More and more media across Europe are banking on online gaming platforms to gain visitors, subscriptions, and ultimately revenue. It’s a strategy that can pay off.
(Article by Romain Chauvet, published in The Fix).
Faced with an unending crisis, the media have no choice but to reinvent themselves and try new strategies. One of them is the integration of online gaming platforms into audience retention strategies. By seeking out new players with crossword puzzles and games such as Sudoku, publishers hope to encourage them to read news articles and become loyal readers.
It is a fairly new strategy in the European market, but it has already proven itself in the United States, notably with The New York Times. The American giant launched its dedicated games application back in 2009. Fifteen years later, the results are incredible. The app claimed more than 2.6 million active users and was downloaded 10 million times in 2023. It was such a success that in December, visitors spent more time in the NYT games app than in the NYT news app, according to data published by YipitData.
In Europe, we have seen more and more media trying to develop their online gaming platform in recent years. “It is a trend in Europe,” confirmed Ivanna Sol Barbagallo, business development and chief marketing officer at Mind Training, a company specialising in games for news media. “It’s interesting what’s happening because it is a field that is not fully discovered, and the potential that games have for news media as a product to engage and have a better relationship with the audience is huge.”
Based in Barcelona, Mind Training provides complete gaming platforms to major media outlets, mainly in Spanish, such as El País. Every platform is always composed of several games. “This has a cost for the media, but it’s affordable knowing that it is for growing your audience,” said Barbagallo. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report noted that games can indeed be an effective strategy for attracting readers who are hesitating whether to buy a subscription.
Games a new strategy to increase media audience
(Reed the full article in TheFix.Media).
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