Asia
ByteDance Restructures Gaming Business, Emphasizes Stability
![](https://europeangaming.eu/portal/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/bytedance.jpg)
On March 14th, according to Chinese media outlet Jiemian News, ByteDance announced through an internal letter that after strategic positioning adjustments, its gaming business will return to the incubation stage. The core of the next phase is to patiently manage stable operations and continue to explore with a mission and vision in a manner consistent with industry development laws.
In terms of organizational structure, ByteDanceâs human resources head, Hua Wei, will serve as the head of the gaming business, managing UGC (user-generated content), Moonton, and Nuverse. The former head of Nuverse, Yan Shou, will be transferred to the companyâs finance department. UGC is a newly established secondary department, with Luo Ji serving as the department head, reporting to Hua Wei. The former heads of the Block project, Dai Junyi, and the Cell team, Sky, will report to Luo Ji. The former head of ONE distribution studio, Hector, will continue to be responsible for Nuverseâs agency products, with former game technology head Jeffrey and former global business head Rachel Lin reporting to Hector. Hector also reports to Hua Wei.
ONE distribution studio is a studio established by Nuverse in 2022 after integrating domestic and foreign businesses. The heads of Oasis Studio, Wang Kuiwu, and Youai Division, Hu Bing, both report to Hua Wei. This studio evolved from ByteDanceâs early âOasis Planâ, focusing on RPG (role-playing games), strategy, shooting, European and American casual, and card sports games.
The new structural adjustment signifies the end of the âYan Shou eraâ in ByteDanceâs gaming business.
Yan Shou joined ByteDanceâs strategic investment department from Tencent in 2015 and became the head of the business when ByteDance entered the gaming business in 2019. He later served as the head of Nuverse. Since then, the entire ByteDanceâs self-developed and agency gaming business has been managed by Yan Shou.
The newly appointed head of the gaming business, Hua Wei, joined ByteDance in 2014, was in charge of investment business, later took on human resource management work, and was responsible for the companyâs organization and culture building.
Established in 2019, Nuverse is ByteDanceâs game development and distribution business brand. Like ByteDanceâs emphasis on globalization, Nuverse also started the internationalization process early. Its overseas releases âRO Wonderland Legend: The Birth of a New Generationâ and the Marvel IP card mobile game âMARVEL SNAPâ have achieved some success, with âMARVEL SNAPâ even winning the 2022 TGA Best Mobile Game Award.
In the domestic market, âCrystal Coreâ, launched by Nuverse in July last year, is considered its first âhitâ self-developed game. Qimai data shows that âCrystal Coreâ achieved nearly 70 million yuan in revenue on the iOS platform in the first week of its launch and dominated the top ten best-selling list of the App Store for nearly a month.
Unexpectedly, four months later, Nuverse began a large-scale business contraction: seeking to divest games that had been launched and performed well while ensuring operations; for projects that have not yet been launched, except for a few innovative projects and related technical projects, all were shut down.
According to a person close to ByteDance, the contraction action was a decision made after Yan Shou and ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo had discussed it for a long time. Liang Rubo believes that although the gaming business has achieved some success, it has been pursuing âbig and completeâ for the past few years, with unfocused projects and scattered resources. It should invest energy and resources into more basic, more innovative, and more imaginative projects.
Moonton is a game company that ByteDance acquired for about 4 billion US dollars. After Nuverseâs significant contraction, there were rumors that ByteDance was seeking to sell Moonton Technology for no less than 5 billion US dollars and hired Goldman Sachs as a financial advisor to help find and contact potential buyers.
An insider from Moonton told Jiemian News that Moonton is currently not for sale and is still a wholly-owned subsidiary of ByteDance. Even with the structural adjustments, Moonton still maintains independent operations, and its business has not been affected.
Source: Niko News / pandaily.com
Asia
PAGCOR BRAVES FLOODS TO HELP DISASTER-HIT COMMUNITIES
![](https://europeangaming.eu/portal/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/PAGCOR-BRAVES-FLOODS-TO-HELP-DISASTER-HIT-COMMUNITIES_20240726_120712_0000.png)
At the height of the downpour and massive flooding in Metro Manila and nearby provinces Wednesday, volunteer teams from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) started bringing relief packs to affected communities.
Classes and government work were suspended on Wednesday and Thursday due to the widespread flooding, but PAGCOR volunteers went into action nevertheless.
âEven at the height of the flooding, and even before the President ordered government agencies to provide assistance to affected communities, PAGCOR employees already went to action to help those in need,â PAGCOR Chairman and CEO Alejandro H. Tengco said.
The PAGCOR chief said that since July 24, the agency has delivered more than 21,000 food and non-food relief packs for thousands of affected families.
âAfter the heavy rains subsided and it was safe to do so, we started bringing immediate aid to flooded communities in Caloocan City on Wednesday, followed by relief operations in Valenzuela, Malabon and Malolos, Bulacan the next day,â he said.
Mr. Tengco added that PAGCOR was scheduled to distribute relief goods to the cities of Marikina and Navotas on Friday as well as to affected towns in Bulacan like Calumpit and Bulakan which were all submerged in floodwater.
âIt has been second nature to PAGCOR to immediately respond to the needs of affected communities in times of disasters,â he said.
âWe understand that while it is part of our mandate to contribute to nation-building, it is also our moral obligation to help ease the plight of Filipinos in times when they need help the most,â the PAGCOR chief added.
He said PAGCORâs relief operations are ongoing, with more employees volunteering to help repack relief goods Saturday and Sunday in the agencyâs warehouse in Imus, Cavite to support distribution efforts in the coming days in Bataan, Batangas and Cavite.
Asia
AGTech Wins Lottery Terminal Supply Tenders for Shaanxi, Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces
![](https://europeangaming.eu/portal/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/4-9.jpg)
Lottery and integrated technology and services company AGTech Holdings Limited (AGTech) has announced that one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries has successfully won procurement tenders to supply lottery terminals to Sports Lottery Administration Centres in Shaanxi province, Zhejiang province and Jiangsu province of the Peopleâs Republic of China.
AGTech already has previous success in the China market, having won a bid in 2018 for supplying its new dual, touchscreen lottery terminals to the Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Shanghai and Hebei.
Even before this, AGTech introduced new instant win games, launched in partnership with Chinese logistics firm SF Holdings across Shenzen, Nanchang, Changsha and Nanjing.
Asia
Philippine President Marcos Announces Ban on POGOs
![](https://europeangaming.eu/portal/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2-8.jpg)
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has banned the establishment of any new Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), also known as Internet Gaming Licensees (IGLs), with immediate effect. Existing POGO operators will have until the end of the year to wind down their operations.
The verdict, not entirely unexpected, was delivered during his State of the Nation Address in Manila on Monday following widespread pressure from a Senate investigation into illegal POGO-linked activities.
âEffective today, all POGOs are banned. I hereby instruct [gaming regulator] PAGCOR to wind down and cease the operations of POGOs by the end of the year,â Marcos said in his SONA.
The decision to shut down POGOs follows a series of recent raids on illegal POGO compounds in Pampanga and Tarlac amid allegations they had been engaging in human trafficking and scam activities.
A full ban, proposed by multiple senators, had also gained the support of the Department of Finance (DOF) and the National Economic and Development Authority.
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