When you hear that Microsoft has launched three new games, you’d understandably assume they’re for Xbox consoles and/or PC. The company’s latest offerings, however, are for LinkedIn, of all places.
As of May 1st, Microsoft’s business-focused social media platform now lets you play the puzzle games Pinpoint, Queens and Crossclimb on desktop and mobile. These test your skills in word association, logic and trivia, respectively.
Like Wordle, these games will only be playable once per day, and you’ll have the ability to share your success (or lack thereof) with others on LinkedIn. They can be accessed here.
What’s particularly interesting about these games is that they were developed by the LinkedIn News division. “It is hard for people to stay in touch with each other, and games provide a way to build these network ties,” LinkedIn News editor-in-chief Dan Roth told TechCrunch in an interview.
On top of that, LinkedIn News has been looking at how news sites have been using games to increase engagement. As Axios notes, The New York Times‘ games, including Wordle, were played more than eight billion times last year, and NYT has spoken about how that’s helped maintain its audience.
Therefore, LinkedIn is betting that games like Pinpoint, Queens and Crossclimb will resonate with at least some of its user base of one billion people.
Via: TechCrunch
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