I work with many people who pay for the subscription to play the games

I don't have numbers in front of me, but yes, NYT has basically said exactly that. Their games portfolio is a major driver of digital subscriptions.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn their recipes also drive a decent amount of revenue too. Their physical cookbooks are top notch (big fan of their no recipe recipe cookbook).

Their recipe and cocktail repository is excellent. It's a large part while I'm a subscriber.

I'm really confused. What is a "no recipe recipe cookbook"?

It's this one:

https://www.amazon.com/York-Times-Cooking-No-Recipe-Recipes/...

Basically tells you have to make various dishes saying without specific amounts and just going more on feel and what tastes good.

I love this tip about adding anchovies to pasta sauce to get a very rich flavor on the cheap.

Honestly like to think of it as the "stoned but competent" cookbook because the directions are quite easy to follow and come out tasty :)

Also the material they used for the "flexible" edition is really nice to use as you cook.

> Basically tells you have to make various dishes saying without specific amounts and just going more on feel and what tastes good.

This is how my mom taught me to cook, and she decided (unilaterally I assume) that it was the definition of gourmet cooking. I went a lot of years thinking that was the literal definition, ha. Though in retrospect, it is not 100% wrong, and I don't think she was joking when she said it.

That is a super interesting book concept, thank you for the link!

There's a joke in the news industry that the NYT is a games company with a loss-making news organization attached to it as a side-project.

Fun read...

https://priceonomics.com/porsche-the-hedge-fund-that-also-ma...

Like Harvard is a hedge fund with a school as a side project.

Their recently shipped scrabble clone is excellent! One of the cleanest scrabble / words-with-friends implementations I've played.

Yeah I'm hooked on it for the moment. The previous games are entertaining once a day, and we share results amongst our family for fun, but the Crossplay game is a lot of fun head-to-head.

They have a games-only subscription option: https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/games/

I'm not sure about all of the ones they host, but for the crossword app you need to subscribe for full access.

The modern NYT has been described as a games company that occasionally engages in journalism

Who has described them this way?

This user: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=IncreasePosts

I mean, why not? Sometimes it seems to me that airlines make their money not on flights but on branded Credit Cards.

Frequent flyer points are where they make their money. So much so that many airlines would run at a loss just flying passengers.

All their partners hand over real cash for points to give their customers, that often either expire or are never redeemed. I think it was the Economist that stated that airlines operate as unregulated banks. Flying people around is a secondary thing they do.