Snapchat will reportedly launch a new gaming platform next month.
Codenamed “Project Cognac”, the social media company is expected to announce the new plans at a summit in April in Los Angeles and according to a source, invitations for the event featured the line, “Less talk. More play”.
The news comes as Snapchat have been toying with AR games within its filter library. Currently, users can play Snappables which are mini-games that make use of the user’s face and surroundings.
This new gaming venture, however, is expected to be a separate entity within the app.
Earlier this year, Snapchat invested in Prettygreat, the Australian gaming studio behind Slide the Shakes, Fruit Ninja and Land Sliders. Snapchat also purchased a British company in 2018 called PlayCanvas which has an interest in gaming specifically designed for mobile devices.
The new venture comes after Instagram’s co-founders admitted during a keynote panel that they borrowed elements of Snapchat’s design. Kevin Systorm said, “For a long time, people’s profiles were filled with Snapchat links. It was clear people were trying to bridge the two products. So we gave them what they wanted.”
The gaming venture may also drive users back to the platform after a difficult year in 2018 which saw stock prices drop and active daily users fall by one million. The decline was blamed on a controversial new design interface which was rejected and disliked by users on a mass scale.
Despite the fall in users, shares for Snap did increase by 22 per cent in February.
As we keep you updated on this story, click here for another tech news story, this time on Twitter’s latest venture, the new app Twttr.