Timing is everything in tech. If you’re asking when did Houseparty come out, you’re probably either nostalgic for those chaotic 2020 lockdowns or you’re a developer trying to figure out how a billion-dollar app just... evaporated. Most people think it was a pandemic-era fluke. It wasn't. The app actually had a whole life before the world stayed home.
The Long Road to 2016
Houseparty didn't just appear out of thin air when the world went into isolation. It officially launched in February 2016.
But the backstory is messier than that. The team behind it, Life on Air, Inc., had already tried to capture lightning in a bottle with Meerkat. Remember Meerkat? It was the "it" app at SXSW in 2015 for live streaming. Then Twitter bought Periscope and basically throttled Meerkat into extinction. It was brutal.
Instead of folding, Sima Sistani and Ben Rubin pivoted. They realized that broadcasting to an audience was stressful. People didn't want to be "on" all the time; they wanted to hang out. They built Houseparty in stealth, under a pseudonym on the App Store, just to see if it would stick. By the time they officially announced themselves in late 2016, they already had a million users. It was a classic "phoenix from the ashes" moment in Silicon Valley.
Honestly, the brilliance of Houseparty was its simplicity. You’d open the app, and your "room" was open. Friends got a notification that you were "in the house." No scheduling. No formal invites. No Zoom links that felt like a Monday morning marketing sync. It was digital loitering.
The Epic Games Era and the 2020 Surge
Fast forward to 2019. Epic Games, the massive powerhouse behind Fortnite, saw something special in the app's social graph. They bought Houseparty for an undisclosed sum in June 2019. This was a strategic play. Epic wanted to turn Fortnite from a game into a social square, and Houseparty provided the face-to-face video tech to make that happen.
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Then, March 2020 hit.
The growth was vertical. Absolute insanity. In a single month, Houseparty saw 50 million sign-ups. It became the digital equivalent of a dive bar where everyone you knew was suddenly crammed into the same corner. We were all playing "Heads Up!" and "Quick Draw" while sipping lukewarm coffee in our pajamas. For a brief window, it was the most important app on your phone.
But fame brings heat.
The Great Security Scare
Remember the "hack"? In late March 2020, rumors exploded on Twitter that Houseparty was a gateway for hackers to get into Netflix and Spotify accounts. People were terrified. They were deleting the app in droves.
It turned out to be a total nothing-burger.
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Epic Games investigated and found no evidence of a breach. They were so confident it was a smear campaign that they offered a $1 million bounty for proof of a coordinated effort to damage their reputation. Nobody ever claimed that bounty. The damage, however, was done. Even when you're technically right, the "vibe" can kill a social platform. Users are fickle. Once they associate your logo with a security scare, it's hard to get that trust back.
Why Did It Shut Down?
If it was so popular, why can't you download it today? Epic Games officially pulled the plug in October 2021.
It seems weird, right? Having tens of millions of users and just saying "nah, we're good." But the reality was that Epic didn't want to run a social network. They wanted the technology. They integrated the video chat features directly into Fortnite, creating a "social presence" layer that didn't require a separate app.
The standalone Houseparty app was expensive to maintain. Moderating live video is a nightmare. It requires thousands of people and sophisticated AI to ensure things stay "PG," and for a company focused on the Metaverse and gaming, a standalone chat app was a distraction. They moved the Houseparty team to work on "social experiences" across the Epic ecosystem.
Essentially, Houseparty died so that the Metaverse could walk.
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The Technical Legacy
Looking back, the app's impact on UX was massive. Before Houseparty, video calling was a "task." You called your grandma. You joined a meeting. Houseparty introduced "presence-based" networking.
It wasn't about the call; it was about the availability.
We see this now in how Discord operates with its "voice channels" where you can just sit and wait for people to drop in. We see it in the "Huddles" feature in Slack. The idea that you don't need a calendar invite to talk to someone is the lasting legacy of what Sistani and Rubin built.
Key Dates to Remember:
- February 2016: The secret launch under a fake developer name.
- September 2016: The official "coming out" party.
- June 2019: The Epic Games acquisition.
- March 2020: The 50-million-user month.
- October 2021: The app is removed from stores and servers are shut down.
What to Do If You Miss It
If you’re looking for that same "drop-in" feel today, you have a few options, though nothing feels quite like the original.
- Discord: It’s the closest spiritual successor. Set up a private server, hop into a voice channel, and turn on your camera. It has that same "I'm here if you want to hang" energy.
- BeReal: While not video-focused, it captures that "unfiltered" look at friends' lives that Houseparty thrived on.
- Facetime Link: You can now send a persistent Facetime link to a group, which acts as a semi-permanent room, though it still feels a bit more formal.
The era of Houseparty was a specific response to a specific moment in time. It solved the loneliness of 2016's fragmented social media and the literal isolation of 2020. While the app is gone, the way it changed our expectations for digital intimacy is here to stay.
If you're building a community or just trying to stay connected, the lesson is clear: remove the friction. The less clicking someone has to do to see a friendly face, the more likely they are to show up. Stop scheduling every catch-up. Sometimes, just leaving the door open is enough.