It looks like Snap is officially joining the mobile gaming sphere.
The social media giant has been working on a gaming platform (codenamed ‘Project Cognac’) that will offer users a mix of games from in-house and third-party developers meant to be played within the Snapchat app, according to a report from Cheddar.
A person familiar with the matter said Snap plans to announce the platform at its first Partner Summit for content and developer collaborators on April 4. (They added that Snapchat also plans to announce more shows for its Snap Originals lineup of in-house vertical programming at that time.)
As for what we mean when we say Snapchat has in-house game developers, Cheddar discovered that Snap acquired a mobile game developer last year: the Australian studio Prettygreat, which it bought for $8.6 million. (This is contrary to earlier reports that Snap simply made an investment in Prettygreat.) Prettygreat, by the way, was cofounded by Luke Muscat, who created hallmark mobile games like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride.
While Snapchat hasn’t made a big commitment to mobile gaming before now, this isn’t its first time dipping its metaphorical toes into game development. Also last year, Snap also acquired PlayCanvas
, a virtual reality and gaming software startup, for an undisclosed sum, per Business Insider. Then, likely as a result of that partnership, in April 2018, Snap launched Snappables, a set of augmented reality games played using its Lenses and controlled via touch, motion, and facial expressions.Yet another gaming tie for Snap: in 2017, Chinese tech company Tencent acquired 12% of Snap’s publicly traded shares. One of Tencent’s subsidiaries is Riot Games, the developer of the massive esports title League of Legends. When it bought the shares, Tencent told Business Insider it hoped to work with Snap on mobile game publishing, and that, “The purchase of the shares is the starting point for us to explore the collaboration opportunities.”
As for what games Prettygreat and/or Tencent may have developed for Snap, users will have to wait till April 4 to find out.
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