Tinder steps back from metaverse dating plans as business falters

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Despite a disappointing set of earnings for the last quarter, Match Group has decided to scale back the ambitions of its dating app. The CEO of Match Group, Bernard Kim, announced that the first female CEO of the dating app is leaving. Two months ago, Kim was named CEO.

The plans for a take on the metaverse were set out by the woman. The acquisition of Hyperconnect, a company that focuses on video, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality technology, was cited as a way in which Tinder might one day be able to meet and interact with one another in virtual space.

Kim told Hyperconnect to scale back. Kim told the Hyperconnect team to not invest a lot in metaverse at the moment because of uncertainty about the final shape of the metaverse. When we have more clarity on the overall opportunity and feel we have a service that is well-positioned to succeed, we will consider moving forward.

Match Group stated that the acquisition of Hyperconnect contributed to a $10 million operating loss in the second quarter of 2022.

The in-app currency that was supposed to encourage more spending on the service was bad news. Coins would be distributed 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. Premium features such as Super Likes would be paid for by them. The feature was soft launched in a few markets around the world.

Kim said the company is rethinking its plans. He wrote in the earnings release that they decided to take a step back and re-examine the initiative after seeing mixed results. The feature was supposed to be rolled out in the third quarter.

Although revenue was up overall, CNBC reports that Match Group's earnings fell short of analyst expectations for the quarter, and that it expects little to no growth in earnings for the third quarter of the year. Last year it saw a surge in activity on its services due to the vaccine roll out, but this year it is not. The report caused shares to fall in the extended trading on Tuesday.