Recently insiders revealed that eCommerce site 360Buy would launch its brand-new web game platform before this October. It would have become the second B2C player stepping into gaming industry. Taobao had just secretly launched a web game platform wan.taobao.com this June.
Staff of 360Buy said that the platform would be built on its POP platform (360buy’s open data platform), and be operated jointly with some game operators. Users can log on, play web games or trade related virtual products on this platform.
According to the latest data released on 2012 ChinaJoy, by 1H this year, web games had totally created RMB 3.82billion, grown by 46.7% YOY. We once reported that web games could be a blue sea for game companies. Now it seems that this market is also quite attractive for any internet companies which have good traffic. Baidu, Tencent, 360 and RenRen all have their own jointly operating game platforms right now. The Q2 financial reports of the later two players 360 and RenRen showed their game revenues have increased by 167.2% and 122.1% respectively. No wonder even the B2C teams are marching in as well. Rumor has it that 360Buy’s recent biggest rival Suning is also planning on entering social shopping game area.
You may never imagine that an eCommerce company could cross the line to touch the gaming space. 360buy’s idea is to drive its huge traffic into the new game platform, but do note that online shoppers usually have clearer goals so it would be a big question that how to convince them who originally come just for shopping to addict to online games.
Maybe 360buy is bored with the price war it initiated, and web game platform might bring it better and easier cash too.
