TikTok Reportedly Testing In-App Games

By Tanner Dedmon

TikTok is supposedly the latest social media giant looking to make a push into gaming according to recent reports. To achieve this goal, TikTok owner ByteDance has reportedly been testing out the inclusion of playable games within the app, though those tests are so far only restricted to one region. No formal announcements about any such plans to movie into the gaming sphere have been made by TikTok nor by its owner.

The report about TikTok's supposed gaming ambitions comes from Reuters which said this week that the social media platform has been testing out in-app games in Vietnam. Four different sources said to be familiar with the matter were cited in the report with Reuters framing this as a "major push into gaming" for TikTok.

While it's already begun in Vietnam via these tests and some "games" exist in the United States currently like Zynga's Disco Loco 3D, Reuters said, there are plans to bring gaming through TikTok more widely to Southeast Asia, specifically.

When reached for comment by Reuters, TikTok confirmed that it had indeed tested games in some form on the app. A representative confirmed that HTML5 games had been tested alongside work being done with third-party creators like Zynga, though no specifics about the tests in Vietnam nor further plans were shared. These are expected to start out as minigames with more ambitious plans beyond that. As one might've expected, there will reportedly be ads incorporated into whatever these in-app games end up being.

TikTok is far from the only social media platform that's looked for ways to incorporate gaming into its products. Facebook already has had gaming integrated through streaming and in-app games, and not long ago, Snapchat made a similar push. The most recent example of this is Netflix which already had several games licensed from its brands like Stranger Things adaptations that have now found new homes back within Netflix itself. It's been working on acquiring whole studios to continue working on games, and based on some recent teases, it looks like we'll be seeing some more Netflix gaming reveals happening soon.

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