TikTok’s parent company sells Moonton, a major player in mobile gaming in Southeast Asia, to Savvy Games, owned by the Saudi sovereign fund.
Saudi Arabia is expanding its influence in the video game industry. Chinese company ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, is selling its gaming subsidiary Moonton to Saudi group Savvy Games for over $6 billion, the two groups announced on Friday. Savvy Games was created by the Saudi sovereign fund to diversify the monarchy’s economy, as it prepares for the post-oil era. In recent years, the country has acquired American companies Niantic (Pokemon Go) and Scopely (Monopoly Go), and is set to acquire one of the world’s largest video game publishers: Electronic Arts.
In an internal letter seen by AFP, Zhang Yunfan, the general manager of Moonton, stated that the company would become “a 100% subsidiary of Savvy” once the transaction is finalized, adding that its management would remain unchanged. “This transaction has been the subject of in-depth discussions and deliberations,” he emphasized. The transaction is still subject to regulatory approval.
Founded in 2014, Moonton is based in Shanghai and currently operates several titles, including the multiplayer game “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.” It is very popular in Southeast Asia with over 110 million active players per month. “We are proud of Moonton’s remarkable growth, which has become a major player in mobile gaming in Southeast Asia. This transaction marks a natural step in its journey,” a ByteDance spokesperson told AFP.
ByteDance entered the video game sector in 2018 and acquired Moonton for $4 billion in 2021 to expand its portfolio in that area. However, the group is currently undergoing a restructuring to focus on its new activities in artificial intelligence (AI), a sector that is highly popular among tech giants in China.
The company is one of the largest clients in China of American tech giant Nvidia and has the largest AI research team among Chinese tech companies. In February, it launched SeeDance 2.0, a video generator that impressed the sector with its ability to create cinematic-quality sequences from simple written instructions.
