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Wordle is now integrated in The New York Times Crossword app

The spelling puzzle app phenomenon Wordle is making its debut on The New York Times Crossword application, The Times announced today. After tons of doppelgangers and wannabes of the infamous app, the NYT Crossword app is now appearing at the top of iOS and Android app store searches. 
Users won’t have to worry about losing their scores and streaks because The NYT will allow consumers to create an account to track their gameplay. Though the app itself is free to download, this so-called “free account” is only available for a seven-day trial; users are then prompted to either pay $4.99 per month or $39.99 for the year. The subscription would also include access to puzzles like Spelling Bee, The Mini and The Crossword. 
Image Credits: The New York Times
The move to further integrate Wordle comes after The NYT acquired the rights to the game earlier this year at an undisclosed price. According to first-quarter financial results, the publication said the game drove the company’s best quarter ever, in relation to net subscribers for Games. Since its acquisition, the publication has advertised its other games through Wordle.
Though the game was created to be a passtime for the creator Josh Wardle and his partner, its popularity has become a daily habit for some. Back in July, The Times announced the WordleBot to help users strengthen their skills. The tool gives word enthusiasts a score from 0-99 based on skills and luck, but also provides advice on how they can improve their search. 

Wordle founder Josh Wardle on going viral and what comes next

As The NYT tries to capitalize on the game’s popularity, they announced the online word game would be turned into a board game. The company has partnered with toymaker Hasbro to release Wordle: The Party Game in October. 
TechCrunch previously reported that upwards of two million players were playing Wordle, and it has been mentioned in over 32 million tweets since its launch. According to The Times, “10% of active players have played 145 or more games of Wordle.”
Wordle is now integrated in The New York Times Crossword app

US App Store revenue from non-game apps just topped games for the first time

A major shift in the U.S. app economy has just taken place. In the second quarter of this year, U.S. consumer spending in non-game mobile apps surpassed spending in mobile games for the first time in May 2022 and the trend continued in June. This drove the total revenue generated by non-game apps higher for the quarter, reaching about $3.4 billion on the U.S. App Store, compared with $3.3 billion spent on mobile games.
After the shift in May, 50.3% of the spending was coming from non-game apps by June 2022, according to new findings in a report from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower. By comparison, games had accounted for more than two-thirds of total spending on the U.S. App Store just five years ago.
The trend was limited to the U.S. App Store and was not seen on Google Play, however. In Q2, games accounted for $2.3 billion in consumer spending on Google Play in the U.S., while non-game apps accounted for about $1 billion.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
This shift in the U.S. app market is the most significant finding in the new report and demonstrates how successfully Apple has managed to create a subscription economy that allows a broader range of apps to generate sizable revenues.
The new data also supports this, as it shows it’s not only the biggest players that are benefiting from subscription revenue growth. In Q2 2022, 400 apps generated more than $1 million in consumer spending on the U.S. App Store, which is eight times the total from the same quarter in 2016. In addition, 61 U.S. App Store non-game apps generated at least $10 million in U.S. consumer spending in Q2 2022 — that’s more than the number of non-game apps that had generated $1 million+ in revenue in Q2 2016.
A handful of non-game apps also topped $50 million in U.S. consumer spending in the quarter, including YouTube, HBO Max, TikTok, Tinder, Disney+, Hulu and Bumble.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Subscriptions are the major revenue growth driver here, as non-game apps grew at nearly twice the rate  — at a 40% compound annual growth rate — since June 2014 compared with less than 20% for games, the report found.
The trend is a significant reversal of what mobile app spending looked like just a few years ago.
In 2019 and early 2020, for instance, mobile game spending growth was consistently higher than non-game spending. Game spending then surged again at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But by late 2020, non-game growth had caught up and the gap widened in 2021.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
While non-games are enjoying their new dominance, it’s not all great news for the app economy in this most recent quarter. The report also found that U.S. app spending overall declined for the first time in Q2, following the wind down from the spike generated by the pandemic.
At the start of the pandemic (around April 2020), year-over-year growth in consumer spending had jumped from around 20%-30% in 2019 to 35%-55% over the next 12 months. But in May 2022, U.S. spending declined for the first time as consumers began to shift their dollars back to other non-mobile activities like restaurant dining and travel.
Despite this decline from the pandemic highs, consumer spending in Q2 2022 was still up 71% over Q2 2019.
In other key findings from the quarter, summer travel drove travel apps to record high downloads in the U.S. and U.K., and airline app downloads in these markets were up 30%+ compared with Q2 2019, before the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the top-five ticketing apps saw 10 million downloads, up 70%+ from Q2 2019 as consumers returned to concerts, sports games and other events.
Image Credits: Sensor Tower
Worldwide app downloads slowed also slowed in the quarter, as installs totaled 35 billion in Q2, down 2.5% year over year. App Store downloads fell 1.3% to 7.8 billion and Google Play installs dropped 3% to 27.2 billion.
The most downloaded non-game app worldwide was TikTok, which has held the top position eight times out of the past 10 quarters. It was followed by Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat. TikTok (including Douyin in China on iOS) had 187 million downloads in the quarter.
The top mobile game globally was Subway Surfers, with over 80 million downloads — its highest total since 2014, and following the game’s maker Sybo’s acquisition by gaming giant Miniclip in June 2022. The number two title was Garena Free Fire with 70 million installs for the third quarter in a row.
China was still the larger contributor to iOS gaming revenue, despite a pause on game approvals in May 2022. In Q2, 65% of consumer spending on China’s App Store was on mobile games, while 35% was on non-game apps in Q2 2022 — percentages that remained unchanged from a year ago in June 2021. Japan’s App Store still generates the third-most gaming revenue on iOS and it maintained this position, though games’ share shrank a bit to 68% of the total spend, down from 70% in June 2021.
US App Store revenue from non-game apps just topped games for the first time

This Week in Apps: Google battles KakaoTalk, Twitter deal in jeopardy, FTC asked to investigate TikTok

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. App Annie says global spending across iOS and Google Play is up to $135 billion in 2021, and that figure will likely be higher when its annual report, including third-party app stores in China, is released next year. Consumers also downloaded 10 billion more apps this year than in 2020, reaching nearly 140 billion in new installs, it found.
Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that was up 27% year-over-year.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters
Top Stories
Elon says he’s killing the Twitter deal
The bird app buyout could be off, if Elon Musk has his way.
On Friday, Musk’s legal team informed Twitter the Tesla and SpaceX exec would be terminating the merger agreement because, as their letter alleges, Twitter made false and misleading claims about the health of its business. This, of course, refers to the drama Musk had been stirring up over the percentage of bots on the service, which Twitter says is estimated to be less than 5%. Upon Musk’s earlier pressing for more information on this figure, Twitter provided Musk’s team with API access to make their own determinations. The letter, however, states that this API access was capped and limited, preventing the team from being able to accurately analyze Twitter’s data with regard to bots. (Which makes Musk’s claims that the bot count is higher than Twitter said it was a bit hard to prove!) Musk’s lawyers also allege Twitter included known fake and bot accounts in its mDAUs and didn’t have a standard process for calculating its mDAUs or the percentage of bots. Even if the arguments were valid — and that’s not able to be determined at this time — they don’t allow Musk to simply walk away.
Musk has already legally agreed to this deal, which means the battle will now move to court where Twitter says it plans to enforce the agreement at the price and terms agreed upon. And even if both parties agree to terminate, Musk will have to pay out a billion dollars as a termination fee.
The real reason Musk is trying to terminate is not likely “bots.” It’s because he knows he overpaid. What looked like a decent deal earlier (@ $54.20 per share) quickly became an overpriced deal in a macroeconomic environment that’s led to tech stocks tanking. Since announcing the deal, Twitter’s stock hadn’t again hit the negotiated price, and in fact, was recently down as much as 28% below Musk’s offer price. By forcing the deal to go to the courts, Musk could be hoping for a shot at negotiating a better price. But that’s far from being a certain outcome.

The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 8, 2022

Google blocked KakaoTalk for not following its rules
Image Credits: Jon Russell (opens in a new window) / Flickr (opens in a new window)
Google this week demonstrated it plans to enforce its new Play Store terms over in-app purchases, even if the developer is a $1.5 billion tech giant and leading app in its region. The Korean company behind the KakaoTalk mobile messenger popular in South Korea was prevented from issuing updates to its app over its failure to comply with Google Play’s terms, according to local media reports. This would be the first time Google has enforced its new Play Store rules over how apps can point users to their own websites for alternative methods of payments.
South Korea’s in-app payment law, better known as the “anti-Google law,” permits Android app developers to add third-party payment options in their app, but only if they offer them alongside Google’s own billing system. It doesn’t permit developers to add links to their app that allow users to bypass Google’s billing system entirely, however. That’s what KakaoTalk is continuing to do.
According to Google’s rules, failure to comply with its rules could see apps removed from the Play Store altogether. Google hasn’t gone that far just yet — instead, it’s only blocked the company from issuing updates. But this is still a serious punitive action and one designed to prompt the app to take action.
Companies aren’t happy with how Google complied with the country’s new law, as Google is only offering a discount on commissions paid for those using third-party payments, instead of allowing them to avoid commissions as they had hoped. On April 1, Google said all apps must either use Google’s own payments system and pay the usual 15-30% in commissions, or the apps could offer a third-party system for a discount of 4% on those fees.
The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) met with Google and Kakao on Thursday about the matter. Afterward, Kakao relented and chose to remove the web link to the third-party payments system as required by Google’s rules to come into compliance. Analysts speculated Kakao’s earlier refusal to remove the link was to simply bring the issue to regulators’ attention — that is, it aimed to demonstrate how Google had complied with the letter of the law, but not with the spirit. The KCC had been investigating how the law was being implemented but since most apps were already in compliance, Google hadn’t yet taken any punitive actions.
The Kakao Talk messaging app today is used by some 53 milllion+ people monthly, making it one of the biggest social apps in the country.
FTC asked to investigate TikTok
Image Credits: TikTok
Senate Intelligence Committee members have asked the FTC to investigate whether TikTok misled lawmakers about ByteDance employees’ ability to access U.S. users’ data. Democrat Senator Mark Warner and Republican Marco Rubio, the chair and ranking member of the committee, respectively, wrote a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan requesting a further investigation into whether TikTok may have lied in its testimonies to Congress over how it handles user data.
This demand follows a BuzzFeed News report that revealed that ByteDance employees in China were regularly accessing U.S. data into early 2022, despite TikTok’s prior assurances to the contrary. Last weekend, timed alongside the BuzzFeed scoop, TikTok wrote to Republican Senators to assure them it’s working on a program called “Project Texas” aimed at improving data security for U.S.-based users.
“In light of this new report,” the letter stated, “we ask that your agency immediately initiate a Section 5 investigation on the basis of apparent deception by TikTok, and coordinate this work with any national security or counter-intelligence investigation that may be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Pressure on TikTok has been increasing as of late. Six senators sent a letter to the Treasury Department on June 24, asking for details about the negotiation between TikTok and CFIUS, which would have prompted Trump’s EO to ban the TikTok app in the U.S. An FCC Commissioner, Brendan Carr, also wrote to Apple and Google on June 28, requesting the companies remove TikTok from their app stores for “its pattern of surreptitious data practices.”
Weekly News
Platforms: Apple
Image Credits: Apple
Apple introduced an iPhone Lockdown Mode in iOS 16. The new OS, as well as updates for iPad and Mac, will include a feature that lets users who are most at risk from attacks take more extreme measures to lock down their devices and reduce attack surfaces. In Lockdown Mode, most message attachments are blocked and previews are disabled; some web technologies are disabled; FaceTime calls from people you haven’t connected with before are blocked; Shared Albums are removed from the Photos app; configuration profiles can’t be installed; wired connections to other devices or accessories are blocked; and more. Apple said it will add more protections to this mode over time.
Apple rolled out the third developer betas for iOS 16, iPadOS 16, tvOS 16, watchOS 9 and macOS 13 Ventura. The news suggests the iOS 16 public beta is just around the corner, given it usually arrives alongside the third developer betas. The third beta also includes support for iCloud‌ Shared Photo Library, which lets families combine their photos and videos in one place.
Apple also released iOS 15.6 and iPadOS 15.6 beta 5 to developers, alongside other platforms.
Platforms: Google
The Google Play Store appears to be getting an updated logo with rounded corners on the triangle and colors that are more aligned with Google’s four colors (blue, green, yellow and red), instead of lighter variations.
E-commerce & Food Delivery
Code spotted in the iOS 16 beta 3 suggests Apple is working on a new system to integrate virtual cards with Safari, reports 9to5Mac. The feature would allow users to pay with virtual card numbers when online shopping in mobile Safari.
Amazon partnered with Grubhub and took a stake in its owner, Just East Takeaway. The deal will see Amazon offering free membership to Grubhub+ for one year to Prime members in the U.S. The retailer had previously offered a similar deal to Amazon Prime Student members and had a partnership with Deliveroo in the U.K. that offered a free year of Deliveroo+ to Prime members.
Walmart folded its InHome grocery delivery service into its subscription plan, Walmart+. The service lets users monitor in-home grocery deliveries via an app where they can livestream the delivery as it’s in progress, watching as Walmart staff places their items inside their fridge and freezer.
Pinterest introduced an API for Shopping and Product Tagging for Pins, among other merchant-focused updates. The API offers access to new catalog management and product metadata features, while Product Tagging allows merchants to make their “lifestyle” Pins shoppable, similar to shoppable photos on Instagram. In addition, video assets can now be used in product catalogs, and a new Shop Tab on business profiles lets merchants easily display their shoppable products.
Image Credits: Pinterest
Pinterest also launched its ads business in Argentina, Colombia and Chile, joining other expansions to Brazil and Mexico last year, and Japan’s launch earlier this year. The ads allow retailers to connect with users searching for items that match those in their own catalogs, even if the searchers haven’t settled on a particular brand.
Ex-employees at shopping app Wish detailed to The NYT about the app’s low product standards, unreliable shipping, counterfeiting, inappropriate ads and deceptive experiments which drove users away. The app saw MAUs drop from 101 million in Q1 2021 to 27 million in Q1 2022.
Amazon readies itself for Prime Day with help from online influencers. The company is livestreaming creators who are promoting Prime Day deals via its Amazon Live platform. The streams are available on Amazon’s website and in its mobile app.
Instacart rolled out a new rewards program for shoppers which offers priority access to batches for those with higher ratings. Other perks include discounted childcare, cash back on gas and car maintenance discounts. The company recently introduced other shopper features to protect their tips and remove ratings from customers who always dole out less than five stars.
TikTok dropped its plans to expand livestream shopping in the U.S. and elsewhere after the feature failed to gain traction outside of the U.K., FT said.
Augmented Reality
Image Credits: The Met/8th Wall
The Met launched a new AR experience that allows visitors or anyone to view the Sphinx in augmented reality. The Sphinx appears in your own space atop a grave stele and is annotated with interesting facts users can tap on to learn more. There’s also a selfie feature that lets users try on the Sphinx’s colors. The AR features are powered by 8th Wall and work in the Safari web browser app, instead of requiring a dedicated mobile app.
Crypto
Image Credits: Reddit
Reddit launched a new NFT-based avatar marketplace that allows users to purchase blockchain-based profile pictures at a fixed rate. Users don’t need to have a crypto wallet to make the purchases, only a credit or debit card. The purchases are then held in Reddit’s own wallet called Vault, inside its existing mobile app. Vault is also used to earn blockchain-based community points and spend them on special features like badges and animated emoji. There are 90 NFT designs available at launch, and a total of “tens of thousands” of NFTs will be available during early access at prices ranging from $9.99-$99.99. The company partnered with Polygon, an Ethereum-compatible blockchain, to mint the avatars on-chain.

Reddit is launching a new NFT avatar marketplace

Crypto exchange Binance.US hired a former Acorns and PayPal exec Jasmine Lee as its CFO, replacing interim CFO Eric Segal. The company offers one of the top crypto apps in the U.S. and operates as a separate entity from the global Binance exchange.
The Chinese photo-editing app Meitu reported a $45.6 million crypto impairment in H1 2022. The company’s stock dropped more than 10% after it projected crypto impairments tripling from 2021 levels.
Adtech
Glace, owned by adtech firm InMobi Group, will partner with U.S. carriers to launch a media service for Android lock screens. Glance serves media, news and casual entertainment to lock screens and already has a presence on around 400 million devices in Asian markets.
Social
Snap’s unexpected new hire comes from the Secret Service. According to The Washington Post, Secret Service Director James Murray is retiring from his post and joining Snap as its chief security officer at the end of the month, where he’ll directly report to CEO Evan Spiegel.
TikTok is facing multiple lawsuits from parents who allege their children died attempting the “blackout challenge” they saw on the app. The challenge encouraged users to strangulate themselves until passing out. TikTok claims users learned about the challenge on other platforms and says it was never a TikTok trend.
TikTok is testing a new ability that would allow livestreamers to restrict their stream to viewers who are 18+. The company said it’s testing this feature with select users by offering an option to toggle a “mature themes” button that would restrict their TikTok LIVE’s to adults only.
Meta is moving forward with its digital collectibles plan that will allow creators to generate revenue from NFTs, despite the crypto crash, reports FT.
Twitter begins testing “CoTweets,” a feature that allows two users to co-author tweets — a feature that makes it possible for influencers and brands to post tweets together for brand partnership deals, among other use cases.
Elon Musk may be still trying to get out of the Twitter deal, The Washington Post claims (see above). The Telsa and SpaceX exec is reportedly concerned about the number of bots on the service, but he’s likely more worried now about how much he’s overpaid for the social media company. Nevertheless, the ink is dry on the deal and will cost Musk $1 billion if he backs out. Twitter, meanwhile, told reporters it removes 1 million+ spam accounts per day and those accounts are well less than 5% of total users. It also confirmed layoffs of 30% of its talent acquisition team.
An Israel-based startup called Notch is offering creators “Instagram account insurance,” which will pay out a stipend if their accounts get hacked causing them to lose access. The startup will also help them regain control of their page, it says.
Dating
Tinder rolled out several in-app initiatives in the U.S. that allow users to take a stand against the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Users can now include “Pro-Choice” as an interest on their profiles, and the app features an in-app promotion that supports the abortion rights campaign from Bansoff.org. The company is also donating in-app promotional space to Kansas Constitutional Freedom (KCF), a bipartisan coalition of reproductive rights advocates and allied organizations dedicated to protecting access to safe and legal abortions. The court’s decision could have an impact on the use of dating apps for casual dating in the U.S., which could impact Tinder’s business.
Messaging
Messaging app Signal introduced a new thread view on Android, which allows users to see replies to messages bundled in a single place, similar to Slack.

Planning your pizza order for movie night but forgot how many people want pepperoni versus veggie? If you’re using Android, you can now tap the speech bubble icon next to a message to pull up all replies to that message and never lose the thread (or under-order on toppings)! pic.twitter.com/fx3ESyNm6b
— Signal (@signalapp) July 7, 2022

Streaming & Entertainment
Netflix rolled out support for spatial audio to all devices and subscribers to offer theater-like sound for its movies and shows. The support is currently available on original titles like the fourth season of “Stranger Things,” “The Adam Project,” “Red Notice,” “The Witcher,” “Locke & Key” and others. Users can find supported titles by typing in “Spatial Audio” in the search bar.
Gaming
Code found in Meta’s iPhone app for VR headsets suggests the company’s “Project Cambria” VR headset is going to be called the Meta Quest Pro, which will cost over $1,000, per Bloomberg. Mark Zuckerberg had previously teased the high-end headset in a demo video.
In an update to The Oregon Trail game on Apple Arcade, creator Gameloft added a new “Walk the Trail” feature that connects the game with Apple Health. As users walk throughout the day, their steps are counted in a virtual Oregon trail inside the app that crosses 64 locations like Fort Kearney, Fort Laramie, Fort Hall and others. A stats screen highlights the steps, locations visited and more and a trivia screen offers details about the milestones you pay.
Utilities
Apple is rolling out its improved Maps to France, Monaco and New Zealand, following tests. The regions will gain updated, more detailed maps, better navigation and other features.
Government & Policy
Twitter sued the Indian government to challenge some of its takedown orders. The government has asked Twitter to remove hundreds of accounts and tweets that had denounced government policies and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Twitter had only partially complied with the requests and is instead fighting back against many of the challenges.
In the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. House Oversight Committee issued letters on Friday to data brokers SafeGraph, Babel Street, Digital Envoy, Placer.ai and Gravy Analytics, as well as period tracking app makers Flo Health, Glow, GP International, Clue developer BioWink and Digitalchemy Ventures. The committee is asking the companies about their data collection and retention practices, noting that the collection of sensitive data could “pose serious threats to those seeking reproductive care as well as to providers of such care, not only by facilitating intrusive government surveillance, but also by putting people at risk of harassment, intimidation, and even violence.”

Congress probes period tracking apps and data brokers over abortion privacy concerns

Security & Privacy
Related to its introduction of Lockdown Mode in iOS 16, Apple also established a new category within the Apple Security Bounty program to reward researchers who find Lockdown Mode bypasses and help improve its protections. Bounties are doubled for qualifying findings in Lockdown Mode, up to a maximum of $2,000,000 — the highest maximum bounty payout in the industry. The company said it’s also making a $10 million grant, in addition to any damages awarded from its lawsuit filed against NSO Group, to support organizations that “investigate, expose, and prevent highly targeted cyberattacks, including those created by private companies developing state-sponsored mercenary spyware.”

Apple says Lockdown Mode in iOS 16 will help block government spyware attacks

Funding and M&A
Mobile marketing firm Moburst acquired digital studio Layer, which offers web, mobile and app development services. Layer, launched in 2015, has worked with clients like Nissan, Renault and others. Deal terms weren’t disclosed. The two companies had previously worked together on multiple projects and will now allow Moburst to expand its services and offer a full-stack solution.
Digital banking app YAP, based in the United Arab Emirates, raised $41 million as part of a Series A round expected to close at year-end. The company aims to expand its services into Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Ghana.
Tweets

Has anyone else noticed this in iOS 16 Beta 3? pic.twitter.com/ywiC0MsfJr
— Jack Roberts (@jacklroberts) July 6, 2022

Autocorrect comes for everyone sooner or later… pic.twitter.com/T3RsYJoGo7
— Steve Riggins (@steveriggins) July 8, 2022

I worked on iOS 7, and I can tell you for sure that none of the push toward flatness was about making things better for people. Banishing skeuomorphism was all about how the software looked, not how it worked. https://t.co/51XvDYTVHV
— Ken Kocienda (@kocienda) July 7, 2022

 
This Week in Apps: Google battles KakaoTalk, Twitter deal in jeopardy, FTC asked to investigate TikTok

Cozy houseplants and self-care: How one startup is reimagining mobile gameplay as a healing activity

Mobile well-being apps topped 1.2 billion downloads last year, while leading meditation app Calm alone pulled in $118.2 million in revenue, data from Sensor Tower indicates. That may leave some to believe the digital well-being market is essentially solved, but a new startup, Lumi Interactive, believes the opposite is true. The Melbourne-based, women-led company has identified a under-explored niche in the mobile market that involves translating offline, self-care activities into games as a means of reducing our collective stress and anxiety.
While most mobile games focus on having users compete against one another or achieve some sort of goal, the startup’s forthcoming title Kinder World’s main aim is to help users relax. It accomplishes this through short, snack-sized sessions where it asks players to care for virtual houseplants by taking care of themselves in the real world.
In the game, players are encouraged to perform simple acts of kindness — like practicing daily gratitude, for example — in order to improve their own well-being and that of the game’s wider community. The game features a variety of non-stressful activities — like watering houseplants, interacting with animal neighbors and decorating a cozy room with plants, among other things.
Image Credits: Lumi Interactive
In some ways, this recalls how many of us spent months in creative play during the height of the pandemic engaged with games like Animal Crossing, the popular Nintendo game whose pressure-free environment helped many relax and pass the time under COVID-19 lockdowns. In Animal Crossing, players designed indoor and outdoor spaces, shopped for outfits and home accessories, planted flowers and chitchatted with animal pals.
As it turns out, the pandemic played a big role in Lumi Interactive’s founding, too, the company told TechCrunch.
“In late 2020, we were a small team of three, exhausted by the pandemic and a hard year for the business,” explains Lumi Interactive co-founder and CEO Lauren Clinnick. “We decided to take two weeks to refresh ourselves with a game jam to make something totally new, and mental well-being was very much on our minds. We’d also all become closer to nature over the harsh Melbourne lockdowns and wanted to examine why houseplants had become part of a self-care routine for so many people we knew,” she says.
That gave rise to a question as to whether houseplant care could be brought into the digital world, and the team prototyped Kinder World as a result.
“It had a spark of something special after just two weeks, and the concept tested very strongly with our target audience straight away,” Clinnick says.
Both Clinnick and Lumi Interactive co-founder Christina Chen had a background in gaming before founding their new company and had known each other for nearly a decade. Clinnick first entered the games industry as a marketing consultant for games like Crossy Road, co-founded a boutique games marketing agency, then moved into direct games development. Chen, meanwhile, had a technical background that saw her working on payments at Xbox Live and later as a senior producer at PopCap in Shanghai before co-founding games publisher Surprise Attack (now known as Fellow Traveller).
The duo had bonded over their mutual love for data, underserved player communities and the new opportunities they believed were still on the horizon for mobile gaming, Clinnick says.
Image Credits: Lumi Interactive
As the team investigated the idea for a more collaborative, self-care-focused title, they discovered that many of today’s consumers weren’t finding satisfaction with mainstream well-being apps.
“When we actually interviewed users — especially Gen Z and millennial women and nonbinary folks — we found that 97% had dropped out of apps like Headspace and Calm, citing they ‘felt like work’ or became another thing for them to fail at,” says Clinnick. “Instead they often have fragmented relaxation hobbies such as gaming, houseplants, Squishmallow collecting, crafting and ASMR. These are mostly distraction activities that helped their short-term anxiety but didn’t help them build important resilience skills in the long term,” she says.
Lumi Interactive responded to this feedback by making sure their game was designed in a way where you couldn’t fail, no matter how you played. For instance, all the activities in the game are optional and the virtual houseplants will never die.
“We’ve consciously made these choices to prevent a burdened feeling for players,” says Clinnick. 
In keeping with a strategy to co-develop the game along with their community, the startup turned to TikTok to test various elements, like game design, the art style and to find out what interested their users.
Now a full-time team of 12 and growing, Lumi Interactive closed on $6.75 million in seed funding in March in a round led by a16z — which it’s officially announcing this week. Other investors include 1Up Ventures, Galileo Ventures, Eric Seufert’s Heracles Capital and Double Loop Games’ co-founder and CEO, Emily Greer.
The startup is using the funds to grow the team so it can further develop the larger concept it calls “crowd healing,” informed by Lumi Interactive’s full-time well-being researcher, Dr. Hannah Gunderman, Ph.D. The company believes the idea — which references sharing kindness with others through self-care style gameplay — could become a new gaming category.
Lumi Interactive, of course, is not the first to imagine games that aren’t goal-focused. There are games that are interactive stories or graphic novels or other indie projects, but they often still have the gamer play through the experience to come to a conclusion. Kinder World, meanwhile, would be something players come back to whenever they need to relax, which is why the company is considering a subscription offering, in addition to standard in-app purchases. It’s also exploring online-offline experiences with physical items that could unlock certain game benefits or activities. 
Kinder World is currently in alpha testing on iOS and Android and aims for a full release later in 2022.
Cozy houseplants and self-care: How one startup is reimagining mobile gameplay as a healing activity

Bumble is planning to expand further into social networking with a new communities feature

Dating platform Bumble is looking to enhance its non-dating social features with a further investment into its Bumble BFF feature, first launched in 2016. This friend-finding feature currently uses the same swiped-based mechanics to connect people looking for platonic relationships but will soon expand to include social networking groups where users can connect with one another based on topics and interests, not just via “matches.”
TechCrunch heard Bumble was venturing more into the social networking space, and Bumble recently hinted at this development during its first-quarter earnings, announced this month.
On the earnings call, the company referenced a Bumble BFF “alpha test” that had been performing well.
It described the test as offering new ways for “people to discover and get to know each other around shared joys and common struggles.” Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd added that, so far, over 40% of “active BFF users” were engaging with the new experiences being tested and the feature’s one-month retention was upward of 75%.
Bumble didn’t, however, describe the product in much detail, beyond noting it offered a “new group format” for networking.
Reached for further insights, product intelligence company Watchful had additional information. It had uncovered screenshots showing a women-focused “social groups” feature.
There were around 30 different topics available, including things like “Women in Business,” “Networking + mentoring,” “Finding fulfillment,” “Mental health,” “Working moms,” “Body positivity,” “Self care,” “Eating well,” “Grad students,” “Money management,” “Building a better world,” “Recent grads,” “Women’s empowerment,” “Mom life,” “Breakups suck,” “Single not alone,” “Workouts,” “Study hacks + motivation,” “Path to parenthood,” “Pet Parents,” “Wanderlust” and others.
Users could join the groups and create multimedia posts or reply to existing posts, similar to a threaded group chat or lightweight networking product. The topics, so far, seem to cater to a slightly broader crowd than just “young adults,” given there were groups for students as well as working moms.
Bumble confirmed to us this is the same feature that was being discussed during its earnings.
“We are currently testing new product features in our Bumble BFF community for a small number of people. We are assessing feedback from this test to help inform our final product decisions,” a Bumble spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Image Credits: Bumble screenshot via Watchful
On the call, Wolfe Herd had also suggested the new BFF feature could potentially help Bumble generate revenue further down the road.
“We are very focused on the product, building the ecosystem, the communities and really going into this new group format and testing the functionalities that we’ve been hard at work building,” Wolfe Herd said. “As we look to revenue in the future from BFF, there are really multiple pillars of opportunity — and one of them would be advertising,” she continued.
“We will be looking at baking in functionalities to be greater economy efficient or advertising ready for the future but not to expect any near-term revenue from that,” the exec had noted.
Image Credits: Bumble screenshot via Watchful
Originally, the Bumble BFF feature had been designed to help Bumble serve its growing audience of younger singles, who were often looking for new friends to hang out with, not just date. The company had explained at the time of its 2016 launch that it got the idea not only based on user feedback but also because it observed people using its dating app to make friends — particularly when they had just moved to a new city or were visiting a place for a limited time, like on vacation.
Bumble BFF also allowed the company to leverage some of the same technology it was using to create romantic matches — algorithms based on interests, for example — and put them to use for helping users forge platonic connections.
But in the years following its launch, friend-finding has spun out to become its own app category of sorts, particularly among the younger Gen Z demographic who’s more inclined to socially “hang out” online, including through live video, audio and chat-based groups. Snapchat’s platform apps are a good example of this trend in action, as is Gen Z livestreaming app Yubo. Then there was dating giant Match Group’s biggest-ever acquisition with last year’s $1.73 billion deal for Hyperconnect, a company that had been more focused on social networking than dating.
In addition, dedicated social experiences have sprung up to serve Bumble’s core demographic of young, professional women including the motherhood-focused Peanut app; leadership network for professional women, Chief; creator platform for women, Sunroom; female college influencer network 28 Row; community-focused Hey! Vina; and others.
Combined, these factors could create trouble for Bumble, particularly if younger Gen Z users are less inclined to adopt traditional swipe-based dating apps — or, when they do, it’s more to just meet new people, not partners.
Of these, Peanut seems to have more overlap with what Bumble is building — which is interesting, too, since Peanut was founded by former Badoo deputy CEO Michelle Kennedy who brought her understanding of dating app concepts to online socializing. (Today, Bumble, Inc. operates Bumble, Badoo and its latest acquisition Fruitz.) Now, Peanut’s concepts are making their way back to Bumble.
Asked for thoughts on this latest development, Kennedy said it “completely validates the market” that Peanut has been working in for many years — particularly as the current groups spotted had been women focused.
“It’s something that we’ve always believed in. We’ve always known that it’s a huge opportunity. We’ve always seen that. And for Bumble to say, ‘yeah, we agree.’ Huge! Couldn’t be happier,” she said.
Bumble has not said when it expects to launch the social features to the general public.
The company just posted a strong Q1 where it reported $211.2 million in revenue, higher than the consensus estimate of $208.3 million and a 7.2% increase in paying users in the quarter. Bumble’s forecast for its fiscal year 2022 revenue is expected to be in the range of $934-$944 million, higher than previously estimated.
Bumble is planning to expand further into social networking with a new communities feature