Shanghai MOONTON Technology Co. Ltd. (), commonly known as MOONTON Games, is a Chinese multinational

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

and

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

owned by the Nuverse subsidiary of

ByteDance ByteDance Ltd. () is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Founded by Zhang Yiming, Liang Rubo and a team of others in 2012, ByteDance developed the video-sharing social networking ...

and based in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

, China. It is best known for the mobile

multiplayer online battle arena Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of players compete against each other on a predefined battlefield. Each player controls a single character with a set of distinctive abilities that im ...

(MOBA) game '' Mobile Legends: Bang Bang'' released in July 2016.

History

MOONTON Games was founded in 2015. The company was initially called YoungJoy Technology Limited, and it is headquartered in Shanghai, China. MOONTON Games' first video game, the

tower defense Tower defense (TD) is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive struc ...

(TD) game ''Magic Rush: Heroes'', was released on 6 April 2015. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang began development following the completion of ''Magic Rush: Heroes''. ''Mobile Legends'' was released as ''Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA'' in 2016, and became popular in Southeast Asia, notably in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

and

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, where it was the most-downloaded free mobile game app among iPhone users in 2017. The game is distributed by Elex Tech in the United States.

Products

Video games

Television series

Notes

Riot Games Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop ''League of Legends'' and went on t ...

suspected that ''Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA'' infringed on the

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...

'', and demanded that

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

remove the game from

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...

and

App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the co ...

. MOONTON Games removed the game before Google could act and eventually relaunched it as ''Mobile Legends: Bang Bang'' on 9 November 2016. In July 2017, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against MOONTON Games over copyright infringement, citing similarities between ''Magic Rush'' and ''Mobile Legends'' against ''League of Legends''. The case was dismissed by Central District Court of California in the United States on account of ''

forum non-conveniens ''Forum non conveniens'' (Latin for "an inconvenient forum") (FNC) is a mostly common law legal doctrine through which a court acknowledges that another forum or court where the case might have been brought is a more appropriate Venue (law), venu ...

''.

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...

, the parent of Riot Games, followed with a separate lawsuit in Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court against Xu Zhenhua - previously a senior Tencent employee - for violating

non-competition agreements In contract law, a non-compete clause (often NCC), restrictive covenant, or covenant not to compete (CNC), is a clause under which one party (usually an employee) agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition agains ...

. Tencent won the lawsuit in July 2018 and was awarded a settlement of ( million). On 22 March 2021, the developer of

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

, BABE, Resso and

Lark Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. Larks have a cosmopolitan distribution with the largest number of species occurring in Africa. Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark occu ...

, through its video game subsidiary Nuverse, acquired MOONTON Games for billion. ByteDance reportedly won over a bid from

. '' Mobile Legends: Bang Bang'' is a minor revision of ''Mobile Legends: 5v5 MOBA'', but was considered a separate product in the 44-page lawsuit filed by

against MOONTON Games.

References

{{Reflist ByteDance 2014 establishments in China Companies based in Shanghai Video game companies established in 2014 Video game companies of China 2021 mergers and acquisitions