The New York Times is slowly but surely turning into a gaming website that also does some journalism on the side.
What happened: The NYT is beta testing a new puzzle game called Zorse, which, frankly, is a terrible name that sounds like someone trying to clear their throat. Anyway, it’s currently only available in Canada and involves decoding a mash-up of two common phrases.
- There’s no guarantee that Zorse will stick around. The NYT beta tested a math-based logic game last year called Digits that it ultimately decided to scrap.
Why it matters: Games are no longer a nice-to-have for enterprises looking for a slice of the attention economy — they’re a must-have. No outlet has proven this more forcefully than the NYT, which as of late last year, has seen users spend more time playing games than anything else.
- Over 10 million people downloaded the Times Game app last year, and its games have been played more than 8 billion times since then, per Semafor.
Zoom out: Not to be upstaged, LinkedIn also unveiled a new game called Tango. The networking platform introduced gaming earlier this year in a push to get users to spend more time on the site and has found success with its sudoku-like puzzle game Queens.—QH
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