The New York Times buys Wordle

The media company said it paid the price in the low-seven figures. The game will move from its current website to the New York Times site and apps, but the company declined to say when.

According to the New York Times, Wordle went viral this year, with millions of people playing the puzzle daily. It was played by only 90 people on 1 November.

The once-a-day game flooded social-media feeds with green and yellow squares and captured people’s imaginations for generations. This led to short-lived copycat versions and even prompted the creation of a Twitter bot that spoofed the results – which the social-media company eventually banned.

Josh Wardle, the software engineer who created Wordle, said he built a prototype in 2013 and dusted it off during the Covid-19 pandemic for his partner, who loved word games.

The spread began after Mr Wardle last month made it easier to share the results on Twitter and Facebook. Jimmy Fallon, host of “The Tonight Show,” frequently tweeted his results to his 51.4 million followers.

The game has also appeared in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, and the New Yorker has turned it into a cartoon.

Mr Wardle said in a tweet on Monday that the game had grown bigger than he imagined and he would be working with the New York Times to take the game to his site.

“Watching a game brings great joy to many, and I am so grateful for the personal stories some of you have shared with me – from uniting family members away from Wordley, to friendly rivalry. To provoke, to support medical recovery,” Mr Wardle said in a statement. “On the other hand, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little overwhelming. After all, I’m just a person, and it’s important to me that, as Wordle grows, it continues to provide a great experience for everyone. Is.”

Mr Wardle did not respond to a request for comment.

For now, the New York Times said that Wordle will be free to play for new and existing players.

Times spokesman Jordan Cohen said, “We have not made any plans for the future of the game. At this time, we are focused on creating added value for our existing audience, while also offering our existing game . All new audiences who have demonstrated their love for word games.”

No changes will be made to the gameplay, in which players have six guesses to figure out a secret five-letter word.

There is a lot of debate going on among the fans about the best way to play. Mr Wardle himself has said he does not know the best strategy. “You’re asking the wrong person,” he said earlier this month. “I’m so bad at it.”

The game’s popularity flooded copycats in Apple Inc.’s App Store with verbal look-alikes, forcing Apple to remove them earlier this month. Wordle reminded people of games he’d played years before, like Mastermind and Joto, prompting some Wordle fans to dig through their closets to play them again.

The acquisition of Wordle comes after the Times earlier this month agreed to acquire sports-media company Athletic for $550 million, as the publisher looks to attract younger readers and expand its subscription offerings.

Games have become a driver of subscription growth for The Times, beyond its core news products.

The Times said it currently has no plans to sell ads in Wordle. Mr. Wardle kept Wordley ad-free. And there was no app—users had to return to a website every day to play the game.

The Times charges $5 per month for access to its games, which include its flagship crossword puzzle, Spelling Bee, Letter Boxing, Tiles, and Vertex. The company said its games were played more than 500 million times in 2021 and reached one million game subscriptions in December.

In the third quarter, The Times’ net profit rose 63% over the prior year as it signed 455,000 new digital customers and enjoyed a strong ad-sales performance.