The New York Times has the most paying subscribers of any English-language publisher, boasting some 9.6 million people buying access.
But they’re not all there for the Gray Lady’s reporting: more than a tenth of those subscribers are paying for access to the Times’ games offering – with no news included.
On this week’s podcast The New York Times’ head of games, Jonathan Knight, tells Press Gazette the publisher’s investment in games creates a valuable funnel for bringing in subscribers (and keeping existing ones around). Read the full interview here.
But it’s more complicated than sticking a sudoku on the website – the NYT has editors exclusively assigned to curating its game offering, and the publication puts great effort into keeping its community socially engaged with the puzzles.
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Listen to hear more on The New York Times’ gaming strategy, who it sees as its rivals and why there’s a commercial logic to investing in crossword writers from more diverse backgrounds.
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