Snapchat’s new in-app gaming platform is just like WeChat’s

The idea of in-app gaming is familiar to China’s WeChat users. In December 2017, the app – which is operated by Chinese social media giant Tencent – launched a new feature that allows users to play games inside the app without having to download them separately.

The so-called mini games soon took off with viral titles such as Jump Jump, where players move a hopping block from one platform to another by tapping the smartphone screen.

At its peak, Jump Jump had 100 million daily users at the start of last year, attracting global brands like McDonald’s and Nike to place ads in the game.

Viral short video apps in China, including Kuaishou and Douyin – whose overseas version is known as TikTok – are now also testing their own mini game functions, highlighting an intensified battle among Chinese social media companies to grab more screen time from the country’s millennials.

Started out in 2011 as China’s answer to WhatsApp, WeChat has morphed into an all-in-one app that allows its 1 billion monthly active users to shop, play games, hail taxis, order meals, and even make a divorce appointment – all without leaving the app.

Snapchat is not the only Western app to take inspiration from WeChat. In March, Facebook announced its plan to provide services including video chats, payments, ecommerce, and “ultimately a platform for many other kinds of private services,” which resembles WeChat’s super app status.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg even said that he regretted not learning from WeChat sooner.

Snap Games offers six original titles across a variety of genres – from battle royale and car racing to zombie shooting. In Bitmoji Party, for example, players can compete with friends as their cartoonish avatars in a series of quick, wacky mini-games while texting or voice chatting.

Snapchat will make money from these games by letting players watch six-second ads that are not skippable in exchange for in-game boosts. The app will then split ad revenues with game developers.

In the fourth quarter of 2018, Snapchat was able to maintain its community of 186 million daily active users, curbing a user exodus as Facebook-owned social media platforms like Instagram became more popular among American teenagers.