ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, is in talks to sell gaming arm
Since 2021, on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays throughout the academic year, children under the age of eighteen are only permitted to play online between the hours of 8:00 and 9:00p.m.
A company spokeswoman said on Tuesday that ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, is in talks to sell its gaming division to bidders, including Tencent, a major Chinese internet company, in an effort to divest once-promising assets in the fiercely competitive industry.
During the talks, the company would sell Nuverse, a video game publisher owned by ByteDance, a company based in Beijing.
The company previously saw Nuverse as essential to its efforts to overtake Tencent, one of China’s biggest media giants and a leader in the global gaming market.
The spokesman told AFP, under condition of anonymity, that negotiations are still in progress to achieve a deal.
This event follows extensive layoffs that resulted in the loss of hundreds of positions at ByteDance’s gaming division in November of last year.
After Nuverse failed to achieve the financial success ByteDance had planned for at the time of its introduction in 2019, the move signified a retreat from the competitive market, which was valued at $42.2 billion last year, according to official estimates.
The greatest gaming market in the world is in China, and Tencent leads the industry globally in terms of earnings.
However, it has encountered more difficulties as authorities place more limitations on gaming, particularly for minors.
Since 2021, on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays throughout the academic year, children under the age of eighteen are only permitted to play online between the hours of 8:00 and 9:00p.m.
Moreover, Tencent stated that users under the age of 18 will see comparable restrictions during the Spring Festival Holiday of next month. These restrictions will be applied via a real-name verification mechanism connected to national ID cards.
Tencent expressed its hope that “adults and children alike can play games with self-discipline” in a WeChat post on Tuesday that detailed the guidelines.
After the laws caused a sell-off in key IT firms, Beijing announced last month that it would amend recently enacted online gaming regulations that aim to restrict in-game transactions and deter obsessive gaming behavior.
