Snap Games Lets You Play Games on Snapchat

MakeUseOf

By Dave Parrack

Published Apr 9, 2019

Snap Games lets you play games on Snapchat with your friends. It's free, it all happens in the app, and there's nothing to install.

Snapchat has launched its own gaming platform. Called Snap Games, it allows Snapchat users to play games against their friends without ever leaving the app. Instead of ports of popular games, Snap Games is all about original titles from third-party developers.

Snapchat isn't doing particularly well. It has been losing users to Instagram, and is losing money like it's going out of fashion. So we can expect to see Snapchat launching lots of new features in the coming months, and it's kicking off proceedings with Snap Games.

Snap Games Are Mobile Games Made for Friends

Snapchat describes Snap Games as "mobile games, made for friends". Which is a pretty apt description. Snap Games are mobile games playable from within the Snapchat app. There's no installation required, and they have all been built using HTML5.

You can access Snap Games by tapping the new rocket ship button in the Chat bar. Here, you can browse the available games, and start playing one with friends. You can send the friends you're playing a Chat, or talk to them live using Voice Chat.

Snap Games is launching with six titles. These are:

Tiny Royale, a bite-sized battle royale game from Zynga.
Snake Squad, a team-based battle royale game from Game Closure.
C.A.T.S Drift Race, a racing game with an emphasis on drifting.
Zombie Rescue Squad, which sees you rescuing people from zombies.
Alphabear Hustle, a fast-paced word puzzle game from SpryFox.
Bitmoji Party, which features a series of Mario Party-style minigames.

While Snap Games will be free, Snapchat will make money by inserting 6-second ads into each title. As a reward for sitting through the ads, players will earn virtual currency which can then be spent in the games. Snap hasn't ruled out other forms of monetization though.

Companies Are Jumping on the Gaming Bandwagon

Snap Games is rolling out to Snapchat right now. However, Snapchat isn't the only company jumping on the mobile gaming bandwagon. In March 2019, Google announced Stadia, a cloud-based gaming platform which lets you stream games on multiple devices.