China's ByteDance reportedly building a Steam competitor — 'GameTop' for overseas markets will distribute and publish games like any other store, while harboring a social space with AI-assisted creator tools

There was a time not too long ago when Steam stood as the undisputed guardian of the PC gaming community, where every player would jog to get the latest titles, or eagerly wait for industry-best sales. Those days are largely over now, with the advent of competing marketplaces like Epic Games Store, and GOG. Steam is still the top dog, but it's no longer the only one, and it looks like a new player is now joining the race. Chinese tech firm ByteDance — parent company of TikTok — is mapping out its own Steam competitor called "GameTop," according to IT Home (machine translation).

Localized job postings for the marketplace reveal that it's supposed to cater to "overseas markets" which would suggest a global push into distribution and publishing, expanding beyond just Beijing. At the moment, no other store can truly stand up to Steam, but with the right resources and execution, the barrier to entry can be lowered. Especially when you consider that Steam isn't doing too hot right now, with controversy after controversy staining its once-Teflon-coated reputation.

This move would align with the internal restructuring ByteDance's gaming wing went through this past year, under new leader Zhang Yunfan, who pivoted from a "big-budget, aggressive" expansion strategy into a more pragmatic approach that refines operations, focusing on efficiency. ByteDance wants to go all in on game publishing, and GameTop seems to be the big bet the company's hinging on, if the reports are to be believed.

As seen above, job listings for the new platform in China (machine translation) further corroborate this narrative, with the company looking for recruits to "drive user acquisition, activation, retention, and re-engagement." GameTop will apparently be the most equipped Steam competitor till date with profiling systems, badges, points, etc., alongside other social features and AI-assisted creator tools — such as UGC — that would give it a decent head start, compared to companies like Epic who still lag behind.

Funnily enough, there's already an app Google's Play Store named GameTop which offers mini-games, social channels, and some video sharing capabilities, which does sound similar to what ByteDance is building, but there's little chance that these two are connected behind the scenes because the publishing company isn't part of ByteDance. Considering GameTop eventually does come to the Play Store, it could prop up an interesting copyright battle, if anything.

ByteDance is already a major player in the Chinese gaming industry and has made somewhat of a mark outside of it as well. It's certainly no Tencent (who owns 40% of Epic Games), but it has pursued several acquisitions over the past few years, which have slowed down now to channel resources elsewhere. Hence, only time will tell if GameTop sticks the landing and offer an antithesis to Steam, or wither away like many others before it that tried.

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