{"id":3128,"date":"2021-03-22T11:37:13","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T18:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/?p=3128"},"modified":"2021-10-24T04:51:34","modified_gmt":"2021-10-24T11:51:34","slug":"bytedance-buys-mobile-legends-bang-bang-dev-moonton-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/bytedance-buys-mobile-legends-bang-bang-dev-moonton-technology","title":{"rendered":"ByteDance Buys Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Dev Moonton Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/animoca-brands-raises-4-1-million-from-strategic-investors-including-m7-asia-mind-fund-and-others\" title=\"Animoca Brands raises $4.1 million from strategic investors including M7 Asia, Mind Fund and others\">ByteDance<\/a>, the parent company of TikTok, a video-sharing social networking app, has acquired Moonton Technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moonton Technology is based in Shanghai, China, and developed the mobile MOBA Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Reuters, citing two anonymous sources, put the deal at about $4 billion, though ByteDance declined to provide further details.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Beijing-based, ByteDance confirmed the acquisition and released a statement saying, &#8220;Through cross-team collaboration and drawing on lessons and insights from its own rapid growth, Moonton provides the strategic support needed to accelerate Nuverse&#8217;s global gaming offerings.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Moonton Technology CEO Yuan Jing, in an internal memo, said that there wouldn&#8217;t be any major operational changes after the acquisition, and the studio would operate independently from ByteDance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Founded in 2014, Moonton Technology made its splash into the mobile gaming scene in 2016. It released its first multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) title, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, for iOS and Android devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soon after its launch, Moonton was sued by rival League of Legends developer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/riot-games-will-invest-10-million-in-minority-owned-game-studios\" title=\"Riot Games will invest $10 million in minority-owned game studios\">Riot Games<\/a>. Riot claimed Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a clone of League of Legends. Riot won the lawsuit in 2018, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/tencent-acquires-minority-stake-in-payload-studios\" title=\"Tencent Acquires Minority Stake In Payload Studios\">Tencent<\/a>, its parent company, being awarded $2.89 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>MOBA games have become lucrative propositions in recent times as more players are spending on the in-game purchases. Tencent&#8217;s two best-known MOBA games, League of Legends, and Honor of Kings, have been incredibly profitable for the biggest video games and social media conglomerate in China.&nbsp; The acquisition of Moonton means that now ByteDance has a MOBA game that will compete directly with Tencent&#8217;s titans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prior to acquiring Moonton, ByteDance attempted to make its foray into games. In November 2020, the company announced its games publishing division, Pixmain, and Danjuan Games, a casual gaming platform. Earlier to the event, the company acquired game studios Nuverse PixDance, and Ohayoo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, a video-sharing social networking app, has acquired Moonton Technology. Moonton Technology is based in Shanghai, China, and developed the mobile MOBA Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Reuters, citing two anonymous sources, put the deal at about $4 billion, though ByteDance declined to provide further details.&nbsp; Beijing-based, ByteDance confirmed the acquisition [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":3129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[534,535,128,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3128"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4657,"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3128\/revisions\/4657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gamesround.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}