The message that emerged from the funding-focused sessions was blunt: journalism that depends on any single funder, be it government, philanthropic, or corporate – is one decision away from a crisis. The dependency itself is the vulnerability, regardless of how well-intentioned the funder is or how important the journalism.
The failures are as instructive as the successes. Three mistakes account for the majority of news games that fail to produce publisher outcomes.
The message that emerged from the funding-focused sessions was blunt: journalism that depends on any single funder, be it government, philanthropic, or corporate – is one decision away from a crisis. The dependency itself is the vulnerability, regardless of how well-intentioned the funder is or how important the journalism.
Nobody at the New York Times sat down in 2020 and said: we are going to become a games company. The strategy emerged through a sequence of distinct decisions — the crossword subscription, the Cooking app, the Wordle acquisition, The Athletic — each of which made sense on its own terms, and whose collective effect only became apparent in retrospect.
One of the underappreciated benefits of a daily game as an entry point is that it does not require the reader to have an opinion about your editorial stance. A reader who disagrees with your coverage of a local political issue will still play your crossword about their town. A reader who is fatigued by hard news will still engage with a puzzle. The game is politically neutral, anxiety-free, and genuinely fun — which gives it access to audiences that journalism alone cannot reach.
There is a psychological dynamic at work in a well-constructed article-linked clue that is worth naming: curiosity debt. When a clue creates a question the player cannot answer without reading the source material, the player is in a state of motivated uncertainty. They want to know. The article is the only place to find out. The clue has created a debt of curiosity that the article pays off.
The message that emerged from the funding-focused sessions was blunt: journalism that depends on any single funder, be it government, philanthropic, or corporate – is one decision away from a crisis. The dependency itself is the vulnerability, regardless of how well-intentioned the funder is or how important the journalism.
The failures are as instructive as the successes. Three mistakes account for the majority of news games that fail to produce publisher outcomes.
The message that emerged from the funding-focused sessions was blunt: journalism that depends on any single funder, be it government, philanthropic, or corporate – is one decision away from a crisis. The dependency itself is the vulnerability, regardless of how well-intentioned the funder is or how important the journalism.
Nobody at the New York Times sat down in 2020 and said: we are going to become a games company. The strategy emerged through a sequence of distinct decisions — the crossword subscription, the Cooking app, the Wordle acquisition, The Athletic — each of which made sense on its own terms, and whose collective effect only became apparent in retrospect.
One of the underappreciated benefits of a daily game as an entry point is that it does not require the reader to have an opinion about your editorial stance. A reader who disagrees with your coverage of a local political issue will still play your crossword about their town. A reader who is fatigued by hard news will still engage with a puzzle. The game is politically neutral, anxiety-free, and genuinely fun — which gives it access to audiences that journalism alone cannot reach.
There is a psychological dynamic at work in a well-constructed article-linked clue that is worth naming: curiosity debt. When a clue creates a question the player cannot answer without reading the source material, the player is in a state of motivated uncertainty. They want to know. The article is the only place to find out. The clue has created a debt of curiosity that the article pays off.