PIPS: How the NYT Turned Its Crosswords Into a Marketing Puzzle

The New York Times didn’t just announce its new game, it clued it.

The New York Times didn’t advertise PIPS with flashy banners or splashy press releases. Instead, the new word game appeared inside the NYT Games app and on the browser version on one August morning (the 19th, to be exact).

What most players didn’t realize was that PIPS had already been quietly live for months, tested in Canada, a common proving ground for English-language tech rollouts (and one the Times has used before).

But what’s interesting isn’t just how the game arrived; it’s what surrounded it. In the weeks leading up to the launch, the words “PIP” and “PIPS” began appearing frequently in both The Mini and The Daily crosswords. Maybe coincidence. Or maybe an early sign that NYT Games is starting to cross-pollinate its puzzle universe — not through ads, but through the puzzles themselves.

PIP: The Constructor’s Friend, and a Convenient Coincidence

According to xwordinfo.com data, PIP ranks among the 1,000 most popular 3-letter crossword entries in the New York Times’ modern era, appearing 134 times in published puzzles. It’s easy to see why: short, vowel-rich, and versatile, PIP is a go-to for constructors trying to fill a tricky corner or balance a dense theme. It’s also versatile,  meaning a small seed, a baby chick’s cry, or even something excellent (“a real pip!”). So on its own, PIP appearing in a crossword isn’t remarkable at all; it’s a staple of the grid. What is interesting, though, is the timing. In 2025, the word surfaced across both the Mini and the Daily puzzles in the weeks immediately surrounding the launch of PIPS, the Times’ new game. Whether coincidence or subtle cross-promotion, that clustering around August makes for a fascinating case study in how editorial choices can quietly echo product strategy.

PIP in the NYT Crossword: 2023–2025 Timeline

The Mini

• July 26, 2025 — “Dot on a domino” (Saturday, 7×7, by Joel Fagliano)
  https://ladypuzzle.pro/nyt-mini-answers-hints/2025-07-26
  The first “PIP” of the summer appeared in a weekend Mini, clued as “Dot on a domino.” A classic definition: simple, visual, but not immediately obvious to casual solvers.
• August 16, 2025 — “Dot on a domino” (Saturday, 7×7, by Tracy Bennett)
  https://ladypuzzle.pro/nyt-mini-answers-hints/2025-08-16
  Just three days before PIPS officially launched, the Mini repeated the clue. Same definition, different grid, this time edited by Wordle editor Tracy Bennett. A coincidence? Maybe. But the repetition felt like a little rehearsal, as if the NYT Mini were quietly priming players with a word they’d soon see again.
  And it worked: according to solver chatter on social media, PIP stumped many Minis fans both times. At that point, the Mini was still free to play, reaching millions of casual solvers daily.
• September 23, 2025 — “Dots on a domino” (by Ian Livengood)
  https://ladypuzzle.pro/nyt-mini-answers-hints/2025-09-23
  One month after launch, PIPS (plural this time) showed up again. The constructor? Ian Livengood, none other than the editor of PIPS itself. The clue? The exact same: “Dots on a domino.” A neat full-circle moment!

The Daily Crossword

• August 20, 2025 — “A playful midweek with a meta wink to NYT’s new PIPS game”
  https://ladypuzzle.pro/nyt-crossword-answers-hints/2025-08-20
  Just one day after the game’s official release, PIP appeared in a memorable Wednesday puzzle that practically nodded at the launch. Its theme revolved around the letter “O” representing pips on dice, a clever meta conceit. The grid even culminated with the entries DIE (39A) and PIP (33D), tying the visual idea together.

Despite heavy theme pressure (those triple O’s in BOOOFFSTAGE and TOOOFTEN), the fill stayed lively. The whole puzzle carried an energy of newsroom synergy: part crossword, part celebration of a new game in the NYT family.

• August 28, 2025 — “One of three in the Domino’s logo”
  https://ladypuzzle.pro/nyt-crossword-answers-hints/2025-08-28
  A week later, PIP returned, clued in a natural but neatly on-theme way. Coming so soon after the August 20 meta puzzle, it read like a friendly reminder,  subtle reinforcement rather than overt cross-promotion.
• September 24, 2025 — “Domino features”
  https://ladypuzzle.pro/nyt-crossword-answers-hints/2025-09-24
  Finally, the plural PIPS appeared again, right in the top row of the grid, almost center stage. The clue echoed the Minis and earlier dailies (“Domino features”), closing out a tidy six-week sequence where the word and the game seemed to echo each other in perfect rhythm.

Connections

And it wasn’t just the crosswords. On August 20, 2025, the same day PIP appeared in that meta-themed Daily puzzle, Connections also nodded toward the same imagery. The yellow group that day was BLACK-AND-WHITE THINGS, featuring DOMINO, PIANO KEYS, YIN-YANG SYMBOL, and ZEBRA. To us, it looked coordinated: dominoes, pips, and pattern-based logic all converging across multiple NYT games on launch week.

Reading Between the Grids

Between late July and late September 2025, PIP and PIPS appeared across six NYT crosswords, their timing neatly bracketing the official release of PIPS. Whether coincidence or quiet coordination, it was a rare moment when the NYT’s expanding puzzle universe seemed to hum in unison, using its own games as the medium of a shared inside joke.

And it makes you wonder: Did the Times time the launch of PIPS to coincide with the moment the Mini moved behind a paywall on August 27? The Mini had long been the gateway puzzle for millions of casual solvers; introducing a new free game just as one went premium would be a clever bit of audience choreography.

Other Meta Moments: When NYT Games Talk to Each Other

This wasn’t the first time NYT Games winked at itself.
On October 24, 2024, Connections featured a green group called NYT OFFERINGS: AUDIO, COOKING, GAMES, and NEWS, a clear nod to the Times’ own products.
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-10-24
Even better, the puzzle also included a red herring - ADIEU, SLATE, CRANE, and AUDIO, all classic Wordle starter words. It was a neat bit of self-awareness, almost like Connections giving a knowing nod to its sister games.

Closing the Loop

So, was it marketing, or just a coincidence wrapped in wordplay? Maybe both.
Either way, it’s hard not to admire the move — a little puzzle inside the puzzles we already love.