• by Colin Kirkland , August 9, 2024

Weeks after naming a new leader of its North American global gaming business marketing sector, TikTok has become the official partner of the world’s largest games event, Gamescom. Per the partnership, TikTok will host a variety of live in-person gaming experiences, as well as exclusive in-app social content.

Gamescom, which attracted over 320,000 gamers at last year’s in-person event, will take place August 21-25 in Cologne, Germany. TikTok will be contributing to the event via an IRL activation with two livestreaming rooms equipped with a gaming area where anticipated titles from developers like 10:10 Games, Krafton, Sega and more can be played.

There will also be a TikTok stage featuring talks and panels about the app’s commitment to the gaming space alongside giveaways and “a special Pokemon GO Gym activity,” according to the company.

TikTok is also introducing in-app tools to help creators and users engage with the event through its “Game on Live” campaign.

Despite a potential ban in the U.S., the video-sharing app has been trying to attract gaming creators to the platform and build out its gaming ecosystem. In 2022, the company launched its first global gaming event and introduced a dedicated gaming tab on the app’s home page, then launched its “30 Days of Gaming” showcase in 2023.

Last month, TikTok also appointed Rema Vasan as the head of North America and global gaming business marketing. Vasan created the TikTok gaming team in early 2023.

According to the company, its younger users are especially interested in gaming content, with 76 percent of active games on TikTok playing PC or console games weekly. As a result, TikTok’s #gaming hashtag is attached to over one million posts, while gaming livestreams have been viewed over 76 million times per day on average in the last 30 days.

In addition, TikTok ran a survey that shows 56 percent of gamers on the platform believe watching gaming content can be just as entertaining as playing games themselves, while 59 percent say they discover new games on TikTok and 41 percent have already created their own gaming videos.