League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Rise of the Immortals, Realm of the Titans, Dota 2 … probably others I’m forgetting, and probably more that haven’t yet been announced. It is the trend of industry to mimic success, and what with all the Riot employees happily munching on peanut butter and $100 bill sandwiches, it’s understandable that others would want in on the gold mine.

The same thing happened (and, really, is still happening) with MMOs after the success of Everquest and, later, WoW. There’s a limited market for subscription based games even without a black hole like Blizzard’s game dominating the scene. Game after game was announced with high hopes and eventually put quietly down, either going offline completely or shifting to a f2p model. But while there are valid comparisons to be drawn between the MMO craze and the swelling MOBA rush, MOBAs are (or have been thus far) a much more rigid archetype that makes innovation trickier.

It’s the PvP aspect of the games that do this, largely, and their growing popularity as an e-sport. With MMOs there were certainly trends and business models that go copycatted into cliche, but at least there was room for offering innovation without having to worry too much about breaking the rules. Which is why we ended up with games like WoW, Guild Wars and Eve Online – all popular games that take the genre in three very different directions.

With MOBAs, though, too much change risks ruining the reason people play the games: balanced PvP. When the map, the bulk of the gameplay and the essential concept of the game are already set, there isn’t much room for reinventing the wheel. Introducing too many new concepts into the game makes maintaining balance exponentially harder, and without balance these games aren’t fun.

That these games are becoming recognized as e-sports adds another set of shackles to the genre. Even if mere balanced gameplay is enough for competitive play, e-sports require a certain level of simplicity of mechanics. It’s the same reasons soccer will always be more popular than cricket. Call me American, but that game is bizzare. The bat does serve as an excellent zombie deterrent, though, so that’s a plus.

LoL has found success with this – the gameplay is dead simple, with only a handful of factors to keep in mind, but at the same time has great depth for strategy and player innovation. Newcomers have to do that ‘and.’ And no one’s found a good direction for that ‘and’ yet.

Time will tell if LoL is the WoW or the Everquest of the genre, but as things are right now, wading into the market with a new MOBA game doesn’t seem like a profitable move.

Jerod Jarvis is an independent gaming journalist and founder of Duality Games. When not blogging madly about games, he freelances for the Spokesman-Review in his hometown of Spokane, Washington and attends school at Whitworth University. Check out his presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay up on Duality Games updates and the inside scoop on the gaming news you care about.