(Yicai) May 28 -- WeChat, the super app of Chinese internet and gaming giant Tencent Holdings, is optimistic that artificial intelligence will enable more ordinary users to become minigame developers, according to the product director of WeChat Mini Games.

There are two main reasons why AI-generated minigames have not yet produced major hits, Li Qing said at the WeChat Mini Game Developer Conference held in Hangzhou yesterday.

First, game development requires collaboration between artists, programmers, planners, operators, and others, but AI's ability to facilitate such teamwork is still limited, Li noted. Second, the process of publishing games involves standardized workflows, which have not been optimized for AI integration yet, Li added.

The number of minigame developers on WeChat reached 500,000 last year, up from about 400,000 in 2024, according to data released at the conference. In addition, minigames' monthly active users exceeded 500 million, with 47 percent being female, while the overall average daily time spent per user topped 60 minutes.

More than 80 percent of minigame developers are small and medium-sized teams with fewer than 30 members, according to data released by WeChat. Many teams have just three to four people in their early stages, but with the use of AI, it is possible for a single person to make a game.

He Yikun, developer of One Arrow After Another, told Yicai that it only took one week to launch the first version of the minigame. The main challenges were level generation and sequencing, which could be handled using AI, He said, noting that without AI, the development process would have taken two to three weeks.

AI is in the efficiency enhancement phase, You Zexu, developer of the The Good Life minigame, said to Yicai. The tech has been applied to project initiation, market research, writing planning documents, task design, and other areas, with significant progress being made each month compared to the prior one, You added.

However, the application of AI in the commercialization of minigames has not yet seen substantial breakthroughs and still relies heavily on human design, You stressed.

The number of mobile game users in China is around 700 million, with the user base for WeChat minigames already very large, Li pointed out. WeChat will not deliberately pursue reaching 600 million MAUs, but there are other areas with potential opportunities, Li said.

For example, daily active user ranks exceeded 100 million, but there is still a gap compared to the MAUs, so the room for improvement in DAU and game engagement remains, Li noted.

Editor: Martin Kadiev