ByteDance is parting ways with its gaming studio Moonton. The buyer is Savvy Games Group, the gaming arm of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund PIF.
Price tag: over $6 billion.
The details
ByteDance acquired Moonton in 2021 for roughly $4 billion. Back then, the studio and its flagship title Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) were supposed to be ByteDance's gateway into mobile gaming. Five years later, it's being sold - at a 50% premium.
Valuation: $6 billion (+50% vs. 2021 purchase price)
MLBB: Over 1.5 billion installs worldwide, top-10 mobile game in multiple markets.
Management: CEO Zhang Yunfan stays on, HQ remains in Shanghai.
The retreat: ByteDance launched its gaming division Nuverse in 2019, but not a single title became a real blockbuster.
In 2023 came the cull: jobs slashed, unreleased games shelved, full pivot to generative AI. ByteDance never managed to gain ground against Tencent in gaming.
Savvy Games - the shopping spree:
On the buyer's side, Moonton is just the latest piece. Savvy Games, a wholly owned subsidiary of the $1 trillion PIF, has been on an acquisition tear over the past three years:
Scopely: $4.9 billion (2023)
Niantic's Pokemon GO: $3.5 billion (2025)
Moonton: $6 billion (2026)
On top of that, PIF holds stakes in Nintendo, Take-Two and Square Enix. In September, Electronic Arts agreed to a $55 billion buyout with PIF involvement - the largest leveraged buyout in history.
Why Saudi Arabia is the new heavyweight in gaming
Behind the Moonton deal lies Saudi Vision 2030. Gaming is one of the levers the kingdom is using to diversify its economy away from oil.
Moonton, with its massive user base in Southeast Asia, delivers exactly what Savvy has been missing: a mobile publisher with global reach and an established esports ecosystem.
For ByteDance, the exit is an admission that gaming was never part of the company's DNA. Saudi Arabia's PIF, meanwhile, is quietly building the world's largest gaming portfolio.
Sources: Bloomberg, Nikkei, DealStreet Asia
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