Wordle's history is one of the most notable tales in the gaming industry as it has reached its heights without the use of ads, apps, and development costs and since its population has been done through recommendation method and sharing option which made it easy to get known among the internet users.
The Beginning of the Journey
The founder of Wordle is Josh Wardle, a developer from Wales, who had moved to America to live in Brooklyn when he invented the first version of the game at the beginning of the pandemic for the purposes of providing his girlfriend Palak Shah — who loved word games — with an engaging pastime.
The Definition of the Name
The name Wordle comes from the name of its inventor Josh Wardle, as it consists of “Wardle” and “word” put together. His previous works include various participatory online projects such as “Place” on Reddit.
The Launch of Wordle
The release of the game took place in October 2021 and by November it had only 90 players which is quite good for the game with zero advertising.
The most interesting feature of the game added by Wardle was the possibility to share one’s achievements in the form of an emoji grid — ????????⬛. It allows players to boast with their results without revealing the answer after they completed the puzzle.
The New York Times reached out to Josh Wardle as soon as his game gained traction and in January 2022 announced that they buy the game. In January 2022, it was confirmed that the NYT had bought the word game Wordle for a price stipulated as “a low seven-figure price” and valued between $1 and $3 million. Wardle verified the acquisition stating that he was sure the NYT would be good owners considering the company’s investments in word games.
NYT retained the original structure of Wardle’s game according to which it remained free of charge, subscription and advertisement possibilities. Thus, the brand position gives Wordle the chance to separate the game from the NYT subscription games.
##Changes after the Acquisition
Following the acquisition of the game, the following developments took place:
- Curation of the wordlist: The NYT deleted several words considered obscure, offensive and politically incorrect from the wordlist within the game that players began to notice on occasion.
- Puzzle Editor: Tracy Bennett became the new puzzle editor responsible for the daily answers and checking the list of words.
- Domain transfer: The game switched its domain from powerlanguage.co.uk to the NYT website.
- Removing archive access: The Times locked the access to the previous versions of the game available on Wardle’s website.
##Legacy
The format of the Wordle game – six attempts to guess five-letter words and the daily reset – has created a new type of daily guessing games. In 2022, various games like Quordle, Dordle, Nerdle with the same game mechanics emerged. The initial design of Wardle can be used for any game. popular games in NYT Games collection.
