OpenAI’s Time – During Game 1 of the Knicks vs Spurs NBA Finals, OpenAI ran an advertisement for its Codex AI coding tool that doubled as a scavenger-style mini game. Viewers who found and played the “Time to Fly” game online won free AI tokens—until the promo codes ran out.
By the time Game 1 of the Knicks vs Spurs NBA Finals hit the screens, OpenAI had already embedded a second contest inside its own ad.
The company debuted an advertisement for Codex—its AI coding tool—titled “Time to Fly.” The commercial shows a variety of users “vibe coding” a product idea. One person asks for a companion app. Another pushes a request on “Extra High” mode. A third appears to be developing a video game.
That video game wasn’t just part of the creative. It echoed the ad’s title: “Time to Fly.” Eagle-eyed viewers found the game online and played it to win free AI tokens.
OpenAI describes “Time to Fly” on its website as a “cosmic logic puzzle game about orbital rotation.” One employee later wrote on X that the team built a “mini game that’s waiting for anyone curious enough to follow the clues.”
Players posted proof of their runs. One user shared a “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” screen on X showing they won $1,000 in tokens, with another user responding, “Thank you for the credits!”
Not everyone got the same outcome. Some posters said they placed third even after OpenAI had run out of tokens. Others shared screenshots of the game message stating: “We’re all out of promo codes, but you can still compete on the leaderboard!”
Token mechanics sit at the heart of why the ad landed with such a sharp edge. AI tokens—often called credits—are a unit of measurement used to determine computing costs for using AI products. As tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex have gained traction over the last year. trends such as tokenmaxxing have spread alongside growing concerns about AI costs and budgeting.
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