675. Has the New York Times Become a Games Company?
with Eric Zimmerman and Alex Hardiman
15 May 202628 min read47m
TL;DR
The New York Times, once dismissive of games as frivolous, now publishes over 11 billion puzzle plays annually and uses games as a gateway to its subscription business—proving that games are becoming a dominant cultural form comparable to film and television in the 20th century. Game design is fundamentally about creating systems and meaning for players, and major media institutions are recognizing games as essential to building direct subscriber relationships in the digital age.
Key Moments
Bernard Suits (quoted by Stephen Dubner)
“the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles”
Stephen Dubner introduces the 1978 philosophical definition of game playing that frames the entire episode's exploration of why games matter
“really game designers make rules. So, if you think about a board game, what does a game designer do? It's not about the illustrations on the cards, it's about the structure of the experience.”
Zimmerman explains what game design actually is, pushing back against common misconceptions that it involves programming or visual design
“You can get deeply engaged in backgammon and there's nothing illusionistic about it. You're not entering into a 3D world when you play backgammon. The space is a social space. It's a cognitive space. It's a psychological space. It's a strategic space.”
Zimmerman corrects the misconception that immersion in games requires realistic 3D graphics, emphasizing instead the abstract systems and social dynamics at play
The New York Times (1924 editorial, quoted by Stephen Dubner)
“Scarcely recovered from the form of temporary madness that made so many people pay enormous prices for mahjongg sets, the same persons now are committing the same sinful waste in the utterly futile finding of words, the letters of which will fit into a prearranged pattern.”
Historical contrast showing The Times once viewed crossword puzzles as frivolous waste, establishing how dramatically the institution's stance on games has shifted
“This is where games becomes really interesting because you might come in for Wordle or the mini crossword, and then you might find yourself watching last night's video highlights from the Knicks game. You might find yourself really immersing yourself in live coverage of the Artemis 2 lunar flyby, which is just this wondrous piece of reporting from our science desk.”
Hardiman explains how games serve as a gateway to drive subscribers into The Times' broader journalism ecosystem without manipulation or gimmicks
Eric Zimmerman is a game designer and professor at NYU's Game Center who has created dozens of games including Diner Dash and co-authored the influential textbook Rules of Play. Alex Hardiman is Chief Product Officer at The New York Times, where she has led the digital transformation that turned the institution from a print-first, ad-first business into a subscription powerhouse with nearly 13 million subscribers. Together they discuss how The New York Times has become one of the world's biggest game publishers and what that means for the future of media.
Takeaways
1
Games as gateway drugs to subscriptions The New York Times discovered that games like Wordle function as acquisition tools that draw casual players into the subscription experience, where they're exposed to high-quality journalism across sports, science, and news. This is a deliberate strategy to convert game players into paying subscribers without using exploitative engagement tactics. The games are designed to add genuine value rather than extract time and money.
2
Newspapers faced monopoly disruption that forced innovation Craigslist destroyed classified advertising revenue; Google and social media fragmented audience discovery. Rather than compete on traffic through search and social, The Times pivoted to a subscription-first, destination strategy in 2015, using high-quality journalism, food coverage, and games as reasons to pay. This pivot succeeded because it reversed the unbundling strategy that most news organizations had adopted, creating a bundle of content worth paying for.
3
Games aren't designed to exploit, they're designed to respect The New York Times explicitly avoids the mobile game industry's playbook of extracting maximum time and money through addiction mechanics, variable rewards, and dark patterns. Instead, their games are transparent about mechanics, designed to end naturally, and crafted to provide joy without hidden monetization. This approach reflects a brand commitment to making people 'more thoughtful every single day' rather than more addicted.
4
Media is shifting from consumption to systems The 20th century was dominated by passive consumption of linear media (film and television), but the 21st century (the 'ludic century') is characterized by interactive engagement with rule-based systems. Wikipedia replaced encyclopedias as the model for information; games and interactive experiences are replacing passive viewing as the dominant cultural form. This shift parallels how digital technology has made all major human activities—work, finance, socializing—dependent on navigating complex digital systems.
5
The Times' games generate 11.2 billion plays annually The New York Times' game portfolio, launched as a serious product line only in recent years, now generates 11.2 billion puzzle plays per year across crosswords, Wordle, Spelling Bee, Letter Boxed, and others. This scale rivals or exceeds engagement metrics for traditional journalism and demonstrates that games are not a marginal feature but a central pillar of the Times' growth strategy toward 15 million subscribers by 2027.
6
Game design is rules architecture, not aesthetics Game designers fundamentally create rule systems and structures of experience, not visual or programming elements. The meaning and engagement in games emerges from how rules interact with player decision-making, not from realistic graphics or narrative cinematics. This distinction matters because it means non-digital games like chess, backgammon, and crosswords can be as immersive and engaging as AAA video games.
7
Games create social and psychological space Engagement in games is not about immersion in realistic environments but about entering a shared cognitive and social space where players voluntarily adopt arbitrary rules. This allows people to become 'different versions of themselves' and express aspects of personality that wouldn't emerge in non-game contexts. The meaning of a game emerges from play itself, analogous to how the rules of grammar constrain but don't determine what Shakespeare could express.