Saudi Arabia’s urge for food for gaming consolidation is reportedly unsated. Its leveraged buyout to take over Battlefield 6 publisher Electronic Arts isn’t even full but and it’s already eyeing different main offers, in accordance to Reuters. This time the goal is TikTok proprietor ByteDance’s gaming subsidiary Moonton which may promote for as a lot as $7 billion.
Reuters experiences that the “broad terms” of the transaction are already agreed upon, with the official deal probably getting introduced as early as March (thanks GameSpot). ByteDance bought Moonton again in 2021 for $4 billion and Saudi Arabia, via its sport funding car Savvy Video games Group, is seemingly prepared to pay over 50 % greater than that only a few years later.
So what the hell does Moonton make to justify that spiking valuation at a time when so many different elements of the sport business are financially plateauing? The Shanghai-based subsidiary’s largest sport is the 2016 MOBA Cell Legends: Bang Bang which has been downloaded over a billion instances. Final yr it additionally launched the auto battler Magic Chess: Go Go, the RPG Silver and Blood, and the coop vertical shooter Acecraft.
That final sport is a thinly-veiled remix of Cuphead and options cartoon icons like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom, and Jerry as fighter pilots. Some gamers really feel prefer it’s basically a microtransaction on line casino dressed up within the retro animation stylings of Studio MDHR’s hit 2017 indie motion platformer. Weirdly, the sport randomly went offline for all U.S. gamers beginning final month. Moonton promised make-up rewards as soon as it returns however it’s nonetheless mysteriously MIA.
Saudi Arabia corners the cell gaming market
A $6-$7 billion sale value would make Moonton one of many top-10 largest gaming acquisitions in historical past, however it’s hardly the one cell titan Saudi Arabia has sought to gobble up lately. Savvy Video games Group additionally bought Monopoly Go maker Scopely in 2023 for $4.9 billion and Pokémon Go maker Niantic in 2025 for $3.5 billion.
The EA acquisition nonetheless dwarfs these, however gained’t be full till someday over the summer season. Whereas the Madden and Sims writer’s board of administrators and shareholders overwhelmingly permitted a historic $55 billion deal to take EA non-public, unions and Democrats in Congress have referred to as for investigations and regulatory due diligence earlier than one of many largest American gaming corporations is bought to a international authorities.
Given Saudi Arabia’s direct line to the White Home through President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who reportedly helped dealer the deal and has a private stake in it through his own Saudi-backed investment group, that appears unlikely to occur.
