TikTok owner ByteDance retreats from video gaming with cuts at main studio amid a stagnating market dominated by Tencent
- The social media giant is cutting hundreds of jobs at Nuverse, its flagship gaming studio, and will shut down development on most unlaunched titles
- The retreat comes a year after ByteDance made major cuts at two studios under Nuverse, as the world’s largest gaming market slows from tightened regulations
Nuverse, ByteDance’s flagship gaming studio, has informed employees that it will shut down most projects not yet online, the sources said. It usually takes years to develop a new game and to obtain regulatory approval before the game can be put online to generate revenue in China.
The studio will also sell the rights to at least two of its titles – the anime-style role-playing game Crystal of Atlan and sci-fi survival game Earth: Revival – according to one source. Both games were launched by Nuverse earlier this year.
“We regularly review our businesses and make adjustments to centre on long-term strategic growth areas,” a ByteDance representative said in a statement to the Post on Monday. “Following a recent review, we’ve made the difficult decision to restructure our gaming business.”
It is not clear how many people will be laid off. The unit has nearly 2,000 people, according to one source, but some workers seeking to stay at ByteDance may be granted approval to transfer to other teams. Those who are laid off will be compensated according to the number of years they have served plus an extra one to three months of pay, another source said.
