The gaming division of ByteDance has announced the purchase of Moonton mobile studio, developers of the popular MOBA Mobile Legends. As a result of the transaction, the company was valued at $4 billion.Reuters reports on the purchase and evaluation of Shanghai Moonton.
The amount of the deal was not disclosed, but with its help, ByteDance hopes to expand its video game direction.
Initially, Tencent wanted to buy developers, but last week ByteDance made a counter offer. Moonton CEO Yuan Jing said that after the deal closes, the studio will operate independently of the owner of TikTok.
Last November, ByteDance launched its own mobile store and opened PixDance publishing house, as well as Ohayoo and Nuverse studios. The latter will become the owner of Moonton.
This deal indicates serious intentions of the Chinese giant to strengthen its position in the gaming market. Now ByteDance will be able to compete directly with Tencent, which owns the box office mobile MOBA Honor of Kings and League of Legends: Wild Rift.
Moonton was founded by one of the former employees of Tencent. The MAU of its most successful Mobile Legends project is 90 million players, and the total revenue of the game for the entire time of operation has approached $ 1 billion.