Mini-games and modern engagement

The casual game explosion

We've been witnessing a fascinating trend in the digital landscape: the rise of casual mini-games across a wide array of online platforms. This trend isn't just a passing moment: it has truly reshaped how we interact with websites and apps, and it's changing the way companies engage with their users and keep them engaged.

The New York Times: from paper crosswords to mobile Wordle

One of the most visible and well-known examples of the mini-game ascent comes from the New York Times. NYT has long been known for its iconic crossword puzzles, first published in 1942, which set the stage for daily brain-teasers. Its enduring popularity demonstrates the long-standing appeal of quick, daily mental challenges, and their foray into modern mini-games has catapulted them into the online spotlight. The trend started before the pandemic already—the daily Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee are global favorites—but it was the acquisition of Wordle in 2022 that truly put NYT games on a new scale. This game was unique and the results easy to share, spoiler-free. NYT’s casual game offerings have only continued to grow in popularity since then.

Beyond NYT: the spread of mini-games

The trend isn't limited to news outlets. Professional networking site LinkedIn has introduced a few casual games that refresh daily, and even e-commerce platforms like bol.com have incorporated games into their apps. The OEC, an economic data platform, has brought in regular visitors with their games like Tradle and Connectrade (homages to NYT’s Wordle and Connections). The spinoffs don’t stop there: Worldle for the geographers-at-heart, Heardle for the more musically inclined, Loldle for the gamers, Waffle for our smartest friends, and Quorlde for the eccentrics among us—just to name a few.

What makes these games so appealing?

They're quick, tricky enough to feel challenging but not so difficult as to cause frustration, and effortlessly shareable. With usually only one new puzzle per day, the process of completing them provides a sense of downtime without feeling unproductive. Everyone attempts the same puzzle and there are no ‘levels’; the results—your score—can be transformed and emoji-fied to make for spoiler-free comparison among family, friends, or colleagues. This limited availability and global consistency creates a shared experience among players, fostering both a sense of community and a dose of friendly competition.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with playing and enjoying mini-games, but the context of their presence raises some questions. The NYT claims these games drive traffic to their platform and provide levity from a heavy news cycle, but they've also created a separate app for their games, which effectively results in less traffic to their site and main platform. This widespread adoption begs the question: where did this trend come from, and where is it going?

What’s behind the mini-games trend?

From the early days of flash games to the massive gaming industry we see today, playing games on the internet has always been a core part of the online experience.

However, what we're seeing now is different. These new mini-games provide quick dopamine hits, often taking just 30 seconds or two minutes to play. They're designed for short attention spans and busy lifestyles, often integrated into apps we use daily. The rise of mini-games and its corporate encouragement isn't accidental: it's a response to changing user behaviors and platform needs. With overall engagement declining and users spending less time on individual sites (besides the big social media platforms), these games serve as a way to increase user return, retention, and time spent.

But is this trend a solution or part of a broader problem?

A little deep dive into games online: the case of Indonesia

We took to Dataprovider.com’s Search Engine to see what we could find about how games are mentioned online. We can see a general rise in “games” being referred to across the internet, but there’s one trend line in particular that we couldn’t ignore: Indonesian websites and websites based in Indonesia have seen a meteoric rise in the mentions of games online since 2021. In Figure 1, we can see that Indonesia’s line starts rising at the end of 2021 and continues steadily upwards until the end of 2023. Then, from the beginning of 2024 until now, there’s been an exponential growth in “games” mentions that overtakes the numbers of the UK and Canada—even combined. We tested our data for an increase in English-language Indonesian websites, and discovered that no change was present that would account for the rise. No changes in our internal methodologies could explain the changes either, which sent us to the news to investigate. 

Two unique explanations came to our attention; two answers that seemed on opposite sides of the same coin. On one side of the coin, we have to take a look at gambling—an activity that is illegal for both locals and tourists in Indonesia for religious reasons. However, online gambling has become a problem in the country: in lieu of (legal) traditional casinos, the gambling that happens tends to be in the form of mobile apps and sites, where users can play gambling ‘games’ with ‘real stakes.’ These platforms create considerable political and social concern about gambling gamification, and a governmental task force was set up earlier in 2024 to address the issue. For better or worse, this helps explain the prevalence of “games” on the Indonesian internet. 

The other side of the coin paints a much happier picture, giving context to the data we see in Figure 1. It starts with the “Perpres 19/2024”, a presidential regulation and government initiative for supporting Indonesian mobile/video game developers. The Perpres was announced in 2021—aligning with when the orange trend line starts to rise—and more actively enacted in 2024, essentially when the exponential growth begins. With a large and active online (gaming) community in Indonesia, the initiative is intended to keep more gaming revenue in the country by supporting talent development, funding indie game development studios, and more. Some of the most popular games from Indonesian studios are known around the world (Coffee Talk and Coral Island, especially!). From this angle, the increased mention of “games” on local websites can be clearly attributed to this giant boost to Indonesia’s gaming industry. 

Neither of these explanations are the same kind of mini-game as what the NYT offers, but this case tells us plenty about the way people use the internet today: to find games, to play games, and to discuss games in blogs, articles, and comment sections across the world. At the same time, they all add together as a way to keep people and their activities firmly online. 

The Attention Economy 

It appears that (mini-)games are the newest addition to the attention economy. Just as the printers and publishers before them, online platforms are competing for users' limited time, focus, and screen space. The seemingly harmless venture into casual games—especially from news providers—can spur a sense of service dilution, where platforms expand too far beyond their core offerings, just to keep users engaged. 

It risks becoming a symptom of content collapse, a modern phenomenon where all information flattened and given more or less the same importance. For example, it occurs when heavy news is placed alongside clickbait and quizzes, which can lead to a kind of numbing effect: there’s less emotional room to deal with dark themes, and the joy of puzzling is damped by negative events.

What's next for the mini-game internet?

As we look to the future, several questions emerge:

• Will mini-games become a standard feature across all types of digital platforms?
• How will these games evolve to maintain user interest and generate income for their hosts? 
• What impact will this trend have on user behavior and expectations?
• How will platforms balance their core services with these additional engagement tools?

The rise of mini-games online represents a significant shift in how we interact with digital platforms. In our article on GenAI Transparency, we explored the impact of the ‘time spent’ metric (and how it interests shareholders): it's not hard to imagine that the interest in keeping users on the platform will take precedence over the reason the users are on the platform—as long as money is being made, and the metrics show growth, quantity will remain above quality.

But that’s the cynical take, and it could just as well be that mini-games will stay casual, just a fun addition and well-deserved source of levity online. They offer benefits in terms of engagement and user retention on the corporate level, and in terms of a brain-break for users, but of course, casual mini-games also raise important questions about the future of online content and user experience. For those of us on the player side of mini-games, it comes down to being intentional and paying attention to the context in which the games are. It’ll be fascinating to watch how they shape the digital landscape in the years to come.

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This article is part of the Modern Internet series, where we dive into today's digital culture and the online landscape. Check out Internet Nostalgia for a head start on finding great spaces to hang out online, or read our piece on GenAI Transparency to learn about maintaining the Living Internet. If you’re curious about the importance of entropy to security, take a look at Low-Tech Internet (and enjoy the lava lamps).