IceFrog

Game designer for Dota

PersonhumanQ3456319

Also known as Icefrog · Abdul Ismail

Born: 1980s
1
Sources
1.Stated in interviewweb.archive.org/web/20111229040348/http://www.playdota.com/forums/blog.php?b=62
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Occupation: video game designer
, engineer
, game designer
Employer: Valve Corporation

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Dota is a series of strategy video games. The series began in 2003 with the release of Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a fan-developed action real time strategy (ARTS) custom map for the video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, The Frozen Throne. The original map features gameplay designed around two teams of up to five players who assume control of individual characters called "heroes", which must coordinate to destroy the enemy's central base structure called an "Ancient", to win the game. Ownership and development of DotA were passed on multiple times since its initial release until Valve hired the map's lead designer IceFrog and after a legal dispute with Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of Warcraft III, brokered a deal that allowed Valve to inherit the trademark to the Dota name.

Overview

All data

16 statements · 31% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Sex or gender: male
Social media followers: 115,811(February 7, 2023) x (twitter) numeric user id: 17388199
111,660(March 2, 2022) x (twitter) numeric user id: 17388199
100,793(January 6, 2021) x (twitter) numeric user id: 17388199
Birth name: Abdul Ismail
3
Sources
1.s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3726401/BlizzardvLilith.pdf#page=8
2.Stated in Ars Technica“Does Valve really own Dota? A jury will decide”arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/05/does-valve-really-own-dota-a-jury-will-decide/
3.Stated in Engadget“Alleged Valve employee speaks out on DotA co-developer”engadget.com/2010/10/13/alleged-valve-employee-speaks-out-on-dota-co-developer/
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Name in native language: Abdul Ismail
3
Sources
1.s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3726401/BlizzardvLilith.pdf#page=8
2.Stated in Ars Technica“Does Valve really own Dota? A jury will decide”arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/05/does-valve-really-own-dota-a-jury-will-decide/
3.Stated in Engadget“Alleged Valve employee speaks out on DotA co-developer”engadget.com/2010/10/13/alleged-valve-employee-speaks-out-on-dota-co-developer/
View statement on Wikidata ↗

On other databases

4 identifiers linking IceFrog across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

31%

externally sourced

Source last edited May 27, 2025. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). IceFrog (Q3456319). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/icefrog-Q3456319