ByteDance, the parent company of hit short video platform TikTok and news aggregator Toutiao, was granted its first video game license on March 6  from China's National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), the country's publications authorities. It not only marks that ByteDance, the world's most valuable unicorn company, becomes a game publisher for the first time, but also means that it has officially stepped into the another industry where its major rival Tencent currently dominates. 

The first license was obtained by OceanEngine (巨量引擎), a marketing subsidiary for ByteDance. it was given to Fighting Girl Run (战斗少女跑酷), a parkour-style mobile game yet to be officially published, developed by the company's Beijing Office.

Bytedance first ventuered into China's gaming industry in early 2019. Over the past year, the deep-pocketed company has acquired game developer Mokun Digital Technology and Levelup.ai, a developer of AI tools for video games. 

The company made competitive offers to attract talents and build a robust product team. Veterans from gaming giants including Perfect World, Tencent, and NetEase were poached, as the company's gaming division reportedly has more than 1,000 employees now.

Most recently, the unicorn further exhibits its ambition in the gaming business by appointing Yan Shou, a strategy and investment executive, as the head of gaming. 

The company operates several lesser known casual games and promotes them on Douyin, the Chinese sister app of TikTok, and Toutiao, achieving good download volume, according to a ByteDance source with knowledge.

The source went on to say that he's confident that like Tencent, whose games gained popularity with the help of user traffic from its social media platforms, ByteDance is poised to apply the same strategy, though ByteDance will not go head to head with Tencent, as its focus will be on overseas markets.

With an impressive 500 million active monthly users, TikTok, the flagship app of ByteDance outside of China, is available in 155 countries. Daily active usage averages 52 minutes per user.

ByteDance has been promoting the martial arts-themed game “Combat of Hero" outside mainland China through TikTok for a while, making it the most downloaded free iOS title in a few markets for four consecutive days since March 7, according to data from analytics firm App Annie.

Besides, the company will release its first two games in the spring for both Chinese and overseas gamers, Bloomberg reported, adding that both games, along with its longer-term pipeline, will include massively multiplayer online modes with "Chinese fantasy elements."

For ByteDance, it is not easy to shake the leading position of Tencent in the Chinese gaming industry. Tencent currently publishes five of the ten highest-grossing iOS games in China, according to App Annie. Its flagship title Honor of Kings ranks first, followed by Game for Peace, the rebranded version of PUBG Mobile.

The gaming titan has already deployed a sound layout by establishing long-term strategic partnerships with large international gaming companies. Tencent has initiated more than 33 investment and acquisition transactions in overseas game markets, covering R&D, distribution channels, and gaming communities. Its portfolio includes Ubisoft, Epic Games, Activision Blizzard, Bluehole, and Riot Games, albeit it's not commonly known in the overseas market as a household gaming brand.