ByteDance Games is making a comeback. Then what?

Text | Lan Jie

Editor | Qiao Qian

Over a year has passed since ByteDance's gaming division regrouped. What path will ByteDance's gaming business choose now?

Recently, there have been rumors that ByteDance is pushing for the merger of Nuverse into Moonton. After the integration, ByteDance's gaming business will operate independently and prepare for an IPO.

In response, ByteDance only stated that there is currently no IPO plan. According to 36Kr, which learned from a person close to Moonton, the merger is confirmed, but there is no clear notice yet on which company will be merged into the other.

The above - mentioned person said that at the All Hands meeting after Zhang Yunfan took over as the person - in - charge of ByteDance's gaming business (simultaneously managing Moonton, Nuverse, and the UGC department) last year, he said that there would be more intersections between Nuverse and Moonton. When an employee asked if they would merge in the future, Zhang Yunfan did not give a clear denial or confirmation signal.

Also starting from last year, Moonton and Nuverse began to cooperate on some projects. Before that, Moonton was more independent, and its work system was separate from Nuverse's. Their cooperation mostly stayed at Nuverse providing some technical or permission support to Moonton. The person said, "I feel that the two sides will be integrated by the end of this year or early next year."

In addition, before this news came out, ByteDance's gaming business (mainly Nuverse) was already in the process of recovery and was constantly launching new projects.

It took ByteDance just over a year from announcing the lay - off and shutdown of Nuverse, to announcing the restart of the gaming business, and then to appointing a new person - in - charge.

How is ByteDance's gaming business doing after the restart?

At the end of 2023, Nuverse, ByteDance's gaming division, carried out a large - scale business contraction. At that time, the official response was that for the games that had been launched and were performing well, they would seek to spin them off while ensuring their operation; for the projects that had not been launched, except for a small number of innovative projects and related technology projects, all would be shut down.

According to a person close to ByteDance, ByteDance asked the relevant teams of Nuverse to find buyers and negotiate the sale of projects by themselves to complete the spin - off, but this process was not smooth. According to a report by "LatePost", at that time, the overall valuation of ByteDance's gaming projects for sale was about 40 - 50 billion yuan, and each project hoped that the buyer could make a one - time payment, which was unrealistic in the relatively sluggish gaming industry.

The sale process of Moonton is a representative of this lack of smoothness to some extent.

When ByteDance was pouring money and traffic into the gaming market, it spent $4 billion in March 2021 to acquire Moonton, which already had a hit product in the overseas MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) market at that time. In the process of seeking to sell Moonton in 2023, ByteDance tried to sell it at a price of no less than $5 billion, but the possible selling price was less than half of the expected price. As a result, Moonton failed to find a buyer due to the high asking price and was not sold in the end.

After only a small part of the gaming business was successfully sold, ByteDance's gaming business seemed to have come to a standstill.

However, this asset worth tens of billions obviously cannot be easily abandoned. From a strategic perspective, ByteDance rarely really abandons a business. More often, it keeps the "flame". Not to mention, the gaming market is still so large. According to CNG, the scale of the domestic mobile gaming market alone is 238.3 billion yuan, and the global mobile gaming market scale has reached 635.6 billion yuan.

In March 2024, ByteDance issued an internal letter stating that it would re - incubate the gaming business. In May of the same year, ByteDance's gaming business officially announced that Zhang Yunfan, the former president of Perfect World's gaming business, would be in charge of the overall gaming business and report to Hua Wei.

After that, according to the above - mentioned person close to ByteDance, the project approval speed of ByteDance's gaming business began to recover.

So far, according to information from industry media such as GameLook, ByteDance has launched more than a dozen new projects, covering tracks including RPG (Role - Playing Game), SLG (Strategy Game), and PVP shooting games, among which there are many well - known IP themes such as "Three - Body Problem" and "Star Wars".

In the middle of 2024, ByteDance's gaming business established a new studio, Zero36 Studio, which was formed by the merger of the project teams of "One Piece: Burning Blood", "The Moon at Daybreak", and "Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage" in Shanghai.

In March this year, "Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage", which was distributed by Zero36 Studio, was launched and once reached the top 2 of the domestic iOS free list, which is regarded as another proof of the revitalization of ByteDance's gaming business.

However, whether it is personnel expansion or project re - approval, the strategy of ByteDance's gaming business today is very different from the previous "go big or go home" approach.

What path will ByteDance's gaming business choose?

To some extent, ByteDance's gaming business no longer follows the path of blind expansion and full - category development. Under the leadership of Zhang Yunfan, ByteDance's gaming business is now more focused on making the most of the cards it already has.

The above - mentioned person close to ByteDance said that the current personnel scale of Nuverse is about more than 1,000 people, including outsourced personnel, which is less than half of its peak period, and there are few job openings, showing no trend of large - scale expansion.

In addition, the fact that more than a dozen new projects have been launched in over a year is far from the project approval speed at the peak of ByteDance's gaming business. Employees of leading companies in the domestic gaming industry rarely regard ByteDance's gaming business as a strong competitor anymore.

The reason behind this is not hard to understand. The company's new development focus, AI, is too costly. Previously, according to 36Kr, one of the reasons for the further decline in ByteDance's profit margin was the excessive investment in the Doubao large - model and related businesses. And the gaming business is not profitable enough for ByteDance.

Take "Core of Crystal", a representative self - developed game of ByteDance's gaming business, as an example. This game was launched in July 2023. With the traffic support of Douyin, it ranked in the top 10 of the App Store game best - selling list for nearly a month, but its ranking dropped significantly in the following two months.

In fact, with ByteDance's financial and traffic strength, it is not difficult for it to push a product into the top of the best - selling list. At the same time, in terms of ByteDance's revenue scale, the contribution of "Core of Crystal" is too small and disproportionate to the investment.

According to DianDian Data, as of January this year, which was one and a half years after its launch, the estimated total revenue of "Core of Crystal" on the iOS platform was 1.02 billion yuan, ranking 118th on the iOS game best - selling list. This result is of course good in the gaming industry, but it is still too small for ByteDance's annual revenue in the tens of billions, and far from Tencent's "ever - green games" with an annual revenue of over 4 billion.

According to a practitioner who has had contact with Zhang Yunfan, Zhang himself is not a radical person and has a more conservative attitude towards business.

Therefore, Zhang Yunfan is more inclined to make the most of the existing business of ByteDance's gaming business.

As one of the most valuable gaming assets of ByteDance's gaming business, Moonton has always had a leading advantage in the overseas MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) market. As early as when it was acquired in 2021, MLBB ("Mobile Legends: Bang Bang") under Moonton was already the most popular MOBA game in Southeast Asia.

Although Moonton's growth has been relatively limited in the past few years due to the pressure to maintain profits and meet performance targets, MLBB under Moonton is still competitive. According to the list of the top - earning Chinese mobile games in the overseas market in March 2025 released by Sensor Tower, Moonton's MLBB ranked fifth, surpassing "Genshin Impact", and also achieved its highest - ever revenue in March.

Moreover, since Moonton's products and team structure are relatively mature, it is highly likely that Nuverse will be merged into Moonton in the subsequent merger.

Backed by ByteDance, ByteDance's gaming business is still an important player in the global gaming industry. However, in the current environment, gaming is no longer as important to ByteDance as it used to be, and ByteDance's gaming business has lost its previous ambition.