After announcing the feature back in July, LinkedIn has now launched its new connection leaderboard feature for LinkedIn games, which displays how well users are performing in its daily puzzle games in comparison to their peers, colleagues, friends, etc.
As you can see in this example, the new games leaderboard will show you how you’re doing in each LinkedIn game versus connections who are also regularly playing the same. LinkedIn currently offers six games that you can play in the app, with each offering a new challenge daily.
The rankings will update daily for each specific game, enabling you to compete on performance, discuss gaming strategies, connect with more people, etc.
Which is a shift in approach to its gaming leaderboards.
For clarity, LinkedIn has actually offered different versions of its gaming leaderboards since it first launched its in-app gaming options in May last year, displaying comparative performance between members from different companies, schools, etc.
This new version is more specifically aligned to your connections, which could be a more valuable and engaging showcase, though there is a threshold on the number of connections you have to have that are playing a game for the leaderboard to show up, so you may not actually see it, if you don’t have enough connections playing.
Though that could also give LinkedIn a means to get more people playing games, by prompting users to invite them to compete.
In addition to this, LinkedIn’s also looking to incorporate more features into the leaderboard, including previous day recaps, expanded performance tracking, and the ability to tap through to a users’ profile from the listing. Users can opt out of having their results displayed on the leaderboard if they choose.
In-stream games still seems like a strange fit on LinkedIn, though LinkedIn says that millions of its members play these games every day, and that 84% of users who do play a game return to try again.
LinkedIn hasn’t provided any further insight beyond that, and “millions” in this context is a bit vague (note: LinkedIn has over 1.2 billion members). But even so, that’s a lot of people who are sticking around in the app, which helps to boost its engagement and retention stats, and competitive challenges like this could add another compelling aspect.
I mean clearly, LinkedIn believes that it’s worth the investment, as it keeps adding new games into the mix, as well as new features like this to enhance its gaming engagement.
And now, you can compete against the people you know more directly, which could add another element to its gaming feature, though maybe prompting users to compete on connection counts or endorsements would be a more effective prompt to drive activity (note: This is a joke, LinkedIn should not do this, the incentive for fake engagement would skyrocket).
