New York Times Buys Puzzle Game Wordle For ‘Low-Seven Figures’

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The New York Times has purchased Wordle—an online word game that has exploded in popularity in recent months—from its creator Josh Wardle for a seven-figure price, the newspaper announced Monday, marking the Times’ latest new digital acquisition.

The New York Times Company said in a press release it will not change Wordle’s format, and the game will remain free for new and existing players.

The company said it acquired the game “for an undisclosed price in the low seven figures.”

Wardle originally created the game—which is ad-free and only available once a day—as a gift for his partner, before making it public in October.

Wardle, a Brooklyn-based software engineer, told the Times the game’s daily player count jumped from 90 on November 1 to over 300,000 on January 2.

It is unclear if the Times will charge players for access to Wordle at some point in the future. Games and crossword puzzles are a large part of the Times’ subscriber model: In November, the company reported 135,000 of the 455,000 digital subscribers it added in its third quarter came from its games, cooking and product review sites rather than its standard.

“We don’t have set plans for the game’s future,” the Times told Forbes in response to an inquiry about the game remaining free. “At this time, we’re focused on creating added value to our existing audience, while also introducing our existing games to an all new audience that has demonstrated their love for word games. Right now, the game will be free to play.”

Wordle is the latest in a line of digital acquisitions by the Times. Earlier this month, it purchased the subscription-based sports news outlet The Athletic for $550 million. In 2020, it acquired podcast producer Serial Productions for about $25 million and bought Audm, an app that turns longform journalism articles into audio, for an undisclosed amount. In August of last year, it moved its consumer product review site Wirecutter, which it purchased in 2016 for more than $30 million, behind a $5/month paywall.

Prior to the Times’ purchase, some people have attempted to take advantage of Wordle’s free model and exclusive existence on the game’s website by creating copycat games of the same name and uploading them to Apple’s app store, either charging money or including ads. Earlier this month, Apple removed all Wordle knockoffs from its store. One developer boasted on Twitter about the revenue he was earning from a copycat game before Apple removed it. He has since created a new app with the same format but a different name, mimicking the popular social media trend of sharing daily results from the game along with his daily revenue from the app.

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