Snap Inc. is reportedly getting ready to launch its own gaming service in April.
Codenamed "Project Cognac," it's said to bring third-party games to the Snapchat app.
Snapchat Gaming
Citing a "person familiar with the matter," news website Cheddar reports that the new platform will include games from outside developers that were made to run in the Snapchat app.
Snap is expected to unveil the service on April 4 at its "first-ever summit for content and developer partners in Los Angeles." Interestingly, the invitation for the conference contains the tagline, "Less talk. More Play," which refers to the gaming platform.
A Long Time Coming
Snap has long been rumored to be getting into the gaming scene. Back in June 2018, The Information reported that Snap was developing a platform for games in a bid to increase its user base.
CNET also reported that Snap has invested in the Australian game studio Prettygreat in January, basing its findings on filings the company made to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Luke Muscat is among the founders of the Australian company, who is the creator of well-known mobile titles such as Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride.
In addition, Business Insider reported that Snap acquired the British web-based game engine startup called PlayCanvas back in March 2018. The news outlet also reported that the Chinese company Tencent acquired approximately 10 percent of Snap's publicly traded shares in November 2017 in the hopes of working together on "mobile games" and "newsfeed" ads.
Snap has already dipped its toes into gaming in the form of augmented-reality games in the Snapchat app called Snappables.
In other Snap-related news, the company rolled out various lenses for dogs back in December 2018, which follows the special lenses added for cats in the month before.
It's worth mentioning that other companies are pushing efforts in gaming as well. Google is said to take the wraps off a Project Stream-powered gaming service at the 2019 Game Developers Conference. Meanwhile, Microsoft is also said to unveil its Project xCloud. Valve recently launched Steam Link Anywhere too, a feature that lets users remotely stream PC games from their main computer on compatible devices, such as an Android smartphone.
