LinkedIn, a social platform owned by Microsoft, is primarily known as a platform for people who want to network and gain knowledge for professional and recruitment purposes, and the business currently has over 1 billion users. Now, in an effort to increase the time people spend on the platform, the company is entering a whole new area: gaming.
TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that LinkedIn is developing a new gaming experience. It will do this by riding the same wave of puzzle-solving craze that helped simple games like Wordle become viral successes and attract millions of players. Three early titles were games called “Queens”, “Inference” and “Crosslimb”.
Application researchers have begun looking for code that points to what LinkedIn is doing. One of them, Nima Owji, said LinkedIn appears to be experimenting with the idea of organizing player scores by location and then “ranking” companies based on those scores.
A spokesperson for LinkedIn confirmed that the company is developing a gaming product but said a release date has not yet been set.
“We’re experimenting with adding puzzle-based games to the LinkedIn experience to unleash some fun, deepen relationships, and hopefully spark opportunities for conversation,” a spokesperson said in a message to TechCrunch. “Stay tuned for more!”
The spokesman added that the image shared by the researchers on X was not the latest version.
(Update: Some updated images are now available and we’ve embedded them below.)
Microsoft, the owner of LinkedIn, is a gaming giant. Its gaming business, which includes Xbox, Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax, generated $7.1 billion in revenue last quarter, surpassing Windows revenue for the first time.
A LinkedIn spokesman declined to say how and whether Microsoft is involved in LinkedIn’s gaming project.
Games are generally one of the most popular apps on mobile and PC, both in terms of revenue and engagement, and casual puzzle-based games have been one of the most popular categories in this space for mobile users. Non-gaming platforms have long exploited these facts to drive their own traffic—a trend that arguably predates the web, if you think about the popularity of crossword puzzles and other puzzles in newspapers and magazines.
The New York Times acquired the popular game Wordle in 2022, and the newspaper said late last year that millions of people continue to play the game, which is now part of a larger online puzzle and game platform developed by the newspaper. part.
Other companies doubling down on gaming are seeing mixed results. Facebook is the world’s largest social network and has been a major driver of social gaming for many years. But in 2022, it shut down the standalone gaming app due to declining usage: today, it is more focused on mixed reality experiences and the Meta Quest business.
Over the years, LinkedIn has tried many different new features to improve how and how much people use its platform. The strategy might be best described as: “How do we take the most popular tools that people use now and make them relevant to LinkedIn’s Audience relevant and focused on the world of work?”
These include online education and professional development, publishing and journalism, introducing more video tools, and engaging creators and influencers.
