LinkedIn has expanded its offerings beyond professional networking, venturing into the realm of gaming. As of today, users of the LinkedIn mobile app can enjoy three new puzzle games: Pinpoint, Queens, and Crossclimb.
Pinpoint: Word Association Challenge
In Pinpoint, players are tasked with associating five given words with a common category. With a timer ticking, players aim to guess the category using as few words as possible.
Crossclimb: The Word Puzzle
Combining elements of a quiz and a word game, Crossclimb presents players with a word clue. Starting from that word, players construct a word ladder, where each subsequent word differs by only one letter. Correctly ordering the words reveals a clue to win the game.
Queens: The Sudoku Twist
Queens puts a spin on the classic Sudoku puzzle by replacing numbers with queens. Players must strategically place the queens on the grid, ensuring they don’t intersect while having one queen per row and column.
LinkedIn’s foray into gaming aligns with broader trends in digital content consumption. With traditional revenue streams like advertising facing challenges, gaming offers a novel way to attract and retain users. The move underscores LinkedIn’s commitment to enhancing user engagement and fostering connections within its platform.
The rise of gaming within digital media is evident, with publications like The New York Times and Hearst investing in gaming platforms to diversify their offerings and increase subscriber retention. Even entertainment giants like Netflix are entering the gaming arena, recognizing the potential for engaging audiences beyond traditional content formats.
While LinkedIn’s games are currently free to play, they serve as a means to keep users actively engaged on the platform. Alongside displaying players’ scores and daily achievements, LinkedIn also facilitates social interaction by showing who within their network has also played, notes NIX Solutions. Lakshman Somasundaram, LinkedIn’s chief product officer, emphasizes the importance of fostering enjoyable experiences within professional contexts, stating, “It’s time to reimagine how we deepen and renew relationships at work and put fun first.”
We’ll keep you updated as LinkedIn continues to innovate and evolve its platform to meet the evolving needs of its users.