Alas, NYT Mini Crossword

On a morning this past August, millions of puzzlers opened the New York Times Mini Crossword puzzle as they have for for years, only to be met by a paywall that stopped their daily ritual in its tracks. The public outcry that followed is a case study in the challenges of corporate reputation management and steering change, especially when it comes to changing small joys that people have come to love for free.

Games are a serious business for the Grey Lady: across all of its products, digital-only subscription revenue totaled $350 million for 2025 Q2. Games play a pivotal role in this success, driving subscriptions and conversions to higher-value bundles.

The Gaming app has always offered a mix of free and paywalled games — archives are behind the paywall, as well as the full Crossword puzzle, presenting a clear value proposition for free users who built the habit of playing a daily, quick game for free, often with their friends. When the NYT bought Wordle in 2022 from indy developer and puzzle fiend Josh Wardle for ~$2 million dollars, it sent waves of excitement across both the gaming and the independent software development community. Who might make the next blockbuster?

But in August, without warning, the Mini Crossword — a quick, 2-minute version of the full crossword—was suddenly locked away behind the paywall. The blowback online and in forums was immediate. Worse, their public response was tone deaf to the actual concerns of gamers:

Our portfolio features a dynamic mix of free puzzles and subscriber-only offerings, creating opportunities for every kind of solver to engage with us, every day of the week,” Jordan Cohen, NYT spokesman, said.

What went wrong?

I see several key takeaways for brand management here:

1. The NYT provided no change management: the decision was unannounced and feels arbitrary. Without change management, it introduces fear and a lack of confidence: is Wordle next to go?
2. The human experience of loss aversion is intense: the pain of losing the Mini Crossword is not offset by newer, different games.
3. Products that offer habit formation make a kind of promise: yes, even to free users. The most frequent complaint amongst former users was how their small, beneficial, daily ritual was disrupted. “My morning is ruined” was a common refrain. What is the responsibility of any company to its users – even free ones – that utilize habit-forming hooks?

I can imagine a more effective approach here that could have avoided the public relations outcry. The NYT regularly runs offers and discounts through popups: a simple “we’re mixing up our recipe! New games are coming this summer, and a few are retiring from public life” would have been enough to prepare folks for the change and, likely, introduced many more into a subscription, rather than feeling that they were forced into it.