TikTok is venturing into video games, according to a new report.
According to a report earlier this week from Reuters, TikTok is apparently gearing up to enter a brand new scene: video games. The report claims that tests to allow users to play video games through the app on smartphones have been rolling on for a while in Vietnam.
Apparently, the Bytedance company is looking to roll out the feature on TikTok throughout Southeast Asia during the third quarter of this year, which places it at some point between July and September. There's currently no word, from TikTok or the Reuters report, as to whether the company plans to roll out this feature for Western audiences at some point in the future.
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Additionally, we don't actually have any idea of how the testing phase in Vietnam has actually gone for TikTok. It could be that the feature hasn't been received how Bytedance hoped it would, but given that the company allegedly plans to launch it in Southeast Asia later this year, we can take an educated guess that it succeeded enough to expand to other regions.
According to the report, TikTok plans to "primarily" draw on Bytedance's games library for this new push. The Chinese company develops mobile games such as One Piece: The Voyage, and so it's feasible that TikTok's games push might be focused on mobile games.
Either way, it probably shouldn't come as a huge surprise that TikTok is gearing up for a push into the games space. As GamesIndustry.biz reported back in November 2021, Bytedance actually made gaming one of its key pillars in a structural change, signalling a move into the space.
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