Games anyone? WeChat quietly rolls out games in Indonesia

This is a cross-post from our sister site Tech in Asia.

Indonesians loved the social gaming experience in messaging apps Line and KakaoTalk in 2013, and now WeChat wants to join the party. The China-based messaging app quietly rolled out an update for Indonesia on Christmas Eve that lets users play games using WeChat’s platform.

Right now there are four social games available, you can check these out in WeChat’s discover tab:

• Pencil Pilot, a simple black and white space shooting game. It comes installed with the update.
• 2Day’s Match, a match 2 tiles game.
• Craz3 Match, a match 3 game.
• GunZ Dash, an endless runner game. We have already reviewed the Chinese version of this game, which is called Tiantian Kupao.

Just like the other social games, users can interact and compete with other players in the aforementioned WeChat games. WeChat developer Tencent earns money from these games through in-app purchases.

There’s love to be found

Indonesians gamers will find that some of the games WeChat, Line, and KakaoTalk offer are very similar. For match 3 games, WeChat has Craz3 Match, Line has Line Pop, and KakaoTalk has Anipang. For endless runner games, WeChat has GunZ Dash, while Line and KakaoTalk both have Wind Runner.

The one thing that separates WeChat’s games from its rivals’ is that it allows you to search and interact with other players outside your friends list. This is the same “look around” feature which WeChat has; it is now integrated with the app’s social games. You can now look for new gamer friends (and potential mates) by distance and gender inside the games.

In terms of game quantity, Line is still the king with over 25 games available in the archipelago country. KakaoTalk has about 13 games. So clearly, WeChat has some catching up to do.

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TianTian KuPao review: China's most popular free iOS game isn't free at all