Nuverse

2023: Game Business Closure

On November 27, 2023, it became known that the Chinese company ByteDance, which owns the short video exchange service TikTok, intends to close its gaming division Nuverse. As part of the reorganization, hundreds of employees will be cut, and work on all game products that have not yet been released will be stopped.

The Nuverse department was formed in 2019. In 2021, ByteDance Corporation restructured its business, and the Nuverse gaming group was transformed into one of the six main divisions. Then Nuverse had approximately 3 thousand employees. Management made a big bet on the gaming direction, hoping to turn it into a competitor to Tencent Holdings. Nuverse's most famous project is the Marvel Snap collectible card game video game, but it did not become a commercial hit. Other developments of the studio are the action games One Piece: The Voyage and Crystal of Atland.

ByteDance set to close its Nuverse gaming division

We regularly evaluate our business and make adjustments to focus on long-term strategic growth areas. After a recent analysis, we made a difficult decision to restructure the gaming division, - said representatives of ByteDance.

For ByteDance, the gaming business was a failure: as of the end of November 2023, the Chinese technology firm does not plan to return to the global video game market. Gradually, ByteDance intends to curtail the already presented game projects. The only exception will be casual games for the TikTok platform and the Chinese version of the Douyin service. In addition, ByteDance is considering selling its subsidiary gaming studio Moonton Technology, which it acquired in 2021 for $4 billion. An interest in this structure is shown by a certain company from Saudi Arabia.^[1]

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