China’s competition regulator has cleared Savvy Games Group’s purchase of Moonton, the studio behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, without attaching any conditions. The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) completed its review on 29 October, and listed the deal among the mergers it approved unconditionally between 26 October and 1 November. That list was published on SAMR’s website on 6 November, and the approval drew wider attention this week after reports by TechNode and The Esports Advocate. The ruling removes one of the regulatory hurdles facing a deal that values Moonton at more than $6 billion.
Savvy, which is wholly owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), agreed to buy Moonton from ByteDance in March. Neither company has disclosed the final price, but Skadden, which advised ByteDance, described it as “reported to be above $6 billion”. The sale has not yet closed, and no closing date has been announced. Savvy and ByteDance had not commented on the Chinese approval by Tuesday evening, UTC.
What China’s SAMR approval covers in the Moonton deal
The SAMR notice does not use Savvy’s brand name. According to The Esports Advocate, it lists the buyer as Saudi Electronic Games Holding Company, the Riyadh entity that owns the Savvy trademark, and the targets as Moonton Holdings Limited and Shanghai Moonton Technology. An unconditional approval means the regulator found no competition concerns that needed remedies, such as asset sales or limits on how the business is run. Chinese approval was always going to be required, because Moonton’s operating company and headquarters are in Shanghai.
Skadden said in March that closing depended on customary conditions, including certain regulatory approvals. It did not list which authorities were involved, and neither company has said whether any other reviews are still open. The timetable has already stretched further than Savvy first suggested. When it confirmed the agreement, Savvy said it expected the deal to close “in the coming months”.
How the Moonton deal grew from talks to a $6 billion agreement
The sale has been building for most of the year. Reuters reported in February that ByteDance was in advanced talks to sell Moonton to Savvy for $6 billion to $7 billion, and the two sides announced an agreement on 20 March, according to Arab News. ByteDance had bought Moonton through its gaming arm Nuverse in 2021, at a valuation of about $4 billion. The Chinese company has since pulled back from large parts of its games business.
Savvy chief executive Brian Ward said in March that the deal “directly supports Savvy’s purpose to enable prosperity and connection through play for generations to come”. He added that, once completed, it would “further strengthen our leadership in mobile games”. Moonton chief executive Zhang Yunfan is expected to stay on after closing, and an internal letter seen by Reuters said the management structure would remain unchanged. According to Savvy, Mobile Legends has more than 110 million monthly players and more than 1.5 billion installs worldwide.
What Moonton adds to Saudi Arabia’s games and esports portfolio
Moonton would join one of the largest collections of games and esports assets in the world. Through Savvy Games Group, PIF already owns ESL FACEIT Group and Scopely, the maker of Monopoly Go, and a PIF-led consortium completed its $55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts in August. Savvy also holds a minority stake in Hero Esports, one of Asia’s biggest tournament operators. The Esports Foundation, which runs the Esports World Cup in Riyadh, is another part of the kingdom’s wider gaming strategy.
Mobile Legends has been central to that strategy for some time. Moonton says the game was the most-watched title at the Esports World Cup for the third year running in 2026, peaking at 2.89 million viewers according to Esports Charts. That event has become a fixture of the competitive calendar, as our guide to the 2027 and 2028 dates sets out. Mobile games are also the biggest earners for many publishers, with mobile making up more than half of Krafton’s revenue in its third-quarter results.
Owning Moonton would also give PIF-linked companies control of a game whose professional scene they already help to stage. Moonton runs the Mobile Legends leagues and its M-series world championship, while ESL FACEIT Group operates tournaments across many other titles. Savvy has not said whether it plans to bring the two closer together, and the business of running esports teams remains fragile, as our look at the Dota 2 exodus showed. The next big test for the game’s esports arm is the M8 World Championship, which takes the M-series to Istanbul in January 2027, its first edition outside Asia.
