Chen Mo hadn't heard of news from anyone else during the time when Warcraft was gaining popularity.
It wasn't that the other designers weren't jealous and weren't willing to copy, but they couldn't copy!
Warcraft couldn't be replicated, no matter story or playstyle. Most of the designers knew that there was no way this could be copied.
Therefore this had been a one man show by Chen Mo, all the other could do was just watch on.
Chen Mo hit the ground running by breaking to the PC market with a game like this. He became a pretty well known video game designer from this, especially being the king of the RTS hill.
Of course, when his demonic performance on the ranked ladder taken into consideration, he gained his popularity much faster than designers of a similar grade.
One good thing to come out of this was that the players were now closer to the developer.