TikTok is planning a “major push” into gaming and games that livestreamers can play with viewers

TikTok has added a new feature on its video-sharing app that allows users to play games. Sources told Reuters on May 19th confirming that some individuals in Vietnam have already started testing this, due to the country’s high concentration of younger smartphone owners.

No doubt, TikTok’s new move is to attract more users to the app while expanding the range of activities they can do when they tire of flipping through short videos. Most likely the company will expand the availability of games in Asia and potentially other areas.

TikTok has been diligent to perfecting its plans of adding gaming to its platform. In November 2021, the ByteDance’s owned social network entered into partnership with Zynga to launch an exclusive HTML5 game, Disco Loco 3D. “We see a tremendous opportunity to reach new audiences across the globe through TikTok’s massive and unparalleled user base,” Zynga Publishing President Bernard Kim said in a press statement.

On June 6th of the same year, the Video-sharing platform also teamed up with the nonprofit Feeding America to launch a mini-game, Garden of Good. Garden of Good is a game that users in the U.S play to help raise funds for Feeding America. It is centered around the education of food items that are most in-need at local food banks across the nation. Users of ByteDance’s version of TikTok for the Chinese market, called Douyin, have been able to play mini-games and other gaming content since 2019.

Gaming is a significant growth possibility for TikTok and a way to maintain high user engagement, akin to Netflix’s recent push into mobile gaming and Facebook parent company Meta’s Instant Games offering. This year, the worldwide mobile games market is predicted to top $100 billion, and the industry is mostly driven by free-to-play games ranging from simple puzzle and endless runner games to complicated versions of console and PC titles such as miHoYo’s Genshin Impact, Krafton’s PUBG Mobile, and Roblox.

According to Reuters, TikTok’s initial focus will be on mini-games in the hypercasual area, and the first round of releases might emerge as early as this fall. ByteDance acquired Moonton, a mobile gaming studio, last year, but it is unclear whether it plans to develop its own games or if it would continue to license games from Zynga and other companies.

TikTok seems to have a broader vision than just hosting HTML5 games on its platform. A TechCrunch report claims ByteDance is also working on a LIVE mobile gaming feature that would allow creators to better engage fans while livestreaming.

The report cited an investigation by Watchful, a mobile product intelligence company, based in Tel Aviv. “TikTok is working to add minigames to LIVE videos in its app to enhance the livestreaming experience between creators and their fans,” TechCrunch noted.

Additionally, Watchful identified a feature that resembles a cross between a game and a virtual gifting experience. It enables users to add a “Treasure Box” to LIVE videos that distributes coins to a random group of people after a countdown expires.