NYT makes money from games?

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.

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.

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.

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.