📰​ NYT Games Wordle & Crossword: The most PREMIUM audience in gaming

So, if we apply the same logic to the NYT [clears throat] Games app, which I did
obviously,
uh you can basically see here that five interstitials per day on the user base with just uh yeah, the NYT times ones. It's pretty much $400,000 in
4 a.m. We're rolling the dice. My day [music] drops knowledge made of golden eyes. Felix with ads making those coins rise. Jack up designs worlds chasing the sky with a two and [music] a half gamers. The midnight crew talking UA advers and game design too. Mate feeling [music] shak bringing the insight. We're rocking those vibes till the early day master eyes on the prize. Tracking data through the cyerspace skies. Feeling stacks like a wizard [music] in disguise. Jack lift us to the high. Two and a half gamers talking smack. Slow hockey stick got your back. Ads are beautiful. They light the way. Click it fast. Don't delay. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. [music] Uh-huh. [music] Going to be really interesting. When was the last time we reviewed a game that has the DAU of the entire population of the country I'm from? Cuz this is huge.
Huge and huge. Not making that much money as they should. I'm guessing
maybe
maybe not. Is this the the Cinderella story or the the
No, we'll touch on the Cinderella story when we're talking about this, but it's not that word also. We'll definitely touch the Cinderella Steven Carvalta story at some point here. But today we are reviewing NT Games, one of the largest DAU games in the world.
And it's kind of been on our list for quite a while, but we haven't really gotten to it until today.

I mean, it wasn't really on our list. Come on, man.
I mean, it's been on my list. I mean, you see the DU, right? It's like for me it's just like it's it had has ads but it's kind of what a newspaper editor would want ads to be.
Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
And then like you come from the gaming thing and you see this big DAU and you're like
Exactly.
Okay.
Right. I guess it's part of a bigger strategy. But yeah,
cool.
Yeah.
Such premium traffic as well. Should we start with the numbers here and then we can go to the app instead just to show
what we should start with. We should start with my name is Manger.
I'm Felix Braberg.
I'm Yakob Premier.
Righties.
And we are your hosts. And as you might have noticed, we're talking about Wordle. And what's
No, we're talking about NYT Games.
NT Games talking and crossword.
It's called NYT Games. Wordle and crossword. So, so

let's start with the numbers.
Okay.
Why are we talking about this in the first place? Yep. Because this is I don't want to say a game or an app, but this is an app.
Is it a plane?
Yeah, something like that. So, if we go here, we can see that. Yeah, this kind of blow up lately. And you know what? Why? Because they called Ritzky because this episode is brought to you by PVX Partners, the simplest and most effective credit line for marketing. So if you want to scale your game like this one, you call PVX partners cuz uh there's no equity dilution. You can re repay as you get paid and you can get term sheet in just 24 hours and funding in 30 days. Visit PVX partners.com and take control of your budget. So pvxpartners.com and scale your game like nytame.

All right. So, show me the active user base growth here, cuz this is actually insane. What is that now? We're pretty much up to what? 9 what?
We can't even see it cuz 8.5 million DU and pressed countries. This is the premium the most premium DU I've ever seen.
Like, it's just US and tier one Europe. Like, it's just like this is what you want. This is what you want for ads. This is this is right there, baby. the New York
doesn't get much better.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah,
but look at the active user base in the States. It's just huge.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah,
like I guess one of the biggest US DAUs there is, isn't it?
Yeah, pretty much.
I wonder what would happen if they call Fast Spring with that US with that US traffic. I don't know. Maybe if you go to fastpring.gg GG and start the web store. You can get even more money out of this audience.

Fastp.gg. Go to fastping.
So, what do we have here?
You need to go to games because it's game. You need to play games. You're not going to compete with like Google.
Okay.
Duh.
Okay. So, it's it's
third largest.
Yeah. After Discord and Roblox. This is US only. Keep giving a US only game.
Yeah. Do you have the the game is nearly there right behind it?
Yeah.
Okay. So, what we have giant DAU that was just propped up
now. What I mean you can you can go play something.
Show the app.
We can show the app. There it is. Miss missed. Click.
It was quick. Okay. Thank you.
Goodbye. So, this is the app. Good evening. play with no pregame ads and access over 10,000 puzzles in their archives. Subscribe to games. So, this is a subscription app to begin with. Just saying that in the first place.
Ah, no. It it's used to bundle the NYT

subscription for the newspaper, right? So, it's like I guess they look at games.
Yeah. It's like they look at games I guess like a harpoon, like the front of a spear, right? So, if you like the games, that's actually in the New York Times newspaper, then you can actually play them on mobile, too. And then you can either have one subscription that's for the newspaper and the games or only one for only the games. And I think it starts at like $3 a month or something like that. But it's used to get people [clears throat] to their newspaper subscription. So, as I read it in some kind of let's say evolution of this whole thing. So this app launched actually on iOS in 2009 as as like like the beginning of this thing even though it's not in the charts there. So by 2009 it was giving the access to daily puzzle plus 4,000 of archive puzzles because the crossword began in New York Times in 1942 just saying and became daily in 1950s.

So yeah,
as all as the games themselves,
something like that. Then we have this uh launching on the stores 2009. Then we have uh as I said a little bit of time.
You mean this? I'm looking at subscribe for unlimited play.
Yeah. Yeah. Like games. So the mini launches and effectively marks the start of modern New York Times games era in 2014. Then we have 2015 spelling B debut debut in the print and goes digital in 2018 which is this thing.
Yes,
which I cannot even play now because I'll show you why [laughter] in a second because I I went cheat. So that's there. It's one of the mini games here. And letter boxes arrive tiles and vertex follow in 2019. Then in 2022, New York Times acquires Wordle for a price in the low seven figures and then moves it into New York Times platforms and later in

the app. 23. The app is renamed from New York Time crosswords to New York time games. Connection launches and click becomes the second most played New York time games after Wordle. Connections if I understand is this one which I really like by the way. This is this is like in my opinion one of the best games they have there in the platform where you have these like words
and you need to find associations between four words, click them and submit them and only then the system tells you it's okay or not and you either make a mistake or not. So it's like pretty pretty good game honestly. So that's there and then uh Tiles and Sudoku are added to the app also in 2023
obviously.
Yeah, of course. Then 2024 the games app gets a major redesign to function more clearly as a portfolio hub moves from beta into official app strands is this which is basically if I understand some kind of a cross word setup so that's there and then in 2025

pips crossplay and medi expand the portfolio and show New York time is still actively experimenting with formats including standalone multiplayer. So pips are this which is basically domino if yeah there's an advertisement which I don't get I guess because I will tell you later.
The advertisement is pretty much like a big banner advertisement right which basically tells us a couple of things uh which we can talk about when you're done.
Yeah. So this is this is the game uh the pips that you kind of you just need to like this basically a puzzle like it's similar to bordle. So that's there and then as I said cross D that's 2026. So we see here in the charts that yeah the year 2024 really is the one when this whole thing kind of took off completely and didn't like yeah they they like doing sorry this is only this is only
it's all

it's all iOS no it's only adica
multi- unified yeah here so start doing like 1.3 million downloads a month and then goes all the way to like 600k downloads a month. If we go daily, this is doing like what 20k downloads a day. And uh yeah, 100 200 pretty much K a day now. I guess most most like what like it's there's no microtransactions if I understand correctly. So it's all subscriptions if I if I get that.
Subscriptions. Yeah, it's all subscriptions.
All all subscriptions. Yeah. Yeah. So it it's growing.
So yeah,
that's good. So for me here, right, like I can see the conversation you'd have with New York Times, right? Because it's probably like this whole thing where they have a pedigree, right, of these games. So putting ads in and actually monetizing this like you would a standalone mobile game where probably you would earn a lot more money, which I actually calculated.

Uh but I don't think you're allowed to have those conversations, right? Because it's such a big way to get users for the New York Times, right? There's literally this thing written on the internet uh where this interview with Jonathan Knight the New York Times games chief where he said that the news can be kind of lumpy because the app is built around the simple media insight news is an eventdriven and uneven games are repeatable daily rituals. So that that's is what they're pretty much doing here that even though
this is a retention mechanic as well.
Yeah, exactly. Like this whole thing is basically retention mechanic to prop up the newspaper again. Yeah. Accidentally making six mil a month.
Yeah. Accidentally
in a subscription.
Exactly. But again, they had this thing all the way from the 50s with this daily puzzle thing. It's just like now it's on steroids pretty much
because lots of on mobile, not on steroids.
Yeah. There we go. Because still the structure of this is the same as it was in the 50s because you see here every single day there's one new puzzle and

that's it. And there's not like a saga level or progression level. What you can do, of course, if you subscribe, you can get all those previous days and like go into the previous days and play the archived ones, but it's still within the same template as was the one in 1950s where every single day there's a new one and it's the same for everybody. That's why we can talk about it and everybody kind of like I even look up like PC gamer or whatever and today's word answer is this and everybody wants to check that out. So, it's again recurring daily ritual. So that's there to the speeding B thing which just brought me here. This is this is kind of interesting. So you can go here and you can actually play all these games in browser already also like you just go to New York Times com and there's like crosswords whatever there's spelling B. Spelling B is this kind of a thing where you have this kind of hexagon the beston and you need to make words and stuff. So you do stuff like I don't know glue

great and then you like continue like fudge and so on so forth. So you like make more and everything. And I was playing it on the device here and I was like like let's let's let's move this up a notch. So there's this uh spelling be literally like word tips where you just insert a matrix and gives you all the words cuz like why not? I was just testing it
and this is minmaxing this game as well.
Of course.
But otherwise I wouldn't be able to know it because what it does and this is the interesting part. So when you actually pull pull in like seven or or six words or whatever, it locks it down and doesn't let you even finish because that's their monetization point. Like you want to continue playing, here's a subscription. So that they that's what they have there. And I'm guessing that if I go here into connections and if I actually make the third row, it also won't let me finish the last row and goes locks itself down into subscription. That's that's my guess. So

again, this is this is how it works because again we can do what an example. Yeah, see this this was a mistake. So if I get what happens if I go into fail state next time. Okay. Results. [snorts] Okay. The crazy thing here, right, is that it's used to basically get subscriptions, right? But what they also do is before you start a game, they actually show a large banner, right?
So my estimates here is that I think New York Times, like the gaming app here, right?
Exactly there, earns probably about like 15 to 20k a day from showing banners, right? So, let me just get the screen here for a minute. So,
now's the time to show how much money is being left on the table.
Here is here is a app ad txt file from Crazy Labs. From Crazy Labs, right? This

is what a studio that probably earns, you know, two to 400,000 a day in ads looks like, right? Interstitials, banners, and like you see here, right? Their DAU is a fraction of the DAOU of the NYT ones. Let me show you the adaps TX txt file of New York Times. Here you go.
So, what this actually tells us
exactly. So, what this actually tells us, it tells us a bunch of things, right? It tells you that first of all, a New York Times doesn't mediate with Level Play, Max, or ADM Mob. They actually probably have their own, which is most likely also what they use for the online newspaper. And then also what they do here is they're only working with pretty much static banner inventory. So they're probably monetizing on GAM, right? So the interesting thing is we have a app here. We go here. The funny thing is, right?

So if we play around with it, right? And if you want to say like, oh, what could the game look like if you actually monetize in NT games actually like a mobile game, you actually don't need to look quite far because it's actually happened. And this is that Cinderella story that we talked about, right? I think we talked about this on the first year when we did the podcast,
but it's like one of these dream stories where it's like we don't hear too much about it and it's like the hero of that story is a guy called Steven Carvata
who made in university just this terrible game called Wordle. But the fact that it was called Wordle and he put it up on the store before the NYT games actually bought Wordle.
Yeah.
So he can legally use it. So what happened was that he sold that game. I think the whisper number on this little birdie told me I think was something like 14 or 15 million to apploven who then basically overhauled it in line studios and now it's part of triple dot right and this like game right now like word that's

made by triple dot it makes quite a lot of money right it has about active user base of about like 700,000 and less than according to my yeah according to my estimates
hurdle uh if you put in the normal standard metrics pretty much makes 91 to $95,000 a day and pretty much majority of that is ad revenue right so if we apply the same logic to the NYT games app which I did
obviously
uh you can basically see here that from interstitials alone
you're showing daily active users so if you're
no I'm not I'm not showing I'm talking about it, right? But yeah,
if you're actually putting in five interstitials per day on the user base with just uh yeah, the NYT times ones, it's pretty much $400,000 in [laughter] ad revenue. So, if you replace this banner that they have,

which is probably imp, you would go from earning 15K a day to 400,000 a day. Yeah, that's it. You can see that even if you had a conversation with someone who's in charge, they'd be like, "No, we're not doing that." Oh,
of course. What do you mean? No, it's interstitial versus banner. It's the same [ __ ] thing.
I know, but like people like this don't think like that cuz it doesn't have the premium vibe. So, like if we go back to the adups txt file
Yeah. like what this says.
We're talking about it's the same placement.
Yeah, I know. I I agree with you, but like what this says, this is like the most premium of premium you can get pretty much from demand and it's not that much, right? But like you can see that they would never put an interstitial in. But the fact is that they could be earning 400k a day instead of 15k a day for me is just mindboggling.

I would [ __ ] I would smuggle this interstitial in the code just once and just re rewire that to my own bank account.
Yeah, exactly.
So, we ended as usual like better call Felix New York time.
This is like the thing is like it's not impossible to see how Yeah, this game they could make. What is that? What is 401k times 30? What is that per month? Does anyone have a calculator? Yeah. 12 mil, right? So, times Yeah. 12. That's That's a lot of money, right? Uh close to what? 140 mil a year.
Now, they're making six mil a month for from
sub. Yeah.
So, [snorts] I mean,
yeah.
Yeah. Not bad.
And it's just painful to see, right? It's just Yeah.
And not even talking about like any like rewarded videos or
Yeah. No, it's only justials. I'm just replacing that when you start a game with interstitials instead. And which is not a big jump, right? Cuz it's 5

seconds versus you can skip it in 1 second, right? So it's like,
oh yeah, fair enough.
And you can still do remove all the let's say advertise that you don't want to see there like ads and sexy stuff and and [ __ ] So I mean whatever. Who am I to judge?
Are they doing any UA? [laughter]
Yeah, let's let's finish the UA part. Let's do I was like this is going to be very quick because they don't have any UA but they do. It's an amazing 36 in the lottery.
What is this old lady holding a card with her
with new creatives is 10. So let's just
What is this lady holding a card?
Yeah, it's Tracy.
So she makes editor
and she's real.
Yeah, it's she's real. She's real. She's the the world editor. She she just said it. Sully. Oh, I I thought salty. Salty would be better. It's one and one minute 30 second long video.

So, this is basically Ben [clears throat] Bro style ads.
Yes, exactly.
Like literally to the to the last point.
So, they pretty much interview their own employees and then it
I mean
this will work.
Tip senior puzzle editor. Good. Thank you very much. Tip number one. Hello connections. Connections rider. Of course, it's me.
Those are basically level designers. Honestly,
the whole Yeah, the whole team.
You can call yourself How do you work?
Those are level designers.
It's Tracy.
It's Tracy and uh her notebook workbook. Sorry, not trans workbook.
Old school stuff. But I mean, this kind of nice. Let's see how this
You need to keep in mind these guys are making it from the 50s.
Yeah. I mean, not these ones, but maybe her.
Do you think anyone's told them that they could be earning like 400k a day if they switch out one ad unit, or do you

think they just kind of
I think nobody Yeah, because they they would then count the numbers and and figure out that it would be making more than the whole New York Times is doing. [laughter]
What is their revenue?
You know what? And you know like this is the the first piece of the puzzle Felix because then if they actually realize like they can make more money they will put a [ __ ] proper ad ad mediation which is max and then suddenly you can combine the subscriptions and the ads and then do blended campaigns day 28 and then you're not making 400k per day but you're making 4 million per day with this with these ads.
Total New York revenue in 2025 rose to 1.9 billion with digital only subscription 1. They make half a billion on nondigital subscription like the actual papers.
Yeah. But you you know what what we're

saying. I mean of course like it's it's it's very
this would be guys this would be 150 mil which is like nothing to them if they're making half a billion on paper. Sure. Does it mean does it mean like that you don't really need to try to make more?
Uh, you don't because you would lose integrity which would lose [ __ ] ton of subscription. So you don't try ever. Never.
Imagine trying to like tell Tracy that you need to put in just before the her word thing.
Tracy would kill me. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Or just run applian with playable with playables. But like like Tracy, you know what? You could actually take that workbook and turn it into a playable. They said I couldn't make ads [music] without the dev team. They said I couldn't understand the tech. Guess what? I just made a fully [music] working gorgeous top to play while eating noodles [music] and watching trash TV and taking care of my daughter. All thanks to playable makeup.

No code, no stress, [music] no cheat. That would be a great
still even with assuming 400k a day for the whole year. This is what 150 mil which is nothing compared to the overall subscription revenue.
But that's only if you just replace banners right [laughter]
if you want to make it more ads infested of course you can maybe drive 60 600k.
No no no no no no no. It doesn't really say anything about UA because UA here is nonfucking existent. It's it's 30 30 creatives which is half of it is Tracy then is this guy Joel and then
man just just think about it how much UA value they are actually getting from the New York Times brand like the newspapers lying on the street.
I know yes

for sure. Does that mean that you don't really run anything else than just these like 30 Instagram ads? Seriously, like why the even this whole thing is a pet project.
You know what I think it is? You know what I think it is running this? Like why why you think it is? You know what I think it is? Like they are old school media, right? Legacy media which has been displaced by pretty much Facebook and the likes, right? I think they hate giving ad money to these platforms and I think that's it. Yeah, that's why you run 30 30 cities on on Instagram. Sure, that makes all the sense. Come on, man. I mean,
you know that people in this newspaper win like Pulit surprises and [ __ ]
Have they not heard of a PGC game award? [laughter]
Ah, yeah. Snapchat.
Let's end it here, guys.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's end it here, guys. I mean I mean we would never see these guys running proper ads or proper UA
or proper monetization
or proper.
Yeah, cuz it works, right? It's got a

massive DAU and you know still making decent money, but it's just that like you know Tracy makes like I don't know how much like what 7 million a month with this thing.
Tracy not I mean like
definitely not the the team there that that's like running this. I'm guessing like their whole P&L is perfect like for this project. Yeah, that's there.
Sure. I mean, okay, fair enough. Yeah.
Now, especially now that they can they can probably prove it because they separated it um against the subscription of the normal newspaper. So, that's there.
Anyway, it's interesting. Here we go.
Yeah, very interesting project. Very interesting setup. Good to know, good to improve if you know what you're doing. And yeah, let's see what happens with the third biggest USDAU app on the stores in the games category. Yeah. Well, thank you very much guys for for listening and and watching and hopefully playing Wordle at the same time. And see you next time. Join the Slack channel and share your opinions in the comment

section as usual. Bye-bye.