In the wake of Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda, another major video game industry acquisition has just begun.ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, has announced that it is acquiringMobile Legendsdeveloper Moonton as part of its Nuverse gaming division. The exact amount thatByteDanceis paying to acquire Moonton is unknown, but the valuations of the company have estimated a cost of multiple billions of dollars. It’s unclear when the acquisition will be finalized.
Moonton is best known for itsMobile Legendsfranchise, the biggest title in the series beingMobile Legends: Bang Bang, which is considered one of the most popular mobile games in the world. Other Moonton games include the tower defense gameMagic Rush: Heroes, side-scrolling RPGMobile Legends: Adventure, and the relatively new titleSweet Crossing: Snake.io, which is a multiplayer Snake game.
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Two unnamed sources reportedly told Reuters that the deal between ByteDance and Moonton was valued at $4 billion. That would make it the fourth-largest acquisition in the video game industry’s history. Tencent’s acquisition of Supercell,Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media, and Activision Blizzard’s acquisition of King being the three larger examples. That would make three of the four largest gaming company acquisitions in history having been mobile game companies.
Outside of the popularity ofMobile Legends: Bang Bang, Moonton is perhaps best known for having itsCEO sued by Tencent, publisher ofLeague of Legendsin China. Tencent won the case, which in-part accused Moonton’s CEO of plagiarism ofLeague of Legends. Now Moonton is a part ofByteDance, quickly becoming a major competitor to Tencent. That’s all the most interesting with the release ofLeague of Legends: Wild Riftfor mobile games coming out soon.
