TikTok partners with Gamelancer for HTML5 mini-games

Toronto-based social gaming network Gamelancer said on Thursday that it has been selected as one of several TikTok partners that will create HTML5 mini-games for the short video platform.

The announcement arrives months after TikTok started testing 9 mini-games in partnership with various game developers such as Voodoo, FRVR, Nitro Games, Lotem and AimLab. Apparently, the Bytedance-owned company is expanding its partnerships to launch more mini-games on the popular platform which now has over 1 billion monthly active users.

Founded in August 2018 by Darren Lopes & Razvan Romanescu and acquired by Wondr Gaming earlier this year, Gamelancer is currently the most popular gaming network on TikTok with more than 27 million followers. Its videos get 1 billion monthly views on TikTok, and a total of 1.7 billion monthly views across all social media platforms including Instagram and Snapchat, where it has 27 different accounts.

The company has also revealed the name of its first mini-game, Fortune Teller, which will provide users with daily fortune/horoscope readings. Users will be able to access the game, and also other TikTok games, from the ‘MiniGame’ option under the ‘Ad Links’ section that appears on the video publishing screen. After sharing their videos, other users will be able to play it by tapping the name of the game which will be displayed above their usernames.

Gamelancer’s Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Gamelancer said: “It’s been an incredible process working in collaboration with our game development studio and the TikTok team to bring our first H5 game to life. We view TikTok as the platform to invest our social game development resources into as we have the massive built-in audience and strategy in place to acquire users at scale.“

While TikTok is increasing the number of its new HTML5 mini-games, its parent company ByteDance has reportedly laid off hundreds of employees from its gaming studios.