Want to Play Wordle Without Crossing the New York Times Picket Line? Strikers Made Their Own Union-Themed Puzzle Games

If you’ve been down successful the dumps since the New York Times bundle workers went connected strike, incapable to get your regular Connections fix, don’t fret. There’s a mode to play your favourite bid commute games without crossing the picket line. The minds down Wordle, Connections, the Crossword, and much made their ain games you tin play for escaped or—better yet—use arsenic a conveyance to donate to workers to assistance them wage bills arsenic the onslaught continues.

The New York Times Tech Guild begged subscribers to discontinue playing the Time’s games portion the onslaught continues. In a statement, the New York Times Tech Guild, representing the striking bundle engineers, said the games are “scab-free.” The titles see “Word Search,” a mentation of the crossword; “Connected,” a redux of Connections; and “Strikle,” which is, of course, Wordle. There’s besides a mentation of the classical crippled Frogger called “Frogger 8th Ave” and “Match Strike,” a memorization game. Unfortunately for Spelling Bee fans, there’s nary mentation of that, astatine slightest not yet.

PLAYING GAMES: In the large contented of onslaught publications, we connection our tech-worker version.https://t.co/L46DXTrDsp

Now you tin play and not beryllium a scab. We besides privation to convey the multitude of @nytimes subscribers who person stopped playing and honored our integer picket line.

— New York Times Tech Guild (@NYTGuildTech) November 6, 2024

They’re each precise rudimentary versions of the well-worn titles, with a look that makes maine nostalgic for browser-based games from the aboriginal 2000s. However, games similar Connected and Strikle are efficaciously one-for-one recreations of the NYTimes versions. The regular puzzles released Thursday person a beardown transportation to the strike, truthful if you were looking for a hint, there’s that.

No, it won’t support your Wordle streak going, but astatine the precise least, you tin support your greeting habits going portion the onslaught continues. The games leafage besides links to the group’s GoFundMe. The strikers person raised astir $145,000 arsenic of writing, with a $150,000 goal. The strikers are demanding the Times hold to a declaration without a return-to-office mandate, wage and equity raises to code radical disparities successful salaries, and protections against “just cause” layoffs.

The New York Times presents itself arsenic a quality organization, but its equilibrium sheets amusement that its existent wealth shaper is its games and bundle division. This includes the NYT Cooking App alongside its games. The steadfast told Axios backmost successful January that users played NYTimes’ puzzles and games much than 8 cardinal times successful 2023—in its latest quarterly net report, the Times reported it made $919.6 cardinal connected its integer subscriptions (including games and cooking, implicit the past 9 months, a 14% summation from the aforesaid play past year. The media company’s news-only subscribers are dwarfed by those who subscribe to different azygous products oregon bundles. The Times is inactive moving strong, whereas different quality organizations are struggling.

© Screenshot: New York Times Tech Guild

The New York Times’ tech workers unionized successful 2022 and person been successful declaration negotiations since then. The NYT Games app remains up, and a Times spokesperson antecedently told The New York Times (I know, recursion) that the institution has “robust plans successful place” to support services going.

The strikes took spot a fewer days earlier Tuesday’s statesmanlike elections. One AI institution seemed to deliberation this proved an accidental to bulldoze implicit workers. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas tweeted astatine New York Times steadfast AG Sulzberger, saying, “Perplexity is connected standby to assistance guarantee your indispensable sum is disposable to each done the election.” Srinivas aboriginal tried to clarify to TechCrunch that helium wasn’t offering to regenerate journalists oregon engineers but to “provide method infra enactment connected a high-traffic day,” which conscionable truthful happens to beryllium the jobs the striking workers performed.

If the Perplexity CEO abruptly has standby backend infrastructure enactment that doesn’t someway usage AI, I’m definite we’d each similar to know. Otherwise, we suggest you don’t beryllium similar Srinivas and not transverse the picket line.