At noon on November 27, ByteDance officially announced that its game business will undergo a large-scale business contraction - games that have been launched and are performing well will be divested while ensuring operations; for projects that have not yet been launched, except for a small number of innovative projects and related technology projects, all will be shut down.
Zhaoxi Guangnian stated that there will indeed be business direction and organizational adjustments, and it will focus more on the exploration of some innovative games and related technologies. But at the same time, we will also do a good job in the continuous operation of already launched products to fully protect the rights and interests of players.
People close to ByteDance revealed that the decision was discussed repeatedly for a long time by business leader Yan Shuo and ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo. Liang Rubo believes that although the game business has achieved certain results, Byte Games has been pursuing "big and comprehensive" projects in the past few years, with unfocused projects and scattered resources. It should invest energy and resources into more basic, innovative and imaginative projects.
At the ByteDance annual meeting in early 2023, CEO Liang Rubo once proposed that the goal for the new year is "focus" and "pragmatism." For the main business information platform and e-commerce, we must increase investment; for emerging businesses such as games, education, and PICO, we must "have imagination and maintain a normal mind."