Marketing

New app Joystick Dating, catering specifically to single gamers, launched in June. But ongoing reports of rampant misogyny in gamer culture might impact the number of women interested in signing up.

Niche dating apps aren’t new, but appealing to gamers looking for love shows promise because of the number of people around the world who not only play video games but are avid fans of online gaming and esports. According to the latest stats from The Gamer, there are over 164 million adult gamers in the U.S. alone, which means about 64% of Americans play video games. That’s a huge potential market, considering more than half of U.S. adults are single.

Tinder, while not a niche dating app, has sponsored esports events and organizations, seeing the opportunity to appeal to gamers that Joystick’s creator David Minn sees.

Dating app Bumble announced a new in-app crowdsource campaign to nominate LGBTQ+ organizations that support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) who experience police violence and racial injustice, a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement. Bumble plans to donate $5,000 each to these selected organizations.

Bumble explained the campaign on its website: “…we can’t support Pride without acknowledging the intersection of the LGBTQ+ movement with the Black Lives Matter movement. Many queer Black activists have been on the frontlines of these fights for fundamental human rights for decades, and the Stonewall Riots—which are widely credited with starting the gay liberation movement—were an uprising in reaction to police brutality against LGBTQ+ people. It was the same kind of unacceptable police brutality and abuse of power that we’re still seeing today, only now more focused on Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).”

Dating app OkCupid has rolled out a new Black Lives Matter badge for users to add to their profiles. The app has also added a list of questions about racial injustice and inequality for users to start meaningful conversations.

Users can add the badge by answering yes to the question: “Do you want to support the #BlackLivesMatter movement by adding a badge to your profile?” according to the OkCupid Blog. It is currently available in more than a dozen countries. 

OkCupid is also offering new questions as conversation prompts, starting with: “Is it okay to silently support racial equality?” Users can choose from multiple choice options which include “Yes, it’s your choice” and “No, it’s important to make your voice heard.” Users can also choose how important the question is to them for choosing a match.

Bumble and Airbnb announced a partnership to provide a curated list of virtual dates to its dating app users featuring experiences from around the world.

Like most dating apps, Bumble has seen an increase in usage and messaging the last couple of months as people shelter at home in the midst of a global pandemic, and has sought to engage their users through its new video chat feature. The partnership with Airbnb is its latest effort to encourage connection while we shelter at home.

According to Travel + Leisure magazine, some of the date options include going to a speakeasy jazz club in Amsterdam or learning to cook Mexican street tacos with a professional chef, which have relatively low price points for a date ($12 and $9 per person, respectively).

As dating app usage spikes worldwide in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, dating app companies are examining whether this means revenue will increase, too. Match Group recently posted a memo to all of its users that while usage is up, new (and paying) subscribers are down in the countries most affected by the pandemic, including Italy, Spain and the UK.

According to Seeking Alpha, Match Group was leading the pack a year ago with revenue increasing year over year in the billion-dollar dating app industry. And now, across the globe its star dating app Tinder is seeing a spike in user activity. It reported a record 3 billion swipes in one day on March 29th. But revenue hasn’t increased along with it.

Match Group’s revenue is gathered in two ways – from advertising on its free platform, and for charging users for premium services on its tiered services – Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold. Users can also purchase in-app a la carte options for certain features like Passport, but right now, Tinder is offering this particular feature free for all users. 

Tinder announced that its hit interactive series Swipe Night has been greenlit for season two. The new season is expected to debut this summer, according to The Verge.

Swipe Night season one premiered last year in October in the U.S., and will be released internationally in March. The series consisted of five-minute episodes available once per week (Sunday evenings throughout the month) via the Tinder app. As users watched, they were presented with choices of what to do in real time, which informed how the story unfolded for them, described as a “choose-your-own-adventure” format.

The choices viewers made also populated their user profiles, so other Tinder users could see how they chose and make decisions as to whether or not to swipe right or message them.