KTplay is becoming quite the popular social gaming platform in China. It has been in beta testing for a few months and has been getting much bigger, as the mysterious developers add more features to overtake Apple's Game Center or Google Play Games.

IT turns out the mysterious developer behind the social gaming platform was Alibaba, alongside mobile game publisher Yodo1. KTplay is its own entity, but Alibaba has a lot of influence over decisions.

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The social gaming platform is essentially a social network for mobile gamers. Developers can plug in KTplay to their application and become integrated in the social experience.

It is not the first time Alibaba has worked on mobile games, the Chinese ecommerce giant recently invested $120 million into Kabam, a U.S. based massively multiplayer online developer and publisher.

What is surprising is Alibaba has not integrated any form of ecommerce into the social gaming platform. Even on Taobao, Alibaba offers in-game currency and gaming apps to download.

In the future, Alibaba will look to implement in-game gifts and potentially offer a platform for game developers to use for in-game transactions. Alibaba will make a small amount of money from each purchase-which could total to billions-depending on how popular the social platform becomes.

Video games are a huge business in China, despite the government continuing to implement rules and regulations on them. Tencent, NetEase, Changyou and other gaming companies make hundreds of millions annually on people playing the games and buying in-game items.

Alibaba, Baidu and Weibo, the three main Internet companies in China, are all pushing to get involved in the business. Baidu has found limited success, but Weibo Games is starting to become a big social experience for millions of Chinese gamers.

TagsKTplay, Yodo1, social gaming, mobile gaming, ecommerce