TikTok parent confirms games biz restructuring, ‘hundreds of employees’ potentially affected

Chinese TikTok parent ByteDance is restructuring its video games business and reportedly stopping work on all unreleased games.

The company, which is the parent of Marvel Snap publisher Nuverse, told Reuters in a statement that it had decided to restructure its gaming business after a review.

“We regularly review our businesses and make adjustments to centre on long-term strategic growth areas. Following a recent review, we’ve made the difficult decision to restructure our gaming business,” a spokeperson said.

According to Reuters’ sources, ByteDance will stop working on unreleased games by December, and look for ways to divest from titles already launched.

The sources said the decision is likely to impact hundreds of employees, some of whom learnt about the move at the weekend.

Casual gaming brand Ohayoo, and casual games that run on TikTok, will not be affected by the changes, one of the people said.

ByteDance’s launch of Nuverse in 2019 was seen as a major push into the global games market and a strategic move in its competition with domestic rival Tencent, which is the world’s biggest gaming company.

Job losses across the games industry have been widespread in 2023. Companies impacted by layoffs this year include Xbox Game Studios, Epic Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, CD Projekt, Unity, Riot Games, Blizzard, Crystal Dynamics, BioWare, Striking Distance, Team17, Frontier Developments and Telltale Games.