Clubhouse’s latest experiment is in-room games

Clubhouse has started testing an in-room gaming feature, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch, and its debut game could help users get to know each other better. The feature’s launch title called “Wild Cards” presents users a series of icebreaker questions and challenges. It could ask you to “pitch an idea for a movie in 60 seconds,” for instance, or to “share five things from your search history.” To play, you’ll have to choose the “Games” option under +Rooms. It’ll open a social room for you where you can invite friends to play. 

As TechCrunch notes, launching a feature not offered by other audio services such as Twitter Spaces could be part of Clubhouse’s efforts to get new users to stay. The audio chat app shot up in popularity in the early days of the pandemic when full lockdowns were implemented and people were looking to connect with friends and strangers in new ways. Its success led to the development and launch of other audio products by more well-known companies, including Facebook’s audio rooms, Spotify’s Greenroom (that’s been rebranded as Spotify Live) and Amazon’s Amp. 

Clubhouse’s popularity and download numbers took a hit when those rival services emerged, especially after pandemic restrictions started lifting. A lot of users chose to move to more established social networks offering similar audio services, because they already have an existing network on those platforms. Still, Clubhouse told The New York Times back in December that it’s still growing and that the company is confident it’s not just a pandemic fad. Over the past few months, the service has released a handful of new and experimental features in an effort to get users to stay. One of them is the chat function in voice rooms for those who’d rather text, and the other is support for web listening in the US.