Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Amidst a disappointing set of earnings for the last quarter, Match Group has announced itโs scaling back Tinderโs metaverse dating ambitions and scrapping plans to offer an in-app Tinder Coins currency. Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg, who became the dating appโs first female CEO just last September, is also leaving the position, parent company Match Groupโs CEO Bernard Kim announced. Kim himself was named as CEO just two months ago.
Nyborg previously set out ambitious plans for Tinderโs take on the metaverse (or โTinderverseโ as she called it). Tinder acquired a company called Hyperconnect last year, which focuses on video, AI, and augmented reality technology, and Nyborg later cited its avatar-based โSingle Townโ experience as a way Tinderโs users might one day be able to meet and interact with one another in virtual spaces, TechCrunch reported at the time.
Now, however, Kim says heโs instructed Hyperconnect to scale back. โGiven uncertainty about the ultimate contours of the metaverse and what will or wonโt work, as well as the more challenging operating environment, Iโve instructed the Hyperconnect team to iterate but not invest heavily in metaverse at this time,โ Kim said. โWeโll continue to evaluate this space carefully, and we will consider moving forward at the appropriate time when we have more clarity on the overall opportunity and feel we have a service that is well-positioned to succeed.โ
Match Group cited the acquisition of Hyperconnect as contributing to a $10 million operating loss in the second quarter of 2022, down from operating income of $210 million in the same quarter last year.
There was also bad news for Tinder Coins, the in-app currency that Tinder had hoped would encourage more spending on the service. The idea was that Tinder would distribute coins as a reward for users being active on the service and keeping their profiles up to date, but would also allow them to be purchased directly. They would then be accepted as payment for premium Tinder features like Super Likes. As of February this year, the feature had been soft-launched in a handful of markets around the world.
But now, Kim says the company is re-evaluating its Tinder Coins plans. โAfter seeing mixed results from testing Tinder Coins, weโve decided to take a step back and re-examine that initiative so that it can more effectively contribute to Tinderโs revenue,โ he wrote in the earnings release. The company previously said it wanted to roll the feature out broadly in the third quarter of this year.
Although revenue was up overall, CNBC reports that Match Groupโs earnings fell short of analyst expectations for the quarter ($795 million versus estimates of $804 million), and that its forecast little to no growth in earnings for the third quarter of the year. It says it saw a surge in activity on its services last year due to the vaccine rollout, but that โwe are not seeing a similar surge of activity in 2022.โ CNBC notes that shares fell 22 percent in extended trading on Tuesday following the report.