The Secret Behind Your NYT Games Addiction

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Neal Freyman (0:34)

Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.

Toby Howell (0:37)

And I'm Toby Howell.

Neal Freyman (0:38)

Today, what's behind your New York Times Games addiction?

Toby Howell (0:41)

We talked to the guy in charge of it all to find out the secret sauce. It's Monday, September 7th. Let's ride.

Neal Freyman (0:53)

Happy Labor Day, everyone. With the office closed today, we are bringing you a special holiday interview episode. So if you're anything like us, your morning group chats have changed from actual conversation to a sea of green, yellow and gray squares. Wordle, connections, the mini, spelling bee. Doing New York Times puzzles has turned into a daily ritual for millions of people.

Toby Howell (1:17)

So how did that happen? And maybe more importantly, what makes a game a New York Times game? To find out, we spoke to Jonathan Knight, the head of games at the New York Times. He spent his career obsessed with games, including stops at EA and Zynga, before taking over a portfolio that now includes some of the most recognizable brain busters on the internet.

Neal Freyman (1:37)

We talked about the puzzle revolution, how the Times decides which games make the cut, and the story behind acquiring Wordle. But before we get to the interview, a quick word from our sponsor, hotels.com.

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Toby Howell (2:40)

Now here's our conversation with New York Times Head of Games, Jonathan Knight.

Neal Freyman (2:44)

Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us and sorry to interrupt your Wordle playing.

Toby Howell (2:49)

That's all right.

Jonathan Knight (2:50)

I'll get back to it. Thank you. Good to be here.

Neal Freyman (2:52)

All right. So I have currently about seven different group chats where people send their daily puzzle scores across a bunch of different games.

Those did not exist five years ago, those group chats. Why seemingly all of a sudden is everyone so into puzzles?

Jonathan Knight (3:07)

Well, yeah, it's a great question. I think we've obviously at the New York Times been in the puzzle business for a very long time. So it doesn't seem like all of a sudden to us when you kind of zoom out for the historical perspective. We ran our first crossword puzzle in 1942, and it's a great story because it was shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the paper felt, hey, let's give people something to kind of take their mind off of a rough news cycle. And thus the Sunday crossword was born. And so we've been publishing puzzles for a very long time. I do think that with the acquisition of Wordle, which came in 2022, it was a moment and it was COVID. It was sort of back half of COVID and people were exhausted and divided. And along comes this just adorable game that kind of brings everybody together and it had a very clever sort of sharing mechanic that people started to use in their group chats. And then, yeah, they form these little micro social networks with family and friends and because the game is so good, people come back to it every day and because it's a social moment, then it kind of keeps it going as well. So, yeah, we're like thrilled. It's been kind of an incredible phenomenon.