Alibaba makes another push into games with social gaming platform

Alibaba revealed today that it’s behind a new social gaming platform called KTplay, which has been in quiet beta for a few months. It’s currently running only in China, but it will later expand to gamers around the world.

Alibaba has teamed up with Yodo1, a Beijing-based mobile game publishing startup, to create KTplay (pictured above).

Spencer Liu, KTplay’s chief product officer, explains to Tech in Asia that it’s a way for game developers to “turn single-player games into a social experience.” Developers can add KTplay into their games, allowing them to engage users. For game fans, it gives a new social network devoted to games and gaming tricks and tips.

In its present form, KTplay has more features than Apple’s Game Center or Google Play Games, but it doesn’t include any ecommerce elements, despite the Alibaba connection. However, that could change. Alibaba representative Rachel Chan explains:

We are open to explore cooperation between KTplay and our other businesses including Alimama for advertising/marketing, cloud computing, and Alipay for payment services.

Alibaba has tinkered with games before, including distributing apps and games on its Taobao shopping marketplace. The company also invested US$120 million into US-based Kabam a few months ago.

Ecommerce potential

For now, the new platform is focused on community discussion around games. “Discussions are just the beginning,” says Liu. “It can also extend to social gifting of in-game items.”

Henry Fong, the founder and CEO of Yodo1, says that gaming is an area that Alibaba “can’t afford not to be involved in.” The deal, which sees Alibaba invest an undisclosed sum in the KTplay subsidiary, involves Alibaba throwing in some of its own useful resources, such as in-app analytics from Umeng, the Chinese startup it acquired last year.

Fong adds that “in the future, [KTplay can] merge the worlds of ecommerce and marketplaces and gaming,” and that it has “lots of potential” in this area when allied with Alibaba’s Alipay.

At present, most gamers who trade or sell their in-app items do so offline. Fong foresees that the new platform could expand into a sort of “gaming marketplace” for those transactions.

Alibaba versus Tencent – round 9

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