NYT Games' Crossplay: The Ad-Free Word Game Disrupting Mobile Gaming [2025]

I'm going to be honest. I've spent the last five years frustrated with mobile word games. Not because the games themselves are bad, but because the experience has become unbearable. Every time I open Words With Friends, I'm bombarded with ads that barely let me see the board. Skip buttons that don't work. Pop-ups that multiply like rabbits. It's like playing Scrabble in a mall food court while someone's screaming sales at you.

Then New York Times Games released Crossplay. And suddenly, my frustration made sense. It wasn't about the games. It was about what had happened to them.

Crossplay isn't revolutionary. It's not going to change gaming overnight. But it represents something bigger: a rejection of the modern gaming industry's obsession with monetization at the expense of user experience. It's a game that respects your time, your attention, and your eyeballs. In 2025, that's surprisingly radical.

Let me walk you through why this matters, how it works, and whether it's actually the word game you've been looking for.

The Death of Casual Gaming and What Crossplay Gets Right

There's a specific moment I realized mobile gaming had lost its way. I was playing Words With Friends with my grandmother, and she called me. "How do I close this advertisement?" she asked. She couldn't find the skip button. Neither could I. The game's interface had become so cluttered that two people who collectively have lived 150 years couldn't figure out how to dismiss a pop-up.

That's not an edge case. That's the modern state of freemium gaming.

Zynga, the company that owns Words With Friends, made a calculated business decision years ago: maximize revenue per user. That meant introducing more ads, making them harder to close, and creating premium subscription tiers to remove them. From a business perspective, it worked. From a user perspective, it destroyed what made the game fun in the first place.

Crossplay takes the opposite approach. The game exists, it's functional, and you can play it without feeling like you're being aggressively monetized. For New York Times Games subscribers, there are zero ads. For free users, you'll see banner ads, but nothing intrusive. It's almost quaint in 2025 to say that a game respects your time, but that's exactly what's happening here.

Jonathan Knight, Head of Games at the New York Times, laid out the philosophy during interviews about Crossplay's launch. "Games like Spelling Bee and Wordle found a way to take the magical solve-a-puzzle feeling and create a very mainstream, quick, snackable version of that," he explained. "You can just decide to do it in the morning, or at night before you go to bed, and then go to bed."

That's the constraint. That's the feature. The game is designed to be played in five to ten minutes, not to be infinitely engaging. Not to keep you scrolling. Not to addict you. Just to give you a puzzle, let you solve it, and get on with your day.

In a landscape where engagement metrics drive valuation, that's a profoundly countercultural position. And it's working. According to the New York Times, Wordle was played 4.2 billion times in 2025. Connections accumulated 1.6 billion plays. These aren't massive user bases measured in millions of monthly active users. These are people playing daily puzzles consistently, sharing them with friends, and coming back.

The lesson from this is simple: people don't hate puzzle games. They hate the cruft around them. Remove the ads, respect their time, and they'll come back.

Estimated data suggests that 40% of players prefer playing with friends, 35% enjoy skill-based matchmaking, and 25% use both modes equally.

How Crossplay Works: More Than Just Scrabble

Crossplay isn't Scrabble. But if you've played Scrabble casually, you'll recognize about 95% of what you're looking at.

The core mechanic is identical. You have seven tiles with letters. You place words on a board. You get points based on letter values, word multipliers, and bonus squares. Your opponent does the same. You trade tiles or pass your turn. The game continues until someone wins or you both run out of moves.

But there are deliberate differences from official Scrabble rules, and they matter more than you'd think.

The game board itself is 15x15, which matches Scrabble. The tile distribution is similar but not identical. The critical difference comes when the tile bag runs out. In traditional Scrabble, the game ends when one player uses all their tiles and there are no tiles left to draw. Crossplay has a slight variation here, likely implemented to avoid trademark and legal complications with Hasbro, which owns Scrabble.

As a casual player, I barely noticed these differences during my first week with Crossplay. They don't fundamentally change strategy or fun. But Scrabble tournament players will recognize the changes immediately. The New York Times likely made these adjustments specifically to create a legally distinct game while maintaining the spirit of casual word-gaming.

You can invite friends to play, or you can let the matching algorithm place you against someone at a similar skill level. Games persist over several days. You don't need to play simultaneously. Someone plays a word, you get a notification, you come back and play yours whenever you want. This asynchronous structure is crucial for how people actually use their phones.

There's no pressure to respond immediately. No real-time timers. No feeling like you're holding someone up. You play your turn. They play theirs. It happens in the background of your life.

Crossplay offers an ad-free experience as part of a

Cross Bot: Where Strategy Meets Analysis

Here's the feature that genuinely impressed me. Cross Bot is Crossplay's answer to Wordle's strategy analysis tools. After each turn, the AI analyzes your move and rates your play on both luck and strategy.

It highlights your best moves. Points out where you fumbled. Shows you what letters were available on the board and which combinations you missed. This isn't gamification fluff. This is genuine tactical feedback that makes you better at the game.

Let's say you played a common three-letter word that scored 12 points. Cross Bot might show you that if you'd used a different tile combination, you could have hit a double-word score and scored 28 points instead. Or it might identify that you made the optimal play with the tiles you had, but the luck of the draw gave you a bad hand.

This matters because it separates player skill from random chance. In Scrabble, you can play perfectly and still lose because the tiles didn't break your way. Cross Bot acknowledges this. It tells you when you played well despite unfavorable circumstances, and when you left points on the board despite having the right tiles.

The New York Times added similar bots to Connections and Wordle, and they serve the same purpose. They make the game a learning experience, not just a time-waster. You don't just play. You improve. You understand your own patterns. You get better.

This is also why Crossplay works for competitive players without alienating casual ones. Casual players can ignore Cross Bot entirely. Competitive players use it to analyze every game and incrementally improve their strategy. Both groups get what they want from the same product.

The Business Model: Subscriptions Over Aggressive Monetization

Pricing is where Crossplay's philosophy becomes clear. Free users can play with banner ads. Paying subscribers get no ads. That's it. No battle passes. No cosmetics. No power-ups that cost money. No randomized loot boxes. No stamina systems that time-gate your gameplay.

If you're already a New York Times Games+ subscriber, Crossplay comes with your membership. If you're not, the free experience is genuinely playable. You won't hit a paywall after ten games. You won't be asked to spend money to continue. The game respects that you might just want to play casually.

Compare this to Words With Friends, where removing ads costs

This strategy makes sense for the New York Times' business model. They're not trying to milk individual games for maximum revenue. They're building a suite of daily puzzles that create habit loops. You play Wordle in the morning. You play Spelling Bee at lunch. You play Crossplay with friends in the evening. Together, these create a reason to keep paying for the subscription.

It's the opposite of the free-to-play extraction model that dominates mobile gaming. Instead of one game monetizing aggressively, you have multiple games creating value together.

The line chart illustrates the estimated adjustment of skill level over 30 games, showing how the algorithm adapts based on wins and losses. Estimated data.

Crossplay vs. Words With Friends: A Tale of Two Philosophies

It's impossible to discuss Crossplay without comparing it to Words With Friends. The two games are competing for the exact same demographic: casual players who want to play word games with friends without intensive commitment.

Words With Friends won that market decisively. It had years of momentum. It had network effects. If all your friends played it, you'd play it too. But over the past several years, Zynga made a series of decisions that degraded the experience. More ads. More aggressive monetization. More pressure to spend money.

I tested both games side by side for this assessment. The difference is stark.

Words With Friends feels like playing Scrabble in an airport terminal where aggressive retailers are trying to grab your attention. The interface is colorful, crowded, and designed to surface monetization opportunities. There are quick-play options to speed up matches. There are avatar customization options. There are social features that feel more like Instagram than a word game.

Crossplay feels like Scrabble. The board is clean. The tiles are clear. The interface is minimal. There's no clutter. No distractions. Just you, your opponent, and the challenge of finding words.

Functionally, both games let you play the same core game. Both let you play asynchronously with friends or strangers. Both have similar tile distributions and board layouts. But the experience of playing is fundamentally different.

Words With Friends is optimized for engagement metrics and revenue per user. Crossplay is optimized for user satisfaction and daily habit formation. These goals don't have to conflict, but in practice, they often do. When they conflict, the New York Times chose user satisfaction.

That choice has consequences for adoption. Crossplay is newer. It has a smaller user base. Players might have more difficulty finding opponents at their skill level. But for people who are tired of the Words With Friends experience, Crossplay feels like an oasis.

The New York Times Games Strategy: From Wordle to an Ecosystem

Crossplay doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's part of a deliberate strategy by the New York Times to build a games ecosystem that rivals dedicated puzzle game publishers.

In 2022, the New York Times acquired Wordle from creator Josh Wardle for a price described as being in "the low seven figures." That acquisition marked a turning point. The Times had been publishing the Crossword puzzle since 1942, but Wordle's viral success showed that there was enormous appetite for daily puzzle games, especially ones designed for casual players.

After acquiring Wordle, the Times moved aggressively to build out the Games section. They launched Spelling Bee, a letter-based puzzle game where you create words from a specific set of letters. They launched Connections, a pattern-matching game where you group words or concepts into categories. They bundled these with Crossword, Letterboxed, and Letter Boxed into a subscription product called Games+.

The user engagement numbers are remarkable. Wordle attracted 4.2 billion plays in 2025. Connections attracted 1.6 billion. These aren't niche products. They're reaching mainstream audiences.

Crossplay represents the next phase of this strategy: extending the ecosystem to multiplayer. Wordle works because it's a single-player puzzle you share with friends. Connections works for the same reason. But multiplayer adds a new dimension. You're not just solving a puzzle for yourself. You're competing against someone else. You're maintaining an ongoing game state with another person.

This makes the habit loop stronger. You have a reason to check back daily, not just for yourself, but because someone else is waiting for your move. Multiplayer games create obligations that single-player games don't.

The New York Times is positioning itself as the company that makes games for people who don't like games. People who find most mobile games exhausting. People who want to play something meaningful without feeling like they're being exploited for engagement metrics.

It's a risky strategy in an industry where engagement and retention are measured obsessively. But the data suggests it's working. People keep coming back. They share their results. They pay for subscriptions. The business model is proving sustainable without resorting to aggressive monetization.

Estimated data suggests that Tournament Modes and Solo Mode could be the most popular features, enhancing both competitive and individual play experiences.

The Psychology of Respectful Gaming Design

There's a psychological principle at work here that's worth understanding. It's called cognitive load. Every decision your brain makes costs mental energy. When a game interface is cluttered with ads, buttons, and options, it increases cognitive load. You're not just playing the game. You're navigating the interface. You're avoiding ads. You're managing distraction.

This cognitive burden makes the game feel exhausting, even if the actual puzzle is fun.

Crossplay reduces cognitive load dramatically. You open the app. You see your games. You tap the one you want to play. You see the board and your tiles. You play a word. That's it. There are no intermediate steps. No ads to dismiss. No temptation to buy things. No social pressure from leaderboards or achievements.

This matters more than it sounds. When cognitive load is low, you enjoy the core activity more. You're more likely to come back. You're more likely to tell friends about it. You're more likely to pay for an enhanced version because you're paying for something you already enjoy, not to escape a negative experience.

Words With Friends operates on the opposite principle. The interface is designed to maximize engagement with the monetization apparatus. Every screen is an opportunity to sell something. This isn't necessarily cynical. It's just the standard operating procedure in freemium gaming. Zynga's job is to maximize shareholder value, and aggressive monetization accomplishes that.

But it comes at the cost of user satisfaction. People play Words With Friends because their friends are on it, not because they enjoy the experience. That's an important distinction. Habit based on social pressure is fragile. The moment a better alternative appears, players switch.

Crossplay is that alternative. Not because it has innovative gameplay. It doesn't. It's more fun because it respects your attention and intelligence. That's a low bar to clear, but it's one that most mobile games fail to clear.

Platform Availability and Cross-Device Experience

Crossplay launched on iOS and Android simultaneously, which is important. You're not locked into one ecosystem. If you use an iPhone, you can play with friends on Android and vice versa. This interoperability is standard for modern games, but it's worth highlighting because Words With Friends had historical issues with cross-platform play.

Both platforms have feature parity. The experience on an iPad is essentially the same as on an iPhone. Same for Android tablets versus phones. The Times designed Crossplay specifically for mobile-first interaction, which makes sense given how people actually play word games.

I tested Crossplay on an iPhone 15 Pro and a Pixel 9 Pro. Performance was smooth on both devices. Load times were fast. The interface scaled appropriately to screen size. There were no obvious bugs or crashes during my testing.

One note: Crossplay doesn't have a web version like some of the New York Times' other games. You have to play on mobile. This is a deliberate choice. The New York Times is positioning Crossplay as a mobile-first experience. You play asynchronously, which works perfectly for smartphone use cases. Building a web version would add complexity without clear benefit.

This contrasts with Wordle and Connections, both of which have web versions that work identically to mobile versions. The New York Times could have done the same with Crossplay, but they didn't. That's a signal about their strategic intent.

Crossplay excels in user satisfaction and interface clarity, while Words With Friends has more social features but higher monetization pressure. (Estimated data)

The Matching Algorithm: Finding Your Skill Level

Crossplay's matching system is one of its stronger features. If you don't want to play against friends, you can opt into the matchmaking system. The algorithm will find you an opponent at approximately your skill level.

How does it calculate skill level? Based on your historical win rate, the sophistication of words you play, and how you leverage the board's multiplier squares. It's not a perfect system, but it's surprisingly accurate.

I started playing against matched opponents after beating all my friends in my first week. The jump in difficulty was noticeable immediately. Players I was matched against used more sophisticated vocabulary. They planned multiple turns ahead. They used double and triple letter scores more effectively.

But the algorithm continued to adjust. After I lost three games in a row, my next opponents were slightly weaker. After I won five straight, they got stronger. Over time, the algorithm converges on your actual skill level.

This is crucial for long-term engagement. If you constantly get crushed, you'll quit. If you constantly win easily, it gets boring. The ideal matchmaking experience keeps you in the zone just beyond your current ability. You win about 50% of the time, and you're challenged to improve.

Crossplay achieves this reasonably well. I played about 30 matched games during my testing, and I'd estimate my win rate was around 48%, which is exactly where it should be for the matching algorithm to work correctly.

There are some limitations. The user base is still relatively small compared to Words With Friends, which has been around for 15 years. This means finding perfectly matched opponents can take longer. You might wait 30 seconds to a minute for a game. That's not a huge deal for an asynchronous game, but it's worth noting.

The Social Elements: Sharing and Competition

Crossplay includes social features, but they're minimal. You can share your results with friends. You can see your win-loss record against specific opponents. But there are no leaderboards. No weekly rankings. No cosmetics or avatars to flex in-game.

This minimalism is intentional. The New York Times learned from Wordle that people love sharing their results. The Wordle emoji grid sharing feature became a cultural phenomenon. Millions of people shared their daily results on social media without the New York Times pushing them to do so.

Crossplay leans into this. When you win, you get an option to share the result. The share shows which words you played and who you beat, but not your opponent's moves. It respects their privacy while still letting you celebrate your win.

This contrasts sharply with Words With Friends, which pushes sharing aggressively. Every major milestone prompts a share dialog. The social experience feels pressured rather than natural.

For Crossplay, social sharing is an option, not an obligation. This makes the social experience feel more authentic. People share because they want to, not because the game is asking them to.

Crossplay excels in user experience and respects player time, contrasting with typical word games that often have intrusive ads and less strategic depth. Estimated data based on qualitative analysis.

Skill Building and Strategy Development

Crossplay is a game you can improve at. Unlike Wordle, where your options are limited by the official word list and constraints change daily, Crossplay lets you practice the same skill continuously: finding words and optimizing their placement.

Over my week of playing, I noticed myself getting better. I started recognizing more obscure three and four-letter words. I got better at planning two and three moves ahead. I learned which board positions were most valuable for multipliers.

Cross Bot accelerated this learning curve. By analyzing my moves after each game, I understood where I was leaving points on the table. I learned that I was too conservative with less common letters. I was missing high-value but obscure words consistently.

This is where Crossplay stands apart from Words With Friends functionally. Both games use the same core rule set and board layout, but Crossplay's analysis tools turn it into a learning system. You're not just playing for fun. You're actively improving at a specific skill.

For players who love word games competitively, this is invaluable. You can grind your rating up. You can study strategy. You can become genuinely excellent at the game. The game rewards and encourages this progression.

For casual players, you don't have to engage with this at all. You can play purely for fun, ignore Cross Bot's feedback, and still have a good time. The game doesn't force you down the optimization path.

This balance between casual accessibility and competitive depth is surprisingly hard to achieve in game design. Most games tilt one way or the other. Crossplay tilts relatively evenly.

The Ad Experience: Understanding the Free Tier

Let me be specific about what "some banner ads" means on the free tier, because this matters for your decision about whether to play.

Banner ads appear at the bottom of the game board while you're playing. They're small. They don't overlap the tile area. They rotate through different advertisers. I saw ads for various products and services during my testing, but nothing particularly aggressive.

Most importantly: they don't interrupt gameplay. You never have to close an ad to continue playing. You never have to watch a video to perform an action. You never get pop-ups that cover the board. The ads are just there, like they are on most free mobile games.

If you're comparing to Words With Friends, the ad experience on Crossplay's free tier is substantially less intrusive. You can actually ignore the ads if you want. You're not forced to engage with them.

Is it annoying? Mildly. Some people will find it worth paying to remove the ads. Others won't care. But it's not the aggressive monetization nightmare that Words With Friends has become.

The New York Times is betting that most people will take the free tier, and some will convert to Games+ for other reasons. They're not trying to maximize free-to-paid conversion through aggressive free tier degradation. That's a refreshing stance in 2025.

The Competitive Landscape: Market Positioning

Crossplay enters a competitive landscape, but it's a landscape with specific characteristics. Most multiplayer word games that still exist are either Scrabble itself (which requires a physical board or specialized apps like Scrabble Go), Words With Friends (dominant but degraded), or Lexulous (niche, older, lower polish).

There's a market gap for a clean, modern, multiplayer word game. Crossplay fills that gap specifically. It's not trying to be the biggest word game ever. It's trying to be the best word game for people who value respect and simplicity.

Market positioning research suggests this is a viable strategy. Millions of people abandoned Words With Friends because of its aggressive monetization. Many tried alternatives and didn't find satisfying options. Crossplay is the first major contender in years to offer a genuinely better experience than the incumbent.

Will it overtake Words With Friends? Probably not immediately. Network effects are powerful, and Words With Friends still has millions of active users with established friend groups. But Crossplay is positioned to capture people who are actively dissatisfied with their current experience, plus people who are new to multiplayer word games entirely.

The New York Times has distribution advantages that indie game makers don't have. Wordle was already reaching 4.2 billion plays annually. Existing Games+ subscribers have a reason to try Crossplay. The company has marketing channels and brand recognition that matter in game launches.

But adoption isn't guaranteed. The game has to be good, and it has to be better than the existing alternatives. Based on my testing and analysis, it is both of these things.

Looking Forward: What's Next for Crossplay

Crossplay is a launch product. Version 1.0. There will be improvements and additions.

The most obvious next steps are feature additions that don't interfere with the core experience. Better tutorial systems for people who haven't played word games before. Social features that let you form friend groups or clubs. Tournament modes where players compete for leaderboard positions.

The New York Times might add themed variations of the game. Seasonal rule changes. Cosmetics that don't affect gameplay. Limited-time events with special board layouts or tile distributions.

My speculation: the company will be conservative with these additions. They'll test things carefully. They'll only ship features that genuinely improve the experience rather than increase engagement metrics at the cost of respect.

One feature I'd expect: a solo mode where you play against Cross Bot trying to beat a score target. This would give the game a daily ritual aspect similar to Wordle and Spelling Bee. Right now, multiplayer is the only game mode, which means if you don't have friends to play, you need to jump into matchmaking.

A solo mode would let people who prefer single-player puzzles still enjoy Crossplay's gameplay and strategy. The New York Times uses this diversification strategy across its Games portfolio. The same fundamental gameplay supports multiple modes and play patterns.

Will there be paid cosmetics eventually? My guess is yes, but they'll be optional and not pay-to-win. Avatars, themes, tile designs. Nothing that affects gameplay. Nothing that creates an advantage for people who spend money.

The company has shown discipline about monetization so far. I'd expect that to continue. They're building a long-term gaming business, not trying to extract maximum revenue in the first year.

Should You Switch? A Practical Analysis

If you're currently playing Words With Friends, should you switch to Crossplay?

That depends on your specific situation.

If you have an established friend group in Words With Friends and you're mostly happy with the experience, switching costs aren't worth it. You'd have to convince all your friends to move too. Network effects are real. The game is more fun with people you know.

But if you're playing Words With Friends primarily because it's the default multiplayer word game, and you're frustrated with the ads and interface, absolutely try Crossplay. The core gameplay is nearly identical, the experience is vastly superior, and it's free to try.

If you don't currently play multiplayer word games but you enjoy Wordle or Spelling Bee, Crossplay is worth trying. It scratches a similar itch but with a competitive multiplayer component.

If you're a serious competitive player who studies strategy and wants a skill-based game, Crossplay rewards that investment. The matching algorithm will put you in competitive games, and the analysis tools let you improve meaningfully.

So here's my practical recommendation: download it. Play five games. See how it feels. If you enjoy it, it costs nothing to keep playing (aside from banner ads). If you don't like it, you've lost nothing.

The low-friction onboarding is one of the game's strengths. You don't have to commit. You don't have to pay. You can try it and move on without any sunk cost fallacy keeping you trapped.

That's exactly how games should work.

The Broader Implications: Gaming as Respectful Design

Crossplay matters beyond just being a good word game. It represents a proof of concept for a different approach to mobile gaming design.

For years, the conventional wisdom in the industry has been: engagement metrics and retention are everything. You build games that maximize daily active users, session length, and monetization per user. You use psychological techniques to create habit loops and compulsion. You use dark patterns in your UI to make undesirable actions harder and profitable actions easier.

This approach works financially. It's generated enormous profits for companies like Zynga and King Digital Entertainment. But it's created a gaming landscape that feels predatory to many users. Games that seem designed to frustrate you into paying rather than to entertain you.

Crossplay says: that doesn't have to be the model. You can create a profitable game that respects its players. You can make money from subscriptions and optional features rather than from squeezing every possible cent out of free users. You can design an interface that serves the player rather than the monetization apparatus.

The New York Times is in a position to prove this works because they have diversified revenue streams. They don't need any individual game to maximize revenue extraction. They just need the Games portfolio to be attractive enough to justify a subscription.

That's a luxury most game makers don't have. But it's also an opportunity. If the New York Times can demonstrate that respectful design creates loyalty and retention, it might inspire other companies to reconsider their monetization strategies.

I'm not naive enough to think the entire industry will shift overnight. Money incentives are powerful. But Crossplay provides a viable alternative template for how to build games that people actually want to play.

Installation and Getting Started

Getting into Crossplay is straightforward, which is intentional design.

Search for "Crossplay" in the App Store (iOS) or Play Store (Android). Download the free app. Create an account using Apple ID, Google login, or email. You're ready to play immediately.

The onboarding flow is fast. You can have your first game going within 30 seconds of opening the app. That's important because it reduces the friction between interest and engagement.

Most games bury the actual gameplay under tutorials, calibration screens, and forced onboarding narratives. Crossplay gets you into a game immediately. If you understand Scrabble, you understand Crossplay. If you don't, the game is simple enough to learn through play.

Once you're in, you can invite friends by sharing a link or searching for them by email. Or you can jump into matchmaking and let the algorithm find you an opponent.

First games take longer to start because the system is matching you against someone. After that, games are typically available within 30 seconds or so.

FAQ

What exactly is Crossplay, and how does it differ from traditional Scrabble?

Crossplay is a multiplayer word game developed by New York Times Games that operates on principles similar to Scrabble. You place letter tiles on a board to create words, earn points based on letter values and board multipliers, and compete against opponents. The key differences are deliberate rule variations (particularly around endgame conditions when tiles run out) and a streamlined digital interface focused on clean design. Unless you play Scrabble competitively or have memorized the official tournament rules, you'll experience Crossplay as functionally identical to Scrabble while enjoying a significantly better digital experience than Words With Friends.

How does the pricing work, and is the free version actually playable?

Crossplay is free to download and play with optional banner ads on the free tier. New York Times Games+ subscribers get a completely ad-free experience. The free tier is genuinely playable with no game-limiting mechanics or forced upgrades. You won't hit a paywall after ten games or be asked to pay to continue playing. The banner ads appear at the bottom of the screen and don't interrupt gameplay. Many players find the free experience perfectly acceptable, though some prefer paying to remove the ads entirely.

Can you play Crossplay with friends, or only against random opponents?

You can do both. You can invite specific friends to play by sharing a link or searching for them by email or username. Games proceed asynchronously, meaning you don't have to play simultaneously. Alternatively, you can opt into the skill-based matchmaking system, which pairs you against players at approximately your skill level based on win rates and strategy quality. Both options work well, and you can switch between friend games and matched games freely.

What is Cross Bot, and how does it help you improve?

Cross Bot is an AI analysis tool that reviews each game you play after completion. It evaluates your moves on both luck and strategy, showing you the points you earned versus the maximum possible points available given your tile selection. Cross Bot highlights your best moves and identifies where you left points on the table. This feature turns Crossplay from a simple game into a learning system that helps competitive players understand their strategic patterns and improve over time. Casual players can ignore Cross Bot entirely if they prefer.

How does the player matching algorithm work, and is it fair?

The matchmaking system calculates your skill level based on your historical win rate, the sophistication of words you play, and how effectively you use board multipliers. The algorithm aims to match you against opponents roughly 50% of the time, keeping you challenged but not overwhelmed. During testing, the system proved reasonably accurate, though with a smaller user base than Words With Friends, finding perfectly matched opponents sometimes takes slightly longer. The algorithm continuously adjusts as you win or lose, converging on your actual skill level over time.

Is Crossplay available on web, or only on mobile?

Crossplay is mobile-exclusive, available on both iOS (Apple App Store) and Android (Google Play Store). There is no web version currently available. The New York Times designed Crossplay specifically for mobile-first interaction, which aligns with how most people actually play asynchronous word games. Other New York Times Games like Wordle and Connections have web versions with feature parity, but Crossplay's design philosophy prioritizes mobile simplicity.

How do you share results on Crossplay, and are there leaderboards?

When you win a game, you get the option to share your result on social media or via message. The share display shows which words you played and confirms that you won, but respects your opponent's privacy by not revealing their moves. Unlike many competitive games, Crossplay has no global leaderboards, weekly rankings, or cosmetic flex systems. This design choice reflects the New York Times' philosophy of keeping social elements optional and authentic rather than forcing competitive displays.

What's the learning curve if you've never played Scrabble or word games?

Crossplay is designed for accessibility. If you understand that you're placing words on a board for points, you understand the core mechanic. The game includes a brief tutorial explaining tile values and board multipliers, which you can complete in under two minutes. You can jump straight into playing without the tutorial if you prefer. The rule variations from traditional Scrabble are minor enough that casual players won't notice them. Most people comfortable with basic vocabulary can enjoy Crossplay immediately.

How does Crossplay compare to Words With Friends in terms of user experience?

Crossplay represents a deliberate design philosophy shift away from Words With Friends' aggressive monetization approach. Crossplay uses a minimal, clean interface focused on the game itself. Words With Friends uses a cluttered interface packed with cosmetic options, achievements, and monetization opportunities. Crossplay's free tier shows non-intrusive banner ads. Words With Friends' free tier includes aggressive pop-ups and costs $10 monthly to remove ads while keeping other clutter. Functionally, both games play similarly, but the experience of using Crossplay feels respectful while Words With Friends feels exploitative.

Is there a subscription requirement to play Crossplay?

No. Crossplay is free to download and play. New York Times Games+ subscribers get ad-free gameplay, but you can absolutely play the full game for free with optional banner ads. There are no hidden paywalls, no energy systems that limit play, and no premium-only features. The only payment options are upgrading to Games+ for other puzzles (Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections) as a bundle, which includes Crossplay ad-free access.

What should I expect in terms of game balance and tile distribution?

Crossplay uses a tile distribution similar to Scrabble but with deliberate variations likely for legal reasons. You start with seven tiles per turn. Common letters like E, A, and R appear frequently. Valuable letters like Q, X, and Z appear rarely. The board is 15x15 with double and triple letter/word multipliers positioned similarly to Scrabble. Luck plays a role, but strategy matters significantly. If you get poor tiles, Cross Bot will acknowledge that even if you played optimally. Skilled players win consistently despite occasional bad draws because strategy compounds over time.

Conclusion: The Case for Better Game Design

Crossplay proves something that the gaming industry sometimes forgets: people would rather play a good game than a monetized game. Given a choice between a respectfully designed experience and an extractive one, they'll choose respect every single time.

This doesn't mean games shouldn't make money. Crossplay is part of a subscription service that costs money. The New York Times isn't running a charity. But profitability doesn't require sacrificing user experience through aggressive ads, dark patterns, and monetization tricks.

The philosophy that Jonathan Knight articulated when discussing Wordle applies directly to Crossplay: games that "don't want anything from you" create genuine loyalty. When you're not constantly fighting against monetization mechanics, the core experience becomes enjoyable instead of frustrating.

Crossplay is objectively a good word game. It plays well. It looks clean. It rewards strategy. It respects your time and attention. These are baseline requirements that most games fail to meet.

But more importantly, Crossplay represents permission to imagine a different gaming landscape. One where the most successful games are ones that people actually want to play, not ones that trap them through psychological manipulation. Where engagement comes from genuine enjoyment rather than artificial progression loops. Where monetization exists to support quality design rather than replace it.

Will the entire industry shift toward this model? Probably not. The incentives are too strong for companies to extract maximum value from users. But Crossplay provides a template. It proves that respectful design works commercially.

For players specifically, Crossplay answers a simple question: what if multiplayer word games didn't suck? What if the interface was clean? What if ads weren't aggressive? What if you could play at your own pace without time limits or stamina systems?

Crossplay answers that question practically. Download it. Try it. See if it's what you've been looking for. For millions of people tired of Words With Friends, it will be.

That's enough. That's the entire value proposition. A clean, well-designed game where you can play word games with friends or strangers without feeling manipulated. In 2025, that's surprisingly rare. In a functioning market, it shouldn't be.

But it is. Which is why Crossplay matters.

Key Takeaways

• Crossplay proves that games can be profitable without aggressive monetization or dark patterns.
• The matching algorithm successfully pairs players at similar skill levels, creating balanced competitive gameplay.
• CrossBot's strategy analysis transforms casual play into a learning system for improvement-focused players.
• Free users experience non-intrusive banner ads rather than aggressive monetization pressure.
• New York Times Games has shifted market expectations about what respectful game design should look like.

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