TikTok Parent’s Gaming Stumble Shows Limits of Founder’s Vision

ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming was getting impatient. During a video call with executives from the company’s gaming team in Sept. 2022, he complained about a lack of progress at the division, called Nuverse. He also pointed out that user numbers for the ByteDance-owned Moonton game studio hadn’t grown even though its headcount had doubled, according to two people who were in the meeting.

“You told me gaming is a long-term business. But you’ve been working on this for four years,” said Zhang in the meeting, which also included other top ByteDance executives, according to the people. “How long is long term? How many more years do you need?”