ByteDance acquires Mutong Technology but retains its CEO

On March 22, after a long deliberation period, the Chinese company, Mutong Technology officially announced that the company and ByteDance’s game business brand Chaoxi Guangnian have been able to reach a mutual strategic acquisition agreement.

Mutong’s CEO Yuan Jing issued the official letter announcing the news on behalf of the company. As per the two company’s mutual agreement, Mutong Technology will continue with its independent operations but will integrate Bytedance’s overseas operating experience to develop in collaboration with the global game market. If this plan pans out the way both the companies have developed, this could be a game-changer for the global gaming market. The new acquisition plan will retain Yuan Jing as the CEO of Mutong Technology; furthermore, the entire reporting lines of Mutong will also remain unchanged.  

Mutong was established in 2014, and the one game that made the company its fortune is called the MOBA game or “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang” (“Endless Duel”) which currently has over 90 million monthly active users. The company has already started a layout for its eSports version of the same and is working its way towards achieving that.  

It should be mentioned here that Tencent’s “League of Legends” developer Fist sued Mutong Technology back in 2018 on the chargers of infringement. The lawsuit included Mutong’s “Mobile Legends: 5V5 MOBA” and “Mobile Legends: Bang bang”, and “Magic Rush: Heroes”. To support the basis of the lawsuit Fist provided a series of photos claiming that the Chinese company copied “League of Legends”. Mutong later released a statement reclaiming that “Mobile Legends” is a completely independent self-developed game with independent intellectual property rights. The case was later transferred to the Shenzhen Intermediate Court of China for trial, and the dispute is ongoing.

Mutong Technology has a number of legal disputes with Tencent including the oner over copyright ownership, and commercial defamation.