For the past few years ByteDance, the creator of TikTok, has been looking for options to diversify its revenue sources. They have shown interest in the gaming industry for quite some time now. They have acquired a few gaming studios in the past, but this time they have acquired Moonton, the developers of Mobile legends. With this move, they have clearly stated that they are not fooling around, and they are dead serious about expanding into the gaming industry especially mobile gaming.
ByteDance acquired Mobile Legends developer ‘Moonton’ for 4 Billion
ByteDance has acquired Mobile Legends developer ‘Moonton’ for 4 Billion Dollars. This acquisition was made through Nuverse, the video game unit of ByteDance (which was also acquired by them in 2017). According to the reports, Tencent also offered to Acquire Moonton, but BytedDance’s offer was irresistible. The terms and details of the acquisition have not been revealed yet.
Fun Fact: Moonton was founded by Justin Yuan, who was an ex-Tencent employee.
Experts believe that this acquisition will greatly help ByteDance
Mobile Legends is probably the most popular mobile MOBA game in the world. It has 90 million active monthly users. Many people accuse it of being a clone of League of Legends, and even Riot Games sued Moonton over plagiarism, but it was settled out of court in 2018.
ByteDance is very serious about going big in the gaming industry; they have already hired over 2,000 employees under its gaming branch in the last year, one year – taking the total number of gaming staff to 3,000 in the company. Just for comparison, 37 Interactive, which is china’s third-biggest gaming company, has 4,000 staff, and it took them ten years to reach this stage.
It is quite clear that the TikTok Owners will literally throw money to push their gaming segment and get it going. Though they have previously acquired many other gaming studios, this acquisition of Moonton is a massive step as it brings one of the best mobile game titles under its brand and a lot of experienced staff and resources.
Also Read: Google Play deals: Android games on sale right now
It looks like ByteDance will soon join the list of top game developers around the world. What do you guys think? Do let us know your views in the comments below.
