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This is inevitable: if a platform becomes large enough, it will eventually support video games. It happened to the iPhone and Facebook, and now it's about Snapchat. At the beginning of last month, Snap announced his first original game, Party Bitmoji, with a handful of titles from third-party developers. It was not really a surprising announcement, since games are essentially the most profitable form of mobile application; even platforms like Facebook Messenger try to enter.
But succeeding with a mobile game is difficult, and this challenge only increases as the space becomes more saturated. The Snap solution? Go in a slightly different direction that fits into the company's cheerful personality. Will Wu, Snap's product director and head of the gaming initiative, believes this strategy, illustrated by Party Bitmoji, will help distinguish the initiative and it's something that Snap puts a lot of effort behind. "This is something we are very happy to continue relentlessly," said Wu. The edge.
The project really started about two years ago. First, Snap acquired PlayCanvas, creator of an HTML5 game engine that would be at the heart of the new business. Then, the company surprised Prettygreat, an Australian studio barred by the old, originally from the mobile hit. Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. The idea was to internally create some exceptional games to launch the new platform, by inspiring some Kyoto game maker. "A big part of their strategy was creating in-house games," says Phil Larsen, co-founder of Prettygreat, who also runs Snap Games Studio. "Nintendo has its first-party teams and they make all the tent games that really innovate and advance the platform, and so it was our goal."
The first result of these acquisitions is Party Bitmoji, a collection of mini-games launched last month. Wu described this experience as a "collaborative experience" between various teams, including Playcanvas, Prettygreat and the group responsible for Bitmoji (which, by the way, are also found in other games).
According to Wu, one of the advantages of the release of a multiplayer game as Party Bitmoji directly in Snapchat, it reduces friction. For a typical mobile game, if you want to play with friends, everyone has to download the same application and then set up their account. If this game is on Snapchat, you do not have to worry about these things, and Party Bitmoji is a game designed to show how transparent the process can be. "I really wanted us to make a game that would have almost served as a North Star for the kind of experience we were aiming for with Snap Games, both for future developers and for our baseball game. users, "says Wu.
For Snap, having a successful game on the platform has obvious advantages. This means that users will spend more time on Snapchat and will see more ads along the way. (Currently, there is only one form of monetization on Snap Games: six-second ads that players can see in exchange for game currency.) Party developers. Snap Games is not an open platform; Instead, the company partners with a small number of developers to offer a better organized game selection. At the moment, this includes everything from big companies like Zynga to smaller studios like Alphabet developer Spry Fox. Snap acts almost like a publisher and collaborates with the studios throughout the development process, from conception to launch.
The goal is not to offer a wide selection of games; it's about creating experiences that will serve different communities within Snapchat. There can be a game that you like to play with a specific group of friends and another that works with your family. "We want games for all these unique social situations and social groups," said Larsen. "To have too many games that people can not play or even see, it does not help us and does not help developers."
Starting small and focused seems like a good idea. With the overwhelming dominance of free games, mobile has become a very crowded area, which will soon include new businesses like Apple's next subscription service. In the meantime, despite its scale and multiple attempts, even Facebook has struggled to turn into a viable gaming platform. In this environment, getting people to play new games, even on a platform that they already use, could prove to be a challenge for Snap. But the company hopes to be able to stand out by proposing something different. According to Will Eastcott, co-founder of Playcanvas, the attention given to the integrated multiplayer mode, combined with the playful and ephemeral nature of Snapchat, could give rise to unique games that you will not see elsewhere.
"This opens up a lot of new opportunities for game developers," he says. "I think you will see new types of gaming experiences."
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