LinkedIn Levels Up Platform With Debut of Wordle-Inspired Games

In a bid to increase user engagement and connection, LinkedIn is officially rolling out three new daily word and logic games globally - Queens, Crossclimb, and Pinpoint. The professional networking platform had been quietly testing these Wordle-esque puzzles since March.

Like the viral online phenom Wordle, each LinkedIn game can only be played once per day. However, users can invite their first-degree connections to play together and optionally share their game stats like completion status and scores.

While social gaming elements are still being refined, LinkedIn sees the new games as a casual way to strengthen existing network ties.

"It's hard for people to stay in touch, and games provide a way to build those bonds," explained Dan Roth, VP and Editor-in-Chief of LinkedIn News - the division behind developing the games independently from parent company Microsoft.

Aping Newspaper Game Strategies

More than just engaging timewasters, LinkedIn's gaming initiative borrows from the playbooks of major news publishers successfully using puzzles to drive audience growth and retention.

The New York Times' suite of word games and crosswords has attracted millions of loyal puzzle fanatics, seamlessly converting them into wider content audiences. As media companies grapple with younger user losses to TikTok and Instagram, games have emerged as an engagement secret weapon.

With over 1 billion users itself, LinkedIn is now emulating that model to expand dwell time on the platform beyond just job searching and recruiting. Like newspapers, it also operates an ads business and subscriber paywall that benefit from stickier gaming hooks.

"Games provide a more casual way to knit existing LinkedIn connections closer together," stated Roth.

A Trifecta of Puzzlers

So what do the three new LinkedIn games entail?

Queens tasks players with arranging crowns into non-overlapping patterns against the clock in a Sudoku-inspired logic test. Uniquely, users' company affiliations are displayed on leaderboards.

Crossclimb is a trivia game where subsequent word clues change by a single letter, creating a new word with each correct guess.

Finally, Pinpoint challenges word skills by having users identify connections between partially revealed words using as few letter reveals as possible - a familiar concept to NYT's "Connections" fans.

While some workplaces frown upon time-wasting games, the LinkedIn team believes self-contained daily play sessions should avert major productivity drains.

"They're intended to be contained, because we don't want people wasting time," said Laura Lorenzetti, LinkedIn's North America Executive Editor. "That's not what we're here for."

From Meta's Fading Gaming Pivot to LinkedIn's Play

LinkedIn's gaming embrace may seem like familiar territory after Meta's own ill-fated foray into social games. However, the platform's professional networking roots could give it a unique edge.

Where Facebook Gaming struggled to retain casual gamers, LinkedIn is banking on its ingrained use case - keeping working professionals actively engaged and networked. Games provide low-friction social hooks complementing that core purpose.

As Meta and others now pivot to mixed reality, LinkedIn appears to be picking up the social gaming baton. By nestling simple sessions within professionals' daily networking routines, it could uncover a new frontier for sustained audience growth and monetization on the platform.