Tinder users this month will have a new, far more interactive way of finding potential love interests than simply swiping left or right.
The app rolled out an apocalyptic-themed adventure game, called Swipe Night, which allows users to dictate what happens next in the story. The user's decisions will then match them with other like-minded players.
"It's entertaining but the core of it is that it is a way to tell something about yourself … And that becomes an icebreaker," said Elie Seidman, Tinder's CEO. The game is live on the app every Sunday evening in October. "You're in it. It's immersive. It's not a story, it's your story."
Founded in 2012 in Los Angeles, Tinder is one of the earliest location-based, smartphone dating apps and popularized the swiping feature, which is now widely used by other platforms such as Bumble. The app has now logged over 30 billion matches worldwide and reports two billion app views per day.
Swipe Night is Tinder's first responsive, streaming video feature and was built to specifically target Generation Z users, which make up over 50 percent of all users.
"We know Gen Z speaks in content, so we intentionally built an experience that is native to how they interact," Ravi Mehta, Tinder's chief product officer, said in a statement. "Our hope is that it will encourage new, organic conversations based on a shared content experience."
Over 25 million people in the U.S. currently use smartphone dating apps, according to eMarketer. The number of users is expected to grow by 5.3 percent this year, which is a slowdown compared to years prior. Yet the sector did gain a major new addition last month with the highly anticipated launch of Facebook Dating.
Tinder, however, continues to dominate the sector. In August, the app's parent company, Match Group ($MTCH), reported that the platform had 5.2 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2019, which marked a 1.5 million year-over-year increase.
Match Group, which took in nearly $500 million last quarter, also owns several other top dating platforms such as OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, and Hinge.
