Industry

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 apps like Grindr, Hinge and OkCupid have been weighing whether or not to keep an ethnicity filter on their apps in the wake of protests against police violence in the U.S. and around the world. 

According to Forbes, Grindr announced that it would be dropping the filter as an option from its app in its next update. The company posted a statement on Twitter, adding: “We will not be silent. Black Lives Mater.” But this decision created a backlash among many who saw this move as too little, too late. @guillotineshout responded: “In solidarity we are removing our racism button” is the most tech company thing I could imagine.”

Grindr had received criticism before for the ethnicity filter, but other dating apps like OkCupid and Hinge who also have them, have chosen to keep theirs.

Beijing-based social app Momo is the latest company to see its revenue fall for the first quarter of 2020 due to the economic repercussions of a global pandemic. Interestingly, while other social networks and dating apps have seen an increase in users over the same period, Momo reported a decline there, too.

According to PanDaily, Momo’s net revenues decreased by 3.5% year over year to $3.59 billion Chinese yuan. The bulk of the revenue  - 64.9% - came from live-streaming services on Momo and its popular dating app Tantan. Tantan on the other hand reported an increase in revenue in the first quarter of 29.3 percent from Q1 of 2019. Tantan contributed 10 percent of Momo’s overall revenue for Q1 of 2020.

Dating app WooPlus has just launched a major update of its app with a new look, logo and user experience in February, and a month later, it was the number one trending dating app on Google Play as registrations jumped 50 percent.

The self-described “dating app for curvy people” announced version 5.0, which includes new updates to profiles, a dating “assistant” to help guide users, and a new feature to curb ghosting behavior. This was good timing for the company as people went into lockdown worldwide in the wake of the pandemic, and many people isolating alone were turning to dating apps to feel connected.

The new profile update is described in the company’s press release as “unfolding,” because users can spend time with each profile swiping through their photos to get to a description – and therefore get a better sense of who they are. The company said that it allows users to show themselves more vividly and let people get to know them instead of judging quickly and moving on. 

Image: hinge

Dating app Hinge will be rolling out a new in-app video chat feature. Earlier this year, the company added an option for users to let their matches know if they were interested in a video date, and this latest option expands on that.

The company also announced the official launch of Hinge Labs, the first in-house research group to study online dating behaviors beyond just surveying dating app users. One of Hinge Labs’ first projects will be to examine how its users respond to video dating by testing in select markets, according to Mashable. These cities include Dallas, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C. The company will roll out the feature globally later this summer.

Tinder has announced that it will be releasing a new video chat feature in the second quarter of this year. This news comes as people around the world continue to socially distance in the wake of the coronavirus, and as its parent company Match Group shared that the app’s subscriber growth had slowed.

Match Group didn’t give specifics about Tinder’s new video chat feature and what it would look like, but they did indicate they were testing the waters with a new video chat platform on another one of its apps, Plenty of Fish. POF offers a live stream video platform where users can observe and weigh in with likes and comments on other user’s live streams. The app is also offering a virtual speed dating feature called NextDate, which allows users to meet and talk briefly with several matches before deciding whether to take the video chat to a one-on-one conversation.