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Game-Time report/Last year, ByteDance made strategic adjustments to its gaming business and faced project cancellations and sales, which aroused great concern in the gaming circle.
In March this year, ByteDance officially announced adjustments to its internal structure and redefined its gaming business into an incubation state.Yan Shuo, the former person in charge of Chaoxi Guangnian, was transferred to the company’s finance department and became the person in charge of human resources.Hua WeiHe took over as the head of the game business and managed UGC, Mu Tong and Chao Xi Guangnian. Tencent is rumored to have acquired the R&D teams of two two-dimensional projects under development in Zhaoxiguangnian.
On the one hand, the game business is shrinking and selling. On the other hand, ByteDance has begun to speed up business contacts and interoperability with Tencent.
At the beginning of the year, Tencent’s “Honor of Kings” Douyin live broadcast was fully opened, and Zhang Daxian joined Douyin, which attracted great attention in the industry. In mid-2022, Douyin allowed game companies to direct their advertising to WeChat mini-games, adding another spark to Tencent’s performance highlight mini-games. Obviously, the traffic systems of Tencent and ByteDance have been interoperable.
After Tencent entered the hinterland of ByteDance and obtained substantial benefits, what attitude will Tencent give towards ByteDance?
Game-Time discovered today that Mu Tong’s MOBA mobile game “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang” (MLBB for short), which was launched overseas in 2016 and has been operating stably to this day, has officially placed advertisements in the Chinese version of “The Summit” on Tencent’s WeChat Moments, giving the game Recruiting reservation players.
“The Final Victory” appeared in WeChat Moments
The App Store shows that “The Summit” is expected to be launched on August 27. Of course, this may not be the official release date, and it may still be revised later. As we all know, MOBA and competitive categories have always been Tencent’s main track, and “Honor of Kings” is Tencent’s highest-earning trump card. But now, a MOBA mobile game that has a high probability of being launched in the summer is being purchased on WeChat, which was unimaginable before.
Can a domestic MOBA duo situation emerge?
Looking back on the past, there are countless lawsuits between Tencent and Mu Tong, Riot Games and Mu Tong due to “MLBB”. Since 2017, during the seven-year period, Tencent, Mutong, and Riot Games have participated in this “protracted MOBA litigation battle” in China, the United States, and other countries. The founding team of Muchong once worked for Tencent, and the signing of non-competition agreements in the early years triggered multiple rounds of lawsuits. The years of grievances between Tencent and Muchong have been an eye-opener for domestic practitioners.
Until 2021, Mu Tong announced that it would be acquired by ByteDance. Everyone in the industry knows that Tencent was also one of the bidders for the merger at that time, but in the end Mutong was won by ByteDance at a higher price.
In fact, after ByteDance acquired Mu Tong, “The Summit” was tested on a small scale in China. However, due to the version number issue and the unresolved domestic lawsuit between Mu Tong and Tencent, there has been no movement in the game’s national server.
Mu Tong’s “Decisive Victory at the Peak”
Recently, two major problems that have plagued the MLBB national server for many years have made progress: “The Summit” will receive a version number in April 2023; according to foreign media reports, Riot Games’ “League of Legends” withdrew its lawsuit abroad this month, and “Honor of Kings” and Mu Tong’s Individual domestic lawsuits have also achieved phased results. These changes seem to be a signal that the countdown to the domestic release of “The Summit” has begun.
As the pre-order and launch of “The Summit” begins and the countdown begins, this summer’s “Honor of Kings” and “The Summit” may stage a MOBA showdown that industry insiders have long awaited.
“The Summit” has 6.3 million+ players on the entire network who have made reservations
Frankly speaking, if “The Summit” wants to compete head-on with “Honor of Kings” in the domestic market, long-term competition will require huge capital investment. Referring to the party game war between the two giants Tencent and NetEase, the latecomer “Yuanmeng Star” spent 1.4 billion on online marketing for three consecutive months, and the number of registrations finally exceeded 100 million.
Whether there are enough promotion resources for the domestic launch of “The Summit” may not entirely depend on Mu Tong. It depends on whether the parent company ByteDance is willing to invest massive resources in releasing national servers and building a MOBA e-sports ecosystem after adjusting its gaming business, as well as Byte’s further decision on Mu Tong’s future.
Taking a step back, if ByteDance is willing to invest more, will “The Summit” have a chance to compete with “Honor of Kings”?
In addition to the well-known NetEase that has launched N MOBA games, the latest case was staged in the competitive world last year. Last summer, the mobile MOBA game “Heroes of Dawn” in the competitive world achieved millions of DAU, and its daily revenue once reached tens of millions. Although the long-term popularity was unsustainable after that, the achievement of the results that aroused heated discussion among players and the attention of peers was largely inseparable from the support of Byte Douyin traffic and the participation of various live broadcast platforms.
“Heroes of Dawn”
It is worth mentioning that last year, “Heroes of Dawn” also received traffic support from Tencent and was purchased from Tencent’s advertising. “The Summit” was not the first purchase of a MOBA competing product released by Tencent. Now, whether “The Summit” with the same conditions can replicate the similar results of last year’s “Heroes of Dawn” or even achieve higher performance depends on whether Mu Tong and ByteDance are willing to spend a high enough marketing budget, And whether they are willing to fight a long-term war of attrition.
There is also another possibility, whether Mutong will be acquired by Tencent, making “MLBB”, which has been operating stably for eight years, become another evergreen game from Tencent. After all, Tencent did consider acquiring Mutong back then.
In addition to whether the two parties can agree on the price, Game-Time believes that Tencent’s attitude will also depend on the performance of the overseas version of “Honor of Kings”. After “HoK” landed in Brazil last year and achieved good results, it was launched in more than 50 countries and regions this year, launching a large-scale impact on the global MOBA circuit. In the future, its long-term overseas performance will determine whether Tencent’s MOBA strategy still needs Mu Tong’s “MLBB” puzzle.
“Honor of Kings”
In the final analysis, after last year’s strategic adjustment of the game business, Mu Tong’s “The Summit” will be a touchstone for ByteDance’s attitude towards the game business. How the summer “Honor of Kings” and “The Summit” will start the MOBA battle, just watch the show together.
