NEW YORK: Savvy Games Group has agreed to buy the Moonton studio from ByteDance Ltd as the Saudi Arabian firm builds up its mobile gaming assets.
The deal values Moonton at US$6bil, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the terms are private.
The transaction is expected to be finalised in the near future, Moonton chief executive officer Zhang Yunfan said in a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Savvy will leave the company’s management in place and employees will be offered incentive programmes, he wrote.
The deal is meant to develop Savvy’s mobile games division and enhance its esports reach, Savvy chief executive officer Brian Ward said in a statement. Savvy, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s US$1 trillion Public Investment Fund (PIF), is central to the kingdom’s aggressive push to become a global leader in video games.
Moonton’s multiplayer mobile games are particularly popular in South-East Asia, and include Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which has been installed more than 1.5 billion times.
At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this month, Ward said Iran’s recent attacks are threatening the perception that the region is a “stable and quiet place”.
Saudi Arabia is working to become a global destination for gamers.
The company’s plans include a gaming district within Qiddiya City, an entertainment destination being constructed near Riyadh with amusement parks, golf courses and arenas for video game competitions.
Savvy acquired Scopely, maker of the popular Monopoly GO mobile game, in 2023. Through Scopely, the company also agreed to buy Niantic Inc’s Pokémon Go last year, spending US$3.5bil.
Mobile makes up the majority of gaming spending, outpacing console and personal computer games, according to analytics firm Newzoo’s Global Games Market Report for 2025.
Most of the growth is expected to come from Asia, it said.
“We are proud of Moonton’s impressive growth into a leading mobile gaming player in South-East Asia,” a ByteDance spokesperson said. “This transaction marks a natural next step in its journey.”
Beijing-based ByteDance paid about US$4bil for Moonton in 2021, but is offloading it as part of a focus on generative artificial intelligence.
The TikTok owner has been slashing jobs and winding down its flagship Nuverse gaming brand in recent years after the company failed to grab market share from Tencent Holdings Ltd.
ByteDance is competing with Chinese big tech rivals and artificial intelligence aspirants in developing foundational models and chatbots.
In September, video game giant Electronic Arts Inc agreed to sell itself to a group of investors that included Saudi’s PIF, in the largest leveraged buyout in history. — Bloomberg
