As part of streamlining its businesses, TikTok owner ByteDance is looking to sell Moonton as it is looking for potential buyers. Moonton is the developer behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which is a popular MOBA game in Asia.
ByteDance acquired Moonton back in 2021 for $4 billion, as the TikTok owner wanted to be part of the lucrative global video games market, which is valued at $187 billion.
According to Reuters’ sources, one of the interested buyers is Savvy Games Group (SGG), a subsidiary of a Saudi-based company, though ByteDance refused to comment on the matter. ByteDance is looking to sell Moonton for more than $4 billion, but SGG thinks that its asking price is too high.
Aside from its plans to sell Moonton, ByteDance is reportedly planning to overhaul its VR unit Pico to focus more on hardware instead of software and gaming.
One of the reasons why ByteDance wants to sell Moonton is that they have yet to develop a game that has the same level of popularity as Mobile Legends, which was released in 2016. ByteDance’s acquisition of Moonton was followed by the Chinese government’s crackdown on the video games industry.
Moonton, for their part, has been battling against Riot Games over the alleged likeness of Mobile Legends with League of Legends. The most recent update to this legal battle was in 2022 when the US Court dismissed Riot Games’ copyright lawsuit against Moonton.
