Snapshot · Freakonomics Radio
Crossplay, the NYT's first multiplayer game, has shown some of the best day-1, day-7, and day-30 retention metrics Jonathan Knight has seen in his entire career.
Where this was said
At 56:15 · chapter starts 55:49
Crossplay is the NYT's newest and first multiplayer game, requiring account creation to play — which is already driving new registered users. Knight describes it as a 'clean and simple and elegant take' on the Scrabble category, distinguished from the treasure-chest-and-pop-up morass of most mobile games. Dubner calls it a Wordle-adjacent 'ripoff' of Scrabble; Knight prefers 'elegant take on the category.' The game's retention numbers are the best Knight has seen in his career. Most notably, Crossplay ships with Game Review powered by Crossbot, an AI that analyzes every move after a completed game and shows what better options were available. The design philosophy, Knight explains, is genuinely trying to make players better — not just maximizing time-in-app.
Crossplay — essentially a clean, elegant Scrabble — requires account creation and has produced some of the best retention metrics Jonathan Knight has seen in his career. It also ships with an AI-powered Game Review feature so players actually improve.
Sam built Algrow from zero to $14,000 in monthly revenue within just six months of shipping his first MVP.
Algrow reached over 10,000 users in roughly six months, driven almost entirely by organic Discord community growth.
Sam acquired his first 400 users entirely through Discord communities, without paid advertising or traditional outreach.
Algrow added exactly 480 new paying customers in its most recent month, demonstrating strong ongoing growth.
Sam's Stripe dashboard showed over £10,000 in revenue in the last four weeks, equivalent to roughly $13,000–$14,000 USD.
Sam gave all early users free access so they could show the tool to friends, turning them into live demos and advocates who helped the product spread virally.
By silently screen-sharing his tool in Discord voice chats rather than posting links, Sam attracted curiosity without violating no-self-promo server rules.
Before building Algrow, Sam and two friends made over $10,000 in revenue through affiliate marketing for RizzApp by posting faceless texting story content.
Bhanu grew SiteGPT to $13,000 monthly recurring revenue entirely through organic channels, spending nothing on paid marketing.
We use essential and analytics cookies to run Vuci. To understand how the site is used: Privacy Policy.
Install Vuci on your phone
Add it to your home screen for a faster, app-like experience.
Install Vuci on your phone
Tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
A new version is available
Reload to get the latest Vuci.