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 acquiring Mobile Legends developer Moonton as part of its Nuverse gaming division. The exact amount that ByteDance is 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 its Mobile Legends franchise, the biggest title in the series being Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which is considered one of the most popular mobile games in the world. Other Moonton games include the tower defense game Magic Rush: Heroes, side-scrolling RPG Mobile Legends: Adventure, and the relatively new title Sweet 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 of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Moonton is perhaps best known for having its CEO sued by Tencent, publisher of League of Legends in China. Tencent won the case, which in-part accused Moonton's CEO of plagiarism of League of Legends. Now Moonton is a part of ByteDance, quickly becoming a major competitor to Tencent. That's all the most interesting with the release of League of Legends: Wild Rift for mobile games coming out soon.

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Source: Reuters