China's ByteDance is courting European game developers, and sources say it's mulling a casual games platform for TikTok to rival Facebook and Snapchat

• ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant which owns TikTok, is courting European developers as it looks to mobile games as a means to bolster its growing popularity.
• At a gaming conference in London on Monday, a ByteDance exec dropped hints about the firm's thinking on a casual gaming platform akin to the instantly playable games available on Facebook or Snapchat.
• ByteDance is already known to be working on standalone games, but industry sources said the firm was mulling integrating casual gaming directly into TikTok.
• Industry sources added that ByteDance is also looking to acquire UK studios.
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ByteDance, the Chinese tech giant which owns viral video app TikTok, is courting European game developers and tech providers as it looks to move more seriously into mobile gaming.

The Chinese firm sent a number of executives to the Pocket Gamer Connects conference in London on Monday, an annual gathering of mobile game developers, publishers, and investors.

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All sought meetings with local developers, publishers, and technology providers, according to listings in a private networking tool seen by Business Insider.

Several of the ByteDance gaming executives listed as attending the conference were only hired in 2020, signalling a ramp-up in games hiring.

ByteDance's senior overseas director of business, Tom van Dam, spoke to an audience of developers about the rise of hypercasual games - low-commitment mobile games mostly funded by ads.

Although van Dam wouldn't comment directly on ByteDance's plans, he hinted that the company was thinking about an instant games-style platform.

Instant games refer to lightweight games that can be opened directly inside another app.

Snap Games allow games to run inside Snapchat, while Facebook Instant Games lets people play inside the News Feed or the Messenger app. Currently there is no way to play instant games inside TikTok.

Van Dam said during the talk on Monday: "I think the platforms that have been involved in instant gaming have not done a very good job unlocking the power of the platforms to use … This was years ago, people have had time. Let's do it a little bit better, and a little bit faster."

Asked whether TikTok would launch an instant games platform, van Dam declined to comment.

Industry sources with knowledge of the matter said ByteDance was considering integrating such a platform into its hyper-popular video app TikTok, meaning app users could play lightweight casual games inside the app.

They also confirmed ByteDance was planning to launch standalone mobile games.

Van Dam dropped another hint in a discussion about Chinese regulatory issues that make it difficult for Western developers to bring their games to China. A government crackdown means that game companies require licenses to launch, for example, if they require in-app purchases or other money-making mechanisms.

Van Dam said the restriction doesn't apply to ad-funded "hypercasual" games. "That barrier that exists for traditional developers with [in-app purchases] and having to get a license and a partner locally to do it for them, that barrier is not there, or less there," he said.

Western developers should, he suggested, focus on the hypercasual gaming market. "Then the problem becomes, how do you acquire enough traffic and monetize effectively ... You probably want to find a partner who can drive traffic for you," he said.

Although van Dam added that he wasn't there "to do advertisement" for ByteDance, it's clear that ByteDance could help developers market their mobile games to a mass audience through any of its popular apps.

According to an App Annie report from 2019, mobile games account for three-quarters of all consumer spend on app stores, with Chinese and US gamers leading the away. According to the report, Chinese consumers spent almost $30 billion on mobile games in 2018. US consumers spent about half that amount.

It is, perhaps, little wonder that Chinese tech giants such as Tencent and ByteDance want a slice of those revenues with their own in-app games, which wouldn't require directing users and revenues off their services to app stores owned by Apple and Google.

ByteDance did not respond to a request for comment.