The New York Times is expanding its mobile gaming portfolio with a new daily brain-teaser targeting the publisher's own opinion desk. The app will challenge players to read a single paragraph about household budgets and correctly guess which six-figure staffer wrote it.
Following a highly successful beta test, the puzzle, tentatively titled Disconnect, is slated for a global rollout next Tuesday. Sources close to the launch indicate the game was greenlit to drive morning engagement among the Times' core demographic of coastal professionals who enjoy getting mildly annoyed before logging into work.
We identified a massive white space in the market for gamifying upper-middle-class obliviousness.
The impending release has reportedly ruffled feathers among the paper’s marquee opinion talent. Reps for several veteran columnists have purportedly fielded anxious calls about whether their upcoming musings on the etiquette of hiring a second nanny will be repurposed for the app. Industry insiders note that talent agents at WME have already pushed back on the lack of backend participation for writers whose lifestyle essays are used as the daily puzzle's primary intellectual property.
Pre-release tracking data suggests a strong opening week, though early testers noted the difficulty curve spikes sharply on weekends, when players are asked to distinguish between three separate columnists complaining about the exact same Brooklyn coffee shop.