ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, is in discussions to sell gaming assets with Tencent and others

The owner of TikTok, ByteDance, announced on Tuesday that, as the Chinese social media company pulls out of the gaming business, it is in talks with several potential buyers of its gaming assets, including Tencent, the largest video game company in the world.

A ByteDance representative told reporters that while negotiations are still ongoing, no agreement has been reached.

"Crystal of Atland" and "Earth: Revival," two well-known video games released by ByteDance's Nuverse gaming division, are among the titles that Tencent and ByteDance are negotiating over," according to a report on Monday from the local media outlet LatePost.

Five years after launching its highly publicized entry into the $185 billion global video game market, ByteDance announced in November that it would revamp Nuverse and leave the gaming industry to concentrate on other core businesses.

At the time, people familiar with the matter told reporters that the company had stopped working on unreleased games and planned to divest from titles that had already been released.

As reporters also revealed in November, it has been looking for buyers for Moonton, its other gaming division that it purchased in 2021.

After a bitter rivalry-filled phase, ByteDance's relationship with Tencent in the game industry has improved. According to a December Reuters story, Tencent has heavily utilized ByteDance's advertising network to promote "DreamStar," its most recent game.