ByteDance reportedly agrees to sell MOONTON Games to Saudi-backed Savvy Games Group for $6 billion

Story Highlights

  • ByteDance reportedly selling MOONTON to Savvy Games for $6 billion.
  • ByteDance originally acquired MOONTON Games for $4 billion in 2021.

ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, has reportedly reached an agreement to sell MOONTON Games, the studio that created Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, to Savvy Games Group for approximately $6 billion. The deal involves the Chinese tech company and the Saudi Arabian-backed gaming company, according to recent reports.

The discussions surrounding MOONTON Games’ sale was since 2023

Bloomberg reports that the deal is almost finalized, but neither company has officially confirmed it yet. The report indicates that MOONTON CEO Zhang Yunfan will stay on as leader, and the current team will remain, with new programs to reward employees.

This change is happening because ByteDance is scaling back its involvement in gaming. They bought MOONTON in 2021 for about $4 billion, hoping to grow their collection of games.

Over the last two years, ByteDance has been shifting away from gaming. They’ve done this by reorganizing teams, reducing staff, and shrinking their Nuverse gaming department. Now, the company is prioritizing areas like artificial intelligence and its main platforms, such as TikTok.

Rumors about MOONTON being sold have circulated for a while. In November 2023, reports indicated that ByteDance was thinking about selling the game studio, but then-CEO Justin Yuan denied those claims.

In January 2024, ByteDance revealed it was talking to possible buyers, including Tencent Games, which acquired two of ByteDance’s game studios that March. This trend continued, and in March 2025, the publishing rights for games like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) and Marvel Snap in the US were transferred, suggesting ByteDance was preparing to sell.

New reports from November 2025 indicate that MOONTON and Savvy Games have reached an agreement. Savvy Games Group, which is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), has been steadily growing its influence within the gaming world.

A significant investment for them was the $4.9 billion acquisition of Scopely in 2023, the creators of MONOPOLY GO!. They also expanded by purchasing Niantic, the company behind Pokémon GO, for $3.5 billion in February of last year.

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2026-03-20 17:11