REDMOND (dpa-AFX) - Starting today, Microsoft-owned (MSFT) LinkedIn users
can play three 'thinking-oriented' games - Pinpoint, Queens, and Crossclimb, on
the job seeking site's mobile app or desktop.

The free games would be available under the LinkedIn News and My Network section
on desktop, and the My Network tab on mobile. The users could play each game
once a day, share their scores with their connections, and check their position
on leaderboard.

Lakshman Somasundaram, LinkedIn's product director, commented, 'It's time we
turn over a new leaf in how we deepen and reignite relationships at work, and
put fun at the heart of it.'

The newly introduced Pinpoint is a word association game, where a user has to
put words in different categories, whereas Queens is basically sudoku, but
instead of numbers the user has to arrange crown emojis on a grid. The third
game, Crossclimb, is a 'combination of a crossword and a word ladder', where
user has to build a word ladder based on a letter from the previous word.

'It's all about helping you stretch and exercise your mind, but more importantly
how this helps you really connect,' said Laura Lorenzetti, executive editor for
LinkedIn News, CNN Reports.

'Any games that we add to the suite will make sure that they fit into that ethos
and hopefully in a year people are still playing these games and talking to each
other,' she assured.

The latest decision comes as many digital companies are introducing games on
their platforms in an attempt to capture new audience and generate additional
revenue.

Earlier, New York Times had introduced subscription packages to its readers to
avail games in addition to other informative content.

Jonathan Knight, New York Times's head of games, confirmed that, 'If you're a
subscriber, and on any given week, you engage with both news and games, the
likelihood that you're going to retain over a long period of time is much
higher.'

Similarly, entertainment giant Netflix (NFLX) has also created a separate gaming
section, and has recently added popular games like Hades and Sonic Mania Plus on
its platform.



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