Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group has agreed on "broad terms" to buy ByteDance's gaming subsidiary Moonton for as much as $6-7 billion, with an official announcement possible as early as March, Reuters reported on February 13.

The deal would make Moonton one of the top-10 largest acquisitions in gaming history — and it would close a remarkable valuation arc for the Shanghai-based studio. ByteDance paid $4 billion for Moonton in 2021. Savvy is now willing to pay more than 50 percent above that price, in a market where much of the industry is financially plateauing.

The transaction is not finalized. But the reported timeline signals that Saudi Arabia is not pausing its consolidation push while its $55 billion leveraged buyout of Electronic Arts is still in progress.

What does Moonton bring to Savvy?

Moonton's flagship is the 2016 MOBA Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which has passed one billion downloads. That installed base is the core asset in the deal, giving Savvy a dominant live-service MOBA in Southeast Asian markets.

The studio also launched three new titles last year:

• Magic Chess: Go Go, an auto battler
• Silver and Blood, an RPG
• Acecraft, a cooperative vertical shooter

Acecraft carries its own operational question marks. The game — a cartoon-styled shooter featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom and Jerry as fighter pilots — went offline for all U.S. players in January with no explanation. Moonton has promised make-up rewards when service resumes, but the title remains unavailable.

How does this fit Saudi Arabia's mobile strategy?

The Moonton talks follow an established pattern of Savvy acquiring mobile-scale live-service businesses:

• Scopely, maker of Monopoly Go, acquired in 2023 for $4.9 billion
• Niantic, maker of Pokémon Go, acquired in 2025 for $3.5 billion

Moonton at $6-7 billion would rank above both. The EA acquisition still dwarfs all of them at $55 billion, but it will not complete until sometime over the summer.

What stands in the way?

EA's board and shareholders have overwhelmingly approved the take-private deal, but unions and congressional Democrats have called for investigations and regulatory due diligence before one of the largest American gaming companies passes to a foreign government.

Those calls face long odds. President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly helped broker the EA deal and holds a personal stake through his own Saudi-backed investment group.

For studios and publishers competing in mobile, the practical consequence is clear: Savvy would control three of the industry's biggest live-service mobile portfolios — Scopely, Niantic and Moonton — alongside EA's console and PC business once both deals close.

Watch for the official Moonton announcement, which Reuters reports could land as early as March.