New York Times joins the game acquisition race by purchasing Wordle

[That Franc]

In a somewhat surprising move, New York Times announced their acquisition of Wordle, everyone's favourite word-guessing game.

 

For those living under the rock, for the past several months Wordle captured minds and hearts of millions of players worldwide. The game offers a simple challenge - a player is given six attempts to guess a five letter word which rotates daily. After a guess is made the game highlights letters that are present in the actual word - yellow letters are present in the word albeit in a different spot, green letters are present in the word in the same exact spot, and grey letters are not a part of the target word. Using those clues, players make subsequent guesses until they find the right word or run out of guesses for the day.

After completing the daily challenge, the player is offered to share the game results as a grid of coloured squares representing their string of guesses. Besides the obvious fun challenge, the game offered just one more reason to message one's friends, family, and loved ones every day.

 

Spoiler

If you were to share your most recent Wordle run, it would look something like this:

 

Wordle 227 4/6

 

Of course, all nice things come to an end at some point, and New York Times had to jump on Wordle's status of a cultural phenomenon, spending an undisclosed low-seven figure sum to purchase the game.

 

Josh Wardle, the creator of Wordle, has made a comment on the acquisition in his Twitter post linked below.

If it is any consolation, Josh worked closely with NYT to make sure the transition goes smoothly, and every player's progress is retained. Additionally, New York Times claims that for the time being the game will remain free to play for existing and new players, and there will be no changes done to the gameplay.

 

Quotes

Quote

"The sale caps a meteoric rise for the simple game. It rode word-of-mouth recommendations and glowing media coverage to prominence, was subject to multiple copycat apps that Apple removed from its App Store, and inevitably generated backlash from people who don't like it when other people have fun in public." - Ars Technica

 

"I think people kind of appreciate that there's this thing online that's just fun," ... "It's not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It's just a game that's fun." - Josh Wardle

 

“If you’ve followed along with the story of Wordle, you’ll know that New York Times Games play a big part in its origins, and so this step feels very natural to me. I’ve long admired The Times’s approach to the quality of their games and the respect with which they treat their players. Their values are aligned with mine on these matters and I’m thrilled that they will be stewards of the game moving forward.” - Josh Wardle

 

"At the time it moves to The New York Times, Wordle will be free to play for new and existing players, and no changes will be made to its gameplay." - NYT

 

For players who are hell-bent on having unrestricted access to the original Wordle experience, I may interest you in hello wordl - a free Wordle clone that lets you guess an infinite amount of words alongside the daily challenge, and offers difficulty settings on top of that. Alternatively, you can save the Wordle page locally as Web Page (Complete), and it will work just as good on your local computer even without an internet connection.

 

My thoughts

I don't see it as a particularly bad thing. There is a solid chance NYT is not actually going to ruin Wordle, and even if they do - remember that all things are highly temporary nowadays. There is no telling how long Wordle could ride the wave of success and popularity before people's short attention span would force them to completely forget it and turn to something new and exciting. Keeping that in mind, I think Josh's move to pass it onto someone else and get some good money for it is pretty pragmatic and not at all unethical.

 

Sources

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/01/whats-a-five-letter-word-for-acquire-nyt-buys-wordle-for-low-7-figures/
https://www.nytco.com/press/wordle-new-york-times-games/
https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

https://hellowordl.net/

[Lightwreather]

I have feeling we might be seeing a paywall on this sometime soon......

That said, I'm happy that the dev got a good deal.

[jaslion]

It really feels like everyone is suddenly entering an extra extra fast race to get bought up by the biggest fish possible. I really don't like where this is going.

[Video Beagle]

1 hour ago, That Franc said:

Alternatively, you can save the Wordle page locally as Web Page (Complete), and it will work just as good on your local computer even without an internet connection.

really? it doesn't fetch the daily puzzle and word list from online?

 

 

(Also, good for the dude making bank on his game.)

[That Franc]

2 hours ago, Video Beagle said:

really? it doesn't fetch the daily puzzle and word list from online?

 

 

(Also, good for the dude making bank on his game.)

The game has enough words hardcoded into it to last until 2026.

 

[Brooksie359]

Wait isn't this just another version of hangman? I'm  surprised they were so successful taking an existing game and making one based off it. 

[HarryNyquist]

On one hand, I hate that something so simple will be taken and paywalled by the New York Times

 

On the other hand, if someone came to me with 7 figures of money offering to buy it from me, I'd be REALLY hard pressed not to take it. Good for this dude.

[Brooksie359]

2 minutes ago, HarryNyquist said:

On one hand, I hate that something so simple will be taken and paywalled by the New York Times

 

On the other hand, if someone came to me with 7 figures of money offering to buy it from me, I'd be REALLY hard pressed not to take it. Good for this dude.

Honestly it would be stupid not to take it. Sure the game is popular now but who knows of that will be true in the future. Who knows if they could make that much money off the app. I mean a bag of cash in hand is better than the possibility of a bag of cash later. 

[poochyena]

16 minutes ago, HarryNyquist said:

On one hand, I hate that something so simple will be taken and paywalled by the New York Times

There are dozens, if not hundreds of clones. The fact NYT bought it and didn't just clone it is great.

[Middcore]

Can't blame the guy for selling. As long as his wife/girlfriend was cool with it, since he originally made it for her. 

[Senzelian]

14 hours ago, That Franc said:

For those living under the rock or Germany, for the past several months Wordle captured minds and hearts of millions of players worldwide.

ftfy

 

Things like these just fly past Germany. Sometimes I wonder whether we're still stuck in 1989.

[Heliian]

Are they selling a wordle nft yet? 

[Video Beagle]

16 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Wait isn't this just another version of hangman? I'm  surprised they were so successful taking an existing game and making one based off it. 

It's a combination of passcode and scrabble.  It's a bit brilliant in it's simplicity. I've only played it twice, but it hits that nice zone of being challenging so that you feel good when you succeed, while not being so complicated you just give up. And it's a nice little exercise for the brain, which lets be honest, after the past few years, we all can use.