POPULAR app Houseparty will be shutting down, it has been confirmed.
As of October 2021, the socializing platform that was popularized during the pandemic will be shut down. Here’s the latest.
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Why is Houseparty shutting down?
Epic Games said the app was being removed in order for the company to focus on the “metaverse”.
They confirmed that the existing Houseparty technology will be integrated into Epic Games to create “new ways to have meaningful and authentic social interactions at metaverse scale across the Epic Games family”.
A statement read: “Since joining Epic, the Houseparty team’s social vision and core technology have already contributed to new features used by hundreds of millions of people in ‘Fortnite’ and by developers around the world.
“As a result, we can’t give the app or our community the attention that it deserves.”
The app will still be available for use until October, at which point it will be removed completely from the app store.
In-app notifications will notify users about the shutdown.
What was Houseparty?
Houseparty was launched in 2015. It allowed users to join group video chats with their friends and play popular games such as Uno, trivia, and Heads Up.
It was founded to become a visualized, face-to-face social network to mimic the feeling of dropping by a friend’s home or dormitory room.
It rose in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic – attracting users that were both young and old – as people were stuck in their homes.
The app was downloaded 19.8 million times in April 2020.
The same year, Epic Games also integrated their Houseparty technology with Fortnite – which allowed users to see live feeds from friends and family while gaming.
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Who is Houseparty owned by?
Epic Games is the owner of Houseparty. Epic Games are best known for their popular, free-to-play online game Fortnite.
According to Forbes, their founder Tim Sweeney, is worth an estimated $7.4billion dollars having also made his living through the firm’s previous games such as Gears of War.
In 2018, the company announced that Fortnite was attracting record market sales, raking in a huge £222m in just one month with a user base of almost five million players.
The same year they declared that the game would become one of the biggest eSports game byputting up £74m in prize moneyfor players to win in the first year-long competitive season.