The Scoop
The New York Times is making a bigger play into online gaming.
On Tuesday, the paper will begin beta testing a new puzzle called Zorse, Semafor has learned. It will be a “phrase guessing game where every puzzle is a mash-up of two phrases,” the company confirmed in a statement.
“Similar to how The Times treats its other games when they’re in beta, we’re hoping to learn how players engage with Zorse and look forward to hearing their feedback.” For now, the game will only be available to players in Canada, the company added.
The name Zorse identifies the offspring of a zebra and another equine — likely hinting at the game’s mash-up nature.
Know More
The Games section has been a particularly bright spot for The New York Times as it attempts to reach an ambitious goal of 15 million paid subscribers by 2027.
In recent years, the Times has expanded its digital offerings to better integrate the paper into the everyday lives of its consumers beyond the news. The organization has improved its cooking app, built out its product reviews and e-commerce vertical Wirecutter, and now hosts several of the most listened-to podcasts in the US.
But nowhere are its ambitions more pronounced than in Games.
Over the last 10 years, the Games department has grown from a staff of just over a dozen employees working on the crossword into a 100-person operation churning out a full suite of puzzles and quizzes, including Spelling Bee, Connections, and Wordle, which the Times acquired in 2022. The paper launched a $6 standalone Games-only subscription, and has further monetized them through ads.
The user stats are staggering: Users downloaded the Times Games app more than 10 million times in 2023 alone. The Times’ puzzles have been played more than 8 billion times since then; Wordle has been played 4.8 billion times, 2.3 billion Connections have been made, and users have reached the Genius level in Spelling Bee more than 120 million times in total, according to data provided by the company. Earlier this year, some media analysts joked that at this point the Times was a gaming company based on how much time subscribers were spending playing games versus reading its news online.
In a blog post Tuesday, The Times also said that it was rolling out its Connections Archive, allowing subscribers to access and save all of its editions of Connections.