton then removed the game before Google could take it down, and eventually relaunching it with the altered name Mobile Legends: Bang Bang on 9 November 2016.

In July 2017, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against Moonton because of copyright infringement, citing similarities between Mobile Legends and League of Legends.The case was initially dismissed in Central District Court of California in United States on account of forum non conveniens. Tencent, Riot's parent company, on behalf of Riot Games, then filed a new, separate lawsuit directly targeting Moonton's CEO, Watson Xu Zhenhua in Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court, which ruled in Tencent's favor in July 2018, awarded Tencent a settlement of $2.9 million (RMB19.4 million).

MLBB 2.0

In July 18, 2019, Moonton announced MLBB 2.0 via its Epicon 2019 conference. MLBB 2.0 consists of an engine upgrade to a more recent version of the Unity game engine from version 4 to version 2017. Moonton also promised faster loading times and start-up speed of up to 60%. Other improvements of the update include reduced lag, improved character modelling and the new in-game map Imperial Sanctuary. The update helped increase the cross-platform social media views earned by the game from 56 million in September 2019 to 76 million the next month making the game ranked fourth of all channels from all gaming brands in the US.

Project NEXT

Announced on June 5, 2020, Project NEXT is Moonton's next project for Mobile Legendsincluding revamps to older heroes' 3D models, skill sets, stories, and voice lines. They also announced an improved targeting method called "Smart Targeting" improving accuracy.

515 Unite

515 Unite is an annual global campaign launched in integrating online and offline Mobile Legends events such as cosplay competitions and roadshows. The theme song for Mobile Legends 515 Unite 2019 event was "Bang Bang" sang by Shorelle. In May 2020, Moonton released "Party Legends" on YouTube, Spotify, and other streaming services.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 515 campaign for 2020 was limited to online events and competitions.

Crazy Legends: Charity Homestand

In April 2020, Moonton partnered with Save the Children Philippines to help children in need due to the 2020 Luzon enhanced community quarantine by dedicating an online streaming event called Crazy Legends: Charity Homestand. Twenty streamers participated, including Dogie, ChooxTV, Z4pnu, and Eric Tai.

Tournaments

Official tournaments

Official Mobile Legends tournaments have been held in the Southeast Asian region, including the annual Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Southeast Asian Competition (MSC) and having their own local leagues such as the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League (MPL).

The first Mobile Legends: Bang Bang World Championship, dubbed as M1, was held in Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 15 to 17 November 2019. The competition featured 16 teams across the world to battle it out for a prize pool of US$250,000.

Mobile Legends was among the first game titles to be included as a medal event for esports at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games.

Other tournaments

Philippines

The Nationals, a franchised esports league in the Philippines, include Mobile Legends.
LIGA2KONTRIBIDA, a street battle event, was held at SM City North EDSA and SM Mall of Asia with Nadine Lustre as a brand ambassador. It is the second season of MLBB LIGA in the Philippines introduced in 2018 and was continued due to its success. MLBB LIGA tournaments are offline events aimed for fans and non-professional players.
A Mobile Legends: Bang Bang corporate league was added to Philippine Pro Gaming League, an esports event organized by Globe Telecom and MET Events.
Celebrity streamers Alodia Gosiengfiao, Ako si Dogie, Le Josette, Moymoy Palaboy, MRVii Gaming, SolidMB, Yasumeow, Yakou, YuriGaming, and Z4pnu were given challenges designed by Moonton during live streams via Crazy Legends, an event in partnership with Facebook Gaming.
Open Kitchen Kagitingan League, a Mobile Legends tournament with a prize pool of P100,000 was hosted on October 2019
Star Magic hosted a Mobile Legends event with 4 teams of celebrities including The Voice Kids winner Elha Nympha, Myrtle Sarrosa, and actor Zaijian Jaranilla and being captained by streamers and professional gamers including Rojean delos Reyes, Bianca Yao, Billy "Z4pnu" Alfonzo, and Lance "Mr. Vii" Vicencio.
SM City Cebu hosted Cyberzone Game Fest 2019 with a Mobile Legends tournament.