Threads Tests In-Chat Games As Meta Experiments With New Engagement Tools

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(RTTNews) - Meta is looking into adding games to Threads chats, starting with a basketball-themed mini-game that's currently being tested internally.

A spokesperson from Meta told TechCrunch that this feature is still in the early development phase and isn't available to the public yet.

The game was first spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, who shared screenshots of a simple basketball mechanic where users can shoot hoops by swiping their fingers. It seems like the idea is to let friends compete for high scores, much like those popular casual mobile basketball games.

If this feature gets rolled out, in-message games could give Threads an edge over competitors like X and Bluesky, which don't have chat games built in. It could also bring Threads closer to Apple's Messages, which allows multiplayer games through third-party apps like GamePigeon.

Though Meta hasn't said whether or when the feature will be launched, this experiment is part of a larger effort to boost engagement on Threads. The company has tried out similar ideas before, such as a hidden emoji game in Instagram direct messages that lets users compete for high scores.

This prototype comes as Meta keeps expanding Threads with new features, including improved Communities and disappearing posts that auto-archive after 24 hours.

Despite having around 400 million monthly users, Threads is still behind X in the U.S., where a lot more adults report using X compared to Threads, according to recent data from the Pew Research Center.