Hearst has big plans for its puzzles and games as it chases The New York Times' Wordle success (2024)

Puzzmo's latest addition is Pile-Up Poker, which it's pitching as an innovation on the classic card game like Texas Hold'em. It's using Hearst's TV stations to run ads promoting the game.

Pile-Up Poker will be Puzzmo's eighth game, and Andrew Daines, Hearst Newspapers' VP of games and general manager of Puzzmo, said Hearst is just getting started.

"There's a space where we have 100 games in a few years," he said.

Hearst is the latest publisher to jump on the games craze. Games like Wordle and Spelling Bee have proven to be a good moneymaker for the Times by providing a new subscription onramp, along with the news, NYT Cooking, and others. The company said in 2022 that it had 1 million subscribers to its games collection.

Puzzmo is taking direct aim at the Times, saying in a manifesto that "newspaper game players deserve better." It presents its games as approachable and twists on the classics: Really Bad Chess forgoes the traditional starting pieces in chess, while Crosswords gives users a hint if they get stuck, for example. Puzzmo also lets players compete and collaborate with others as well as play by themselves.

Puzzmo seeks to complement its games with physical goods to help defend against the sort of copycats that popular games like Wordle have inspired. For Pile-Up Poker, it's sending new subscribers a set of limited edition playing cards designed by Lisa Hanawalt, the artist who drew the anthropomorphic characters in "BoJack Horseman."

"The genre can be so quickly ripped off," Daines said. "But how many copycats of Pile-Up Poker send you a set of playing cards by a world-class artist?"

Hearst is a private company, and Daines wouldn't disclose Puzzmo's subscribers or revenue. But he said Puzzmo had 600,000 active players, which he defined as players who completed at least two games in the last 30 days. Subscriptions drive two-thirds of the revenue, with the rest coming from advertising.

Right now, all Puzzmo subscribers get the same games, but up next, Hearst plans to start creating bespoke games for partner publishers.

It also has tests in the works with some of Hearst's glossy magazines, which include Elle and Esquire.

All its games were made in-house, but Puzzmo is looking for other game makers to help develop its next offering. Daines also envisions future games coming from celebrities: "We're going to be the place where the next big thing comes from."

Hearst, like other legacy media companies, is on the hunt for new avenues for growth as it faces cord-cutting and a challenging ad market. Hearst reported its profit dipped 2% in 2023 due to declines in its newspaper, magazine, and television units. It made a number of acquisitions in 2023, including Puzzmo, that complement its existing businesses.