Saudi Arabia's Savvy Group to Own Mobile Legends Developer Moonton After $6B ByteDance Deal

Saudi Arabia's Savvy Group has signed a deal to acquire Moonton, the developer behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, from ByteDance for approximately $6 billion.

The agreement brings one of Southeast Asia's most prominent mobile game studios under the umbrella of Saudi Arabia's growing gaming empire. According to a report by Nikkei Asia, ByteDance and Savvy have "signed an agreement and the completion of the deal will be subject to regulatory approvals."

Once those formalities are cleared, Savvy will officially become the new owner of the Beijing-based studio.

Moonton is best known for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, a multiplayer online battle arena title that sits among the top 10 most-played mobile games worldwide. The game has been downloaded over 1.5 billion times and currently boasts around 110 million monthly active users.

Those are genuinely impressive numbers, and they make Moonton a pretty valuable asset in today's mobile gaming landscape.

ByteDance originally acquired Moonton back in 2021 for around $4 billion. The company is now offloading it as part of a broader strategic pivot toward generative artificial intelligence. TikTok's parent company has been scaling back its gaming operations in recent years, slashing jobs and winding down its Nuverse gaming brand after struggling to compete with Tencent in the space.

Moonton's CEO Zhang Yunfan addressed employees in an internal memo, stating that the transaction is expected to be finalized soon. He also confirmed that Savvy will retain the existing management team and offer employees incentive programs.

On his end, Savvy CEO Brian Ward framed the deal as a major step forward for the group's vision, saying: "This acquisition directly supports Savvy's purpose to enable prosperity and connection through play for generations to come, and our mission to drive long-term growth and innovation in games and esports. Once completed, it will further strengthen our leadership in mobile games, deepen our talent pool, expand our global footprint, and enhance our reach across esports."

Zooming out, this deal fits neatly into a much bigger picture. Savvy Group, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), has been on an aggressive acquisition spree across the global games industry. In January 2026, PIF transferred roughly $12 billion worth of listed gaming shares to Savvy to consolidate everything under one focused entity.

The group currently holds around 8% of Nintendo and a roughly $3 billion stake in Take-Two Interactive. It also holds approximately 10% stakes each in Square Enix, Nexon, NCSoft, and Koei Tecmo, along with a position in Bandai Namco.

Savvy fully owns Scopely, the studio behind the wildly popular Monopoly GO, which it acquired for approximately $4.9 billion back in 2023. Scopely has since been making moves of its own, including picking up a majority stake in Turkish developer Loom Games in a deal valued at up to $1 billion.

Meanwhile, PIF itself is leading a $55 billion consortium bid to take Electronic Arts private. That deal was announced in late 2025, has already secured shareholder approval, and is expected to close later this year.

Adding to all of this, Saudi Arabia's Electronic Gaming Development Company recently acquired a 5% stake in Capcom in March 2026, with PIF separately holding an additional 5% stake in the company.