So, if we apply the same logic to the NYT Games app, which I did, obviously. >> you can basically see here that uh five interstitials per day on the user base with just uh yeah, the NYT Times one, it's pretty much $400,000 in ad >> >> It's going to be really interesting right 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 a huge but making that much money as they should, I'm guessing. Maybe. Maybe not. Is this the the Cinderella story or the the No, no. We'll touch on the Cinderella story when we're talking about it this, but it's not Wordle. So, we'll definitely touch the Cinderella Stephen Carval story at some point here, but today we are reviewing NYT 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 DAU, right? But it's like for me it's just like it's it had a has ads, but it's kind of what a newspaper editor would want ads to be. >> Exactly. Yeah, 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. >> Wordle premium traffic as well. Should we start with the numbers here and then we can go to the app instead just to show the >> start with? We should start with my name is Matej Lancaric. I'm Felix Braberg. I'm Jakub Premyak. Right it is. And we are your hosts. And as you might have noticed, we are talking about Wordle and what's >> No, no. We're talking about NYT Games. We're not talking about Wordle. >> Crossword. It's called NYT Games, Wordle and Crossword. So, so, so, Let's start with the numbers. Okay. Why are we talking about this in the first place? Yeah, cuz this is I don't want to say a game or an app, but this is an app. >> a plane? Yeah, something like that. So, if we go here, we can see that yeah, this kind of blew up lately. And you know what? Why? Because they called Ritsuki 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 there's no equity dilution. You can repay as you get paid and you can get term sheet in just 24 hours and funding in 30 days. Is it pvxpartners.com? And take control of your real budget. So, pvxpartners.com and scale your game like NYT Games. 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? 9.1? 8.1 >> even see it cuz it 8.5 million DAU. And press countries. This is the premium the most premium DAU 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. New York It doesn't get much better. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, pretty >> at the active user base in the states. It's just huge. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I guess one of the biggest US DAUs there is, isn't it? Yeah, pretty much. I wonder what would happen if they call FastSpring with that US with that US traffic. I don't know. Maybe if you go to fastspring.gg and start the web store, you can get even more money out of this audience. fastspring.gg. Go to fastspring. What do we have here? Can we see >> to go to games because it's game you need to pay for games or other games. You're not going to compete with like Google. Okay. What? Uh duh. Okay, so it's it's third largest. >> largest. Yeah, after Discord and Roblox. This is US only. Keep in your mind US only game. Yeah. Do you have the the game >> pass is nearly there, right behind it. Yeah. Okay. So, what? We have giant DAU. What? That that was just propped up. >> I mean, you can you can go play some Wordle. >> to show the app? We can show the app. All right, this is miss miss click. Oh, it's quick. Okay, thank you. Goodbye. So, this is the app. Good evening. Play with no pre-game 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. Uh no, 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 that I think it starts at like $3 a month or something like that. But it's used to get people 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 and we can daily in 1950s. So, yeah. As old as the games themselves. Something like that. Then we have this uh launching on the stores 2009. Then we have uh as I said, little bit of time line. >> 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 Bee 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 >> >> in a second because I I went cheat. So, that's there. It's one of the mini games here. Uh And Letter Box arrives, 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 Times Crosswords to New York Times Games. Connections and Click becomes the second most played New York Times Games after Wordle. Uh 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 app and moves from beta into official app. Strands is this, which is basically, if I understand, some kind of a crossword setup. So, that's there. And then in 2025, Pips, Crossplay, and Mini expand the portfolio and show New York Times 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 get it later. The advertisement is pretty much like a big banner advertisement, right? Which basically tells us a couple of things which we can talk about when you're done. Yeah, so this is this is the game. The Pips that you kind of you just need to like this basically a puzzle. Like it's similar to Wordle. So, that's there. And then, as I said, Cross da da da da da da da 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 Oh, this is only >> It's all It's all No, I was only No, no, it's only 80 count and 80 count. multi unified Yeah, yeah. 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 yeah, 100 200 pretty much K a day. Now I guess most most like what like it's there's no micro transactions if I understand correctly. So, it's all subscriptions if I get that. So >> Subscriptions. Yeah, it's all subscriptions. >> All subs all all subscriptions. Yeah, yeah. So, it is 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've actually calculated. But I 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 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 event-driven and uneven. Games are repeatable daily rituals. So, that that's that's what they're pretty much doing here that even though >> mechanic as well. >> Yeah, exactly. Like this whole thing is basically a retention mechanic to prop up the newspaper. Again They're accidentally making 6 mil a month. Yeah, accidentally. >> in subscriptions. 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 these things >> 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 you can talk about it and everybody kind of like I even look out like PC Gamer or whatever. Today's Wordle answer is this and everybody wants to check that out. So, it's again recurring daily ritual. So, that's there. To the Spelling Bee 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 Bee. Spelling Bee is this kind of a thing where you have this kind of hexagon the bestagon 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. I was like like let's let's let's move this up a notch. So, there's this Spelling Bee literally like word tips where you just insert the matrix and gives you all the words. Goes like why not? Just testing it. >> And this is min-maxing this game as well. Yeah, 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 what happens if I go into fail state next time? Okay, your results >> >> Yeah. 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 is the time to show how much money is being left on the table. >> is Here is a app-ads.txt file from Crazy Labs. From Crazy Labs, right? >> Crazy Labs. 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 DAU of the NYT ones. Let me show you the app-ads.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 AdMob. 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 an NYT games actually like a mobile game?" You actually don't need to look quite far because this 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 Carvalta 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 AppLovin who then basically overhauled it in Lion Studios and now it's part of TripleDot, right? And this like game right now like Wordle that's made by TripleDot, it makes quite a lot of money, right? It has about active user base of about like 700,000 and according to my yeah, according to my estimates, right? Wordle, if you put in the normal standard metrics, pretty much makes 91 to 95,000 dollars 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. you can basically see here that from interstitials alone You're you're 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. Okay, okay. >> If you're actually putting in five interstitials per day on the user base with just yeah, the NYT times one, it's pretty much $400,000 a day in ad revenue. So, if you replace this banner that they have, which is probably about five imp down, you would go from earning 15k a day to 400,000 a day. And that's it. You know, this will >> that even if you had a conversation with someone who's in charge, they'd be like, "No, we're not doing that." Of course, New York Times 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 you go back to the app-ads.txt file Yeah, like what this says We're talking about like 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, it's just mind-boggling. I would I would smuggle this interstitial in the code just once and just rewired that to my own bank account. Yeah, exactly. So, we ended as usual like better call Felix, New York Times. It's 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? So, close to what? 140 mil a year. And now they're making 6 mil a month for from sub Yeah. So >> >> Yeah. Yeah. Not bad. >> just painful to see here. It's just yeah. And not even talking about like any like reward that videos or >> Yeah, no, that is only interstitials. I'm just replacing that when you start the 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 >> fair enough. Uh 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 >> >> Yeah, let's let's finish the UA part. Let's finish the UA. I was like, this is going to be very quick cuz they don't have any UA, but they do. It's an amazing 36 in the last video. >> holding a card? What is this? With the new creatives it's 10. So, let's just What is this lady holding a card? Yeah, it's Tracy. So, she makes the Wordle editor. And she's real. >> Yeah, it's She's real. She's real. She's the the Wordle editor. She She just She just said it. Solly, ah I I thought salty. Salty would be better. Cuz it's 1 and 1 minute 30 second long video. So, this is basically Ben Brode-style ads. Yes. Exactly. Like literally to the to the last point. So, they pretty much interview their own employees and then that's that. I mean These will work. Senior puzzle editor. Good. Thank you very much. Deep one. Number one. Hello, connections. Connections writer. Of course. It's me. Those are basically level designers. Honestly. Exactly. The whole team Yeah, the whole team. >> You can call yourself how do you want to call yourself? Those are level designers. >> Tracy. It's Tracy and her notebook. Workbook, sorry. Not Trends workbook. Old school stuff, but I mean it's kind of nice. Let's see how this >> to keep in mind these guys are making it from the '50s. Yeah. I mean, not these ones, but yeah. >> Maybe her. Do you think anyone's told them that they could be earning like 400k a day if they switched out one ad unit or you think they just kind of fired them? >> I think nobody Yeah, because they would they wouldn't count the numbers and and figure out that it would be making more than the whole New York Times is doing. >> >> What is their revenue annually? >> 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 the 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 these with these ads. Total subscription campaigns. But New New York Times revenue in 2025 rose to 1.9 billion with digital only subscription They make half a billion on non-digital subscription like the actual papers. Yeah. But you you know 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 just 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. Never. >> Imagine trying to like tell Tracy that you need to put an interstitial ad before the her Wordle thing. >> would kill me. Yeah, that's sure. That's sure. Or just run up I mean, kill me. Like with playable with playables. But they're 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 without the dev team. They said I wouldn't understand the tech. Guess what? I just made a fully >> >> working gorgeous tap to play while eating noodles and watching trash TV and taking care of my daughter. All thanks to playable maker. No code, no stress, no cheap channel. That would be a great ad. >> 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. >> interstitials, right? Yeah, you still have to do it. That's it. >> >> If you want to make it more ad infested, of course you can maybe drive 6k 600k. No, no, no, no, no. It doesn't really say anything about UA because UA here is non-fucking 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 and like the newspapers like on the streets. 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 have we even done This whole thing is a pet project. You can see >> it is? You know what I think it is? >> running this? Like why? Why You know what I 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 creatives on on Instagram. Sure. That makes all the sense. Come on, man. I mean You know that people in this newspaper win like Pulitzer Prizes and Have they not heard of a PGC game award? >> >> Ah, yeah, Snapchat. Okay. >> it here, guys. >> Yeah, yeah, let's end it here, guys. I mean I mean I hope you would never see these guys running proper ads or proper UA. Or proper monetization. Or proper anything. >> Cuz it works, right? It's got a massive DAU and you know, it's 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. Well, I mean like you know, definitely not. The the the the the the team there that that's like running this. I'm guessing like their whole P&L is perfect like for 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 against the subscription of the normal newspaper. So, that's there. Anyway, it's very 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 US DAU 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. Ciao.