ByteDance appoints new CEO for Moonton studio as it consolidates video gaming business

TikTok owner ByteDance, which has been scaling back its video-gaming operations in recent months, has appointed a new CEO for Moonton Technology, the creator of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, according to people familiar with the matter.

Zhang Yunfan, a former executive at video-gaming company Perfect World, joined ByteDance in April to lead the Shanghai-based studio, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Zhang joined Perfect World in 2013 to lead the Beijing-based company's mobile game publishing business, and became its chief operating officer two years later. He also oversaw the Chinese version of Dota2, operated by Perfect World, before leaving the company in 2016.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Moonton declined to comment when on Tuesday.

By appointing the new CEO, ByteDance has decided not to sell Moonton and instead will carry out a "change in strategy" for the subsidiary, Bloomberg reported earlier this week.

The news comes as ByteDance has been making a retreat in the video-gaming sector since late last year, as the social media giant streamlines its businesses to focus on core assets including short video apps Douyin and TikTok, amid ongoing weakness in consumer spending and regulatory uncertainties.

In November, the South China Morning Post reported that the Beijing-based company told employees that it would shut down most game projects that had not been released online, and sell rights to at least two of its titles - the anime-style role-playing game Crystal of Atlan and sci-fi survival game Earth: Revival.

The company had since been in talks with multiple potential buyers for its video game operations, which reportedly includes Moonton, the video game studio it acquired for US$4 billion in 2021.

Moonton co-founder Justin Yuan, centre, at the company's Epicon event in 2019. Photo: Handout alt=Moonton co-founder Justin Yuan, centre, at the company's Epicon event in 2019. Photo: Handout>

The company has already sold three gaming projects, including another studio it acquired in 2021 called C4Games, to companies backed or owned by Tencent Holdings, the world's largest video gaming company by revenue, in a further sign of consolidation in the industry.

It was unclear if Justin Yuan Jing, co-founder and former CEO of Moonton, would leave the company. Yuan, born in 1980, founded Moonton in 2014 and created the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, a hit mobile title especially in Southeast Asia.

When ByteDance announced plans to conduct lay-offs and shut down video game projects last November, Yuan told employees in an internal memo that Moonton would remain independent and was committed to the industry, a move seen as trying to boost staff morale amid external changes.

Moonton has emerged as a key player in the global market for MOBA games, led by Dota2 and League of Legends. The company was ranked 11th in global revenue among Chinese mobile game publishers in April, while Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, launched in 2016, was the eighth highest-grossing Chinese mobile game in overseas markets in the same month, according to data from Sensor Tower.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang has also become a globally popular esports title, as proven by its participation in the Esports World Cup held in Saudi Arabia this summer along with Tencent's Honour of Kings and PUBG Mobile.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.