The Atlantic is taking a page out of the New York Times
The publication that exposed the infamous Signalgate of Trump Administration officials is diving headfirst into video games to drive user engagement and digital subscriber growth. Can it do it?
Dear Readers,
With all the hype as well as doom and gloom around AI these days, the following news had me smile and exhale quite a bit.
OpenAI and Microsoft are teaming with Harvard University to leverage its vast library and use 600-year-old books to train AI models. Nearly one million books published as early as the 15th century, in 254 languages, are a part of Harvard’s vast librarial treasure and will be used to teach AI more about humanity.
Who said everything we know today lives on the internet?
As an avid book lover (nothing beats the feeling of turning a physical page) this gave me joy - along with the State of Illinois becoming the first state to ban book bans.
Time for an upbeat version of doom and gloom and our musical interlude.
I had a dream last night that I was pilot in a plane
And all the passengers were drunk and insane
[…]
You’re welcome. Here’s this week’s top story you don’t want to miss.
Video games are everywhere
Brands and companies are flocking in droves into the medium that just until right before the COVID pandemic was put off as something only enjoyed by gaming nerds (read: young men, alone in their basement, in front of a PC, room illuminated by neon lights).
How the times have changed.
Someone much smarter than me once said to me “if you want to understand where companies need to be, follow the time and money consumers are spending.” When we look at the hard data around video games, it is no surprise more companies that are on the outside-looking-in are trying to get in on the action.
A few examples:
3.4 billion people globally play games almost daily
84% of all internet users play video games
Video games are played more than once per week by every demographic group, making it the only medium that is truly multi-generational
Young audiences spend more time on video games than on all social media channels combined
The average engagement time on a social media post is 1.3 seconds. The average engagement time on a game on Roblox is 11 minutes.
Adidas. Puma. Chipotle. NASCAR. Starbucks. Burberry. Peloton. BMW. Unilever. Mastercard. The New York Times. All of these companies, and many other ones, have entered the gaming space years ago and achieved significant results for their respective businesses (all of their stories, and more, are covered in-depth in my upcoming book Press Play that is available for pre-order now. You don’t want to miss it).
Bucking the trend
The NYT Games app is arguably the single biggest driver behind the overall digital subscriber growth of the iconic publisher, taking its digital offering from 0 to over 11 million subscribers in just a few years. Just in the last quarter, the NYT added 250,000 new digital subscribers and its digital revenue increased by 14%. The games app disproportionately attracts new subscribers, and these subscribers show longer engagement as well as convert better overall into paying for other NYT subscription offers.
All this comes at a time when the overall media industry, especially traditional print publishing, is in severe decline. Others have taken note of what the NYT has been able to accomplish - and now another publisher is literally taking a page out of its book.
“I think people have a pretty ravenous diet for new games.” - Caleb Madison, The Atlantic’s director of games.
The Atlantic, originally founded by a group including Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1857, has successfully positioned itself as the voice of reason that is trying to uphold journalistic values and integrity amidst an ever-changing tide in a political landscape that seems to subject news outlets to threats rather loosely whenever unpopular facts or opinions are presented. The Atlantic, led by editor-in-chief Jeff Goldberg, broke the Signalgate story that saw sensitive military information shared in private channels on the messaging app Signal.
The Atlantic magazine achieved one million subscribers and profitability 15 months ago after years of turmoil. Going into 2025, subscribers numbers are again up, 15% year-over-year. Now, the publisher is looking to supercharge its growth by increasing its digital footprint using video games.
The company announced a new hub for its games offering that it expects to build out and grow. The hub is accessible via web and The Atlantic app. To start, four games are immediately available:
Bracket City - a puzzle game where clues are nested in brackets that eventually resolve into a fun fact about that day in history.
Stacks - a word game that requires the player to think logically and solve puzzles as well. Think Tetris meets Wordle.
In Fluxis - another word game that is asking players to come up with words that build off the previous word and incorporate some of its predecessor's attributes.
Caleb’s Inferno Crossword Puzzle - already included in the monthly Atlantic magazine and available online, it’s a crossword puzzle whose level of difficulty progressively increases the further a player advances.
The focus on crossword puzzles and word games intuitively makes sense for a magazine like The Atlantic. It also looks very familiar to the NYT Games offering, whose aspiration is to become the “premier destination for puzzle games”. Some of its features are also only available to paid subscribers - another element the NYT adopted first. Asked about the direct competition with the Times, The Atlantic’s director of games Caleb Madison said: “What I feel like The Atlantic has to offer that’s different from those publications is a little bit more of a bespoken, artisanal aesthetic.”
If The Atlantic wants to stand out, it has to give users more reasons to come to the magazine for its gaming content than making it look artisanal. That’ll work for some people, but it won’t be enough to drive the type of engagement and digital subscriber growth the NYT has seen. What the Times has accomplished is to stay true to its brand values and deeply understand its target audience - and make those two ends meet perfectly to create a games offering that is authentic to The New York Times.
Making successful games is hard. The Washington Post also has a games section online. It’s the first time you’re hearing about it? That’s exactly the problem. It also features crossword puzzles and word games, but the results are nowhere near anything the NYT has accomplished.
The Atlantic seems to be committed to gaming and getting it right - just like they have with how the team handled Signalgate. “I am excited to innovate in the game space and bring unique and authentic, long-form game experiences to The Atlantic users and to people online,” Madison explains.
Games are the modern-day consumer touchpoint. Having the right gaming strategy can be what makes the difference for companies to stay relevant in a digital-first world. The Atlantic understands that. Now it’s up to their execution.
Other stories worth knowing
Netflix Houses, the streaming giant’s experiential locations that will leverage the company’s vast IP catalogue to bridge between streaming, games, and the physical world, are set to open in Dallas and Philadelphia later this year. A venue in Las Vegas in set to open in 2027.
Nielsen reported that for the first time ever, streaming viewership overtook the combined viewership of broadcast and cable TV. In light of the split of Warner Bros Discovery, this really feels like the point of no return for traditional television.
The Atlantic won’t be the last company to look to video games to accelerate its core business. Consider subscribing today to stay on top of the latest developments and share Technically Entertaining with one friend of yours - it makes all the difference.