The videogame breakout hit of 2022 isn’t one to be found on an Xbox or Nintendo this year: instead, it’s Josh Wardle’s word game Wordle.
As you’re likely to know, it’s a simple daily guess a word game that’s become something of a social media sensation. So much so that The New York Times dipped into its piggy bank and acquired the game earlier this year for a sum in the low seven figures. No decimal points were believed to be involved.
The acquisition was a swift one, and save for The New York Times erasing all rude words from the game’s dictionary, it’s kept it pretty much as is. Reports that it would change the game, or put it behind a paywall, have proven unfounded. It continues to be as simple as Wardle presumably intended it.
However, there are now signs that it’s protecting its patch. Previously, Wordles from different days were freely available on a separate site entitled the Wordle Archive. This was an unofficial store of previous puzzles, and inevitably was enjoying a growing number of clicks in line with the burgeoning success of the main game.
However, it is no more. The archive, held at Metzger Media, has been taken down, and the link leads to the following message at the time of posting…
It’s the first sign that the New York Times is flexing its muscles here, even though other archives remain available. Presumably they may be getting a communication of more than five letters from the NYT in due course.
This may just be a simple cleaning up operation, and the New York Times – who hasn’t announced its plans – may be looking to host the archive itself. But it does raise the question if this is the beginning of some changes. The internet isn’t short of Wordle clones and derivatives, and we can’t but wonder if they’re going to be next in line for attention.
Sooner or later, the New York Times will want some kind of a return on its investment, unless – whilst the world wasn’t looking – it changed to a charity. But there’s a few short words that might ably describe the chances of that happening…
