The New York Times acquires word game Wordle for undisclosed ‘seven-figure’ fee

The word game Wordle, a viral hit during the pandemic, has been acquired by The New York Times. The fee was not disclosed, but has been said to be a seven-digit figure, which would make it upwards of a $1,000,000 (or around ₹7.45 crores).

Wordle gave players around the world six chances per day to guess a five letter word. Players received feedback about the inclusion and position of the letters in their guess through colour coded tiles.

Completing a Wordle also gave players an easily shareable emoji result of their progress, which contributed to the game’s massive popularity, with some sources saying it had over 3 million players in January 2022.

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Will Wordle remain free?

Wordle had, up until now, been entirely ad-free and required no payment to play. The New York Times had said that the game will remain ‘initially’ free to play. The newspaper also hosts a few other games for players, including the famous Spelling Bee and the legendary NYT Crossword, all of which require a separate subscription to play. Many fans of the game expressed concern on Twitter, wondering whether the popular free game would now be moved behind a paywall.

Wordle was created by former Reddit software engineer Josh Wardle, and was released to the public in October 2021. The game’s moniker is a pun on his name. Wardle said in a statement that the sudden popularity of the game had been ‘incredible’ but a ‘little overwhelming’, and he wished for Wordle to continue provide a great experience for everyone.