TITLE
Inside the New York Times’ Big Bet on Games
AUTHOR
Charlotte Klein
PUBLICATION
Vanity Fair
YEAR
2023
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
On the ninth floor of the New York Times headquarters, high above the bustling newsroom, a group of editors are doing the Sunday crossword. Or, rather, they’re undoing it. The editors already accepted this submission, one of the 150 to 200 puzzles arriving weekly, and are now working through it clue by clue—questioning, waffling, rewriting. They nitpick and fact-check. They debate the timelessness of a hint; whether the solver’s reaction will be Oh, I guess versus Aha![…]
As one Times staffer puts it: “The half joke that is repeated internally is that The New York Times is now a gaming company that also happens to offer news.”
GAMES MENTIONED
Connections
Spelling Bee
Wordle
PRINT AVAILABILITY
January 2024 (Issue 755)
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Zoe Bell
Tracy Bennett
Sam Ezersky
Joel Fagliano
Alex Hardiman
Joseph Kahn
Jonathan Knight
Wyna Liu
Everdeen Mason
Will Shortz