I work with many people who pay for the subscription to play the games

I don't have numbers in front of me, but yes, NYT has basically said exactly that. Their games portfolio is a major driver of digital subscriptions.

There's a joke in the news industry that the NYT is a games company with a loss-making news organization attached to it as a side-project.

They have a games-only subscription option: https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/games/

Their recently shipped scrabble clone is excellent! One of the cleanest scrabble / words-with-friends implementations I've played.

I'm not sure about all of the ones they host, but for the crossword app you need to subscribe for full access.

The modern NYT has been described as a games company that occasionally engages in journalism

I mean, why not? Sometimes it seems to me that airlines make their money not on flights but on branded Credit Cards.