Created a game for his girlfriend – sold it for millions

Some time ago Wordle, an online word game, suddenly became a hit. So much so that a lot of his fakes appeared, both on the web and on mobile devices. Now the leading American newspaper New York Times has bought the game from the author, creating, among other things, the famous crossword puzzle. We don’t know the exact price at which Wordle was sold. The New York Times reported only that this is a seven-digit figure, but closer to the lower part of the range than to its upper limit. So we can talk about several million dollars.

On November 1, 2021, Wordle had only 90 players — now millions of people play every day. The rules of the game are quite simple. The player has six challenges during which he will try to guess a word of 5 letters. If the letters of the correct answer appear in the correct place, they will be highlighted in green. If the correct letters occur in the word, but in the wrong place, they will be highlighted in yellow. Every day a new word appears, but it is impossible to return to the previous ones. Currently, the game has quite a few additions, such as statistics or dark mode. The game will soon be moved to the New York Times website. For now, it will remain free for new and existing users, but then everything may change.

Company spokesman Jordan Cohen said the New York Times has not yet determined plans for Wordle’s future. Instead, he wants to focus on “creating value for existing users.” The creator of the game is Josh Wardle, who created the Wordle prototype in 2013. He updated it because of the COVID-19 pandemic for his girlfriend, who loves word games to make her difficult period more enjoyable.