Following the acquisition of subscription-based digital sports publisher , the New York Times has added another asset to its growing set of digital products, albeit a much smaller one. On Monday, the Times Company to its game portfolio. The popular word puzzle game, that grew its audience from tens to millions of daily players in just three months, was acquired for an undisclosed amount in the low seven figures.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e like me, you probably wake up every morning thinking about Wordle, and savoring those precious moments of discovery, surprise and accomplishment,鈥 Jonathan Knight, general manager for The New York Times Games, said in the announcement of the deal. 鈥淲e could not be more thrilled to become the new home and proud stewards of this magical game, and are honored to help bring to more solvers in the months ahead.鈥
The free-to-play game will remain free after moving to the New York Times, which was likely a key requirement for the game鈥檚 creator to agree to the deal. 鈥淚鈥檝e long admired The Times鈥檚 approach to the quality of their games and the respect with which they treat their players. Their values are aligned with mine on these matters and I鈥檓 thrilled that they will be stewards of the game moving forward,鈥 Wardle said. While a free Wordle probably won鈥檛 move the needle in terms of subscribers, the addition of The Athletic with more than a million subscribers certainly will.
As the following chart shows, the Times鈥 digital products have accumulated more than 7.5 million subscribers since the company . Digital news subscriptions, incl. packages that include all digital products, accounted for 5.7 million of that total, while standalone subscriptions to the Times鈥 Games, Cooking, Audio and Wirecutter products added another 1.9 million subs.
