The New York Times has plans to expand its advertising business across bundle products, such as games and sports, according to Axios, which rightfully made some fans of Wordle worried.
Wordle, the daily word game NYT acquired in January, has no ads in its game. And for the time being it’s going to stay that way after New York Times head of product Alexandra Hardiman revealed Wordle would not have advertisements added to the game “at this time.”
“We’re looking at games,” Hardiman said when asked about Wordle by Axios. “We want to be very, very thoughtful about where and how we test new premium ad units on any game.”
Ever since Wordle was acquired, the publication has benefitted from a massive engagement bump where last quarter was the company’s strongest ever for net subscriber additions to gaming, according to Axios.
As of right now, the New York Times has 9 million paid subscribers across all its subscription models, 1 million of which are there for the publications Games and Cooking Products. While 9 million paid subscribers is a huge number compared to other outlets, it is just a sliver of the 135 million monthly people that engage with New York Times content through free ad-supported products.
NYT’s stated plan is to reach 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027 by encouraging more consumers to buy bundles of subscription products.
For now, it is all a waiting game to see how this new initiative will affect Wordle and other games in the future.
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