First licensed Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) videogame

The relatively young genre of MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) videogames features all manner of heroes, but few of these characters hail from outside the world of videogames themselves. The first exception to this trend was Guardians of Middle-earth (Monolith Productions/Zombie Studios, 2012), which brought licensed characters from Tolkien’s Middle-earth into the battle arena to gather resources and fight. Unusually for a MOBA, where swift mouse clicks are often key to effective micromanagement of the player's hero character, Guardians of Middle-earth started out as a console game, but was subsequently converted for PC play, and is now available through Steam.

Guardians of Middle-earth's nearest rival for this record title is Adventure Time: Battle Party, which debuted in 2014.