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LinkedIn, the professional networking home of the humble brag, self-promotion, guru professional titles and ... games?
Rumors of gaming on the platform first surfaced in mid-March after an app searcher surfaced code showing the in the works features. Today marks launch day for the games, aimed at helping users foster more professional connections. The line-up includes three new “thinking-oriented games” which borrow from popular games including the New York Times' Connections and Sudoku.
BREAKING: #LinkedIn is working on IN-APP GAMES!
— Nima Owji (@nima_owji) March 16, 2024
There are going to be a few different games and companies will be ranked in the games based on the scores of their employees!
Pretty cool and fun, in my opinion! pic.twitter.com/hLITqc8aqw
“Games are all about connection for LinkedIn,” the company said in a press release. “As the world of work has shifted in the last 20 years since LinkedIn’s founding, so has the way people connect with each other.”
3 New Games to Play on LinkedIn
LinkedIn will offer three games on its new game hub, each of which only takes a few minutes to play.
The new games include:
- Pinpoint: A word-association game where users guess the common category that suits multiple words.
- Queens: A Sudoku-like logic game where users fill a grid with “queens” (AKA crown emojis) while ensuring there’s only one queen in every row, column and region.
- Crossclimb: A trivia game that’s a mix between a crossword and a word ladder.
Each game follows the precedent set by Wordle to only release one edition a day. Current puzzle-makers include Paolo Pasco, the 2024 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion and newly appointed games editor at LinkedIn, along with Thomas Snyder, three-time World Sudoku Champion.
Related Article: How Gamification at Work Fits Into Learning & Development
LinkedIn Adds Company and School Leaderboards
Players can check out company leaderboards, with each industry getting its own ranking. The goal, according to LinkedIn, is to encourage co-workers to team up to earn more points for their organizations and beat competitors. School leaderboards will also be available for students looking to outscore their rivals.
After playing, users can decide whether to share their scores on their feeds, giving people the opportunity to see which connections played each day and how they fared.
LinkedIn’s news team will also make daily posts about each game. The posts will give users the opportunity to engage with the broader community by sharing tips and tricks, chatting with the game creators and meeting new connections.
Where Gaming Meets Professional Networking
LinkedIn already has gamified features, even if you don’t recognize them as such, said Joris Beerda, behavioral scientist and CEO of The Octalysis Group. Think the LinkedIn Top Voice program, profile badges, the profile completion progress bar and more.
And more gamification features on the platform could work, he added. “Obviously, it makes sense. You draw people to a platform when it's more than just professional, but that they can do other things there as well.”
According to LinkedIn News executive editor Laura Lorenzetti, games can spark a number of professional conversations, such as banter about game approaches or how their company is doing vs. others.
“Having a casual ice breaker — like sharing your best time on a game or debating the merits of a certain clue — gives professionals a way to restart or deepen valuable conversations and relationships,” she said. “What starts as a friendly conversation about a game can transition into topics like a potential job opening or meaningful work advice.”
Giving people the chance to express themselves in different ways helps to create a community and helps people find others they want to interact with, said Valary Oleinik, speaker and gamification consultant at Valary with a WHY. But this can also have a down side.
“Depending upon what the platform rewards, there is always the possibility of people feeling disenfranchised as they see cliques form or see some people or groups of people achieving status that seems unattainable to them. I’m thinking of, among other things, leaderboards.”
Depending on how the in-app game results are used, she added, it could lead to friendly competition at best, or move into distraction or demotivation. And those who don’t want to participate may feel their efforts to develop or receive opportunities are diminished, or that the platform is not a serious place to focus on their careers.
Related Article: The Hidden Superpowers of Corporate Alumni Networks
Next-Gen Networking & LinkedIn’s Gaming Roadmap
Oleinik sees a future where games could be built into platforms like LinkedIn to help people achieve their goals.
“I could see how a person could embark on a gamified challenge that is specific to them and their career goal. All within LinkedIn there could be an assessment of their profile to see how it matches common job descriptions of the role they want to move into. Then AI could create a journey for the player with a series of quests that involve taking certain LinkedIn Learning courses, following certain influencers (or Top Voices), posting content about their expertise, sending connection requests, applying for jobs and so on.”
Each step along the way could have rewards, nudges and milestones built in, she added. And at the end, they get the job of their dreams.
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Olenik also foresees companies on LinkedIn posting games and challenges to help them identify candidates, something she said was common on other social media platforms years ago.
“Large companies produced simulation games so people could see what it would be like to work for them, or they posted challenges that could only be solved by people that had the specific skills they were recruiting for,” she envisioned.
According to Lorenzetti, LinkedIn plans to gather feedback from members on the gaming experience before they release any news about future games or features.
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