By CUI Peng

On May 15, it was revealed that ZHANG Guanqun, co-founder of Shanghai Moonton Technology, had filed a lawsuit against Moonton in Beijing’s Chaoyang District Court in March this year.

In March last year, ByteDance formally acquired the Shanghai-based gaming studio. The next day, Zhang posted claims that at the end of 2020, Moonton offered to buy back his shares. The offer put a value on the company of around 3.6 billion yuan (US$550,000)

Moonton then went ahead and completed the equity change without Zhang showing up and submitting his ID card. He was removed from the shareholder list and three months later, Moonton was sold for around 27 billion yuan – roughly eight times the previous valuation.

Zhang is not the only one suing Moonton. On May 10, Riot Games, maker of the popular “League of Legends,” sued Moonton in Los Angeles federal court over sustained copyright infringement. In March, NetEase filed a lawsuit against a subsidiary of Moonton and another three companies.

Moonton Technology was founded in 2014 by three former employees of Tencent Games, including Zhang. The company is best known for the game “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang,” released in 2016.