We have all probably heard by now that the New York Times has bought Wordle for a few million dollars. It’s not hard to see why they would want to bring Wordle into their puzzle family — they are pretty much the gold standard of crosswords and on the cutting edge of most of the hot puzzles, under the long-term guidance of probably the greatest figure in Puzzle history, Will Shortz.
However, the news has hit the Internet world with a resounding thud. Twitter is rife with posts certain that the Times is going to ruin this one little positive joy in the Internet. Indeed, there is already some confusion as to whether it’s going to stay free — Wardle's announcement letter about the sale suggests that the game will remain free for everyone to play, but the Times stated that the game will remain free to current and new players “initially” — and initially doesn’t usually last long.
The timing also seems questionable. Wordle will never be as popular as it is now. There might be a bit of room for growth, but interest was probably going to wane sooner or later, and the Times has bought in when interest is at a peak — if they waited a few months, they probably could have scooped it up for, say, a high six digits rather than a low seven.
It might even be argued that the Times didn’t even have to pay Wardle for the rights to the game at all, because he didn’t create it. The old board game Mastermind used similar strategies for players to decode a five-character sequence. If you watched the Game Show Channel in the early part of this century, their original game show "Lingo" is the EXACT SAME THING — try to find the five letter word, and each turn you are told which letters you got right, and if they’re in the right spot. I mean there is literally no difference between this game and Wordle. Josh Wardle just got a few million bucks for a game he didn’t even invent.
It’s hard to imagine the Times didn’t know that. What they bought wasn’t a game. They bought the goodwill that Wardle has nurtured on the Internet over the last few months. They are buying the brand and all the happiness that comes with it.
But if the implosions on Twitter are anything to go by, the Times may have cheapened the value of that goodwill by about 80% by buying it. Everyone loved that some guy just put out a game for people to enjoy and made no effort to monetize. A monetizing media giant buying it erodes that goodwill quickly.
Wordle will likely go on the Times website, slip behind a paywall by summer, and leave the lives of all but a few hardcore word game nerds like me, another fleeting pop culture artifact for the nostalgia files. I think the Times believes they are buying into a young demo. We’ll see if they sell enough subscriptions to make that investment pay off. I really doubt it.