The Times also initially decided to remove some "less family friendly words" not just from the game's solution set, but from the list of words that were valid to guess. And when the Times pared down the solution list to match its editorial standards, some players who didn't refresh their browsers would be out of sync with their friends. The game's move to The New York Times' servers (from three different URLs where original creator Josh Wardle hosted the game) led to a tech problem that caused some players to lose their hard-earned streaks. While the Times didn't rush to make changes to Wordle after the purchase, Bell did acknowledge a few unintended snafus with the transition. And while that exponential growth would inevitably slow, Bell said Wordle's daily user numbers peaked at tens of millions of players in March 2022 (that's about a month after the peak in Wordle results shared on Twitter). Before the Times acquisition, Bell said Wordle had gone from 90 players on November 1, 2021, to 300,000 by the end of the year. If it ain’t broke.īell said Wordle daily player numbers that are still "unfathomably high" are evidence of that strategy's success. That's largely thanks to a patient, "first do no harm" strategy that didn't seek to directly monetize the game or introduce a lot of half-baked changes to the game's successful formula, she said. Just over a year after the acquisition, though, Bell said the company's efforts at "preserving Wordle as an Internet treasure" have paid off. But it was also a simple recognition of the usual cycle for viral "zeitgeist" games: "How long can exponential growth go on?" Partly that was out of fear that some players would recoil from the "huge corporate behemoth" that now owned the indie hit. Apparently, those skeptics included some of the people at the Times itself.Īt a presentation at the Game Developers Conference Thursday, Times game producer and industry veteran Zoe Bell said the new owners expected Wordle's daily users "would just immediately decline" after the acquisition. Further Reading Wordle creator describes game’s rise, says NYT sale was “a way to walk away”SAN FRANCISCO-When The New York Times acquired daily puzzle mega-hit Wordle at the beginning of 2022, there were plenty of skeptics who were sure it signaled the end of the game's incredible viral rise.
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