Wordle, the simple five-letter word game that has brought cumulative joy to people during the stressful coronavirus pandemic, has been bought.
“The purchase, announced by The Times on Monday, reflects the growing importance of games, like crosswords and Spelling Bee, in the company’s quest to increase digital subscriptions to 10 million by 2025,” NYT said in an article announcing the move.
Wardle said in a previous NYT interview he started Wordle after he and his partner “got really into” the newspaper’s crosswords and Spelling Bee games during the pandemic.
Wordle was sold to the American newspaper for more than $1 million, TIME reported.
The high-value deal is a testament to the game’s growing popularity, which had less than 100 players in early November last year when it was launched to the public.
After the NYT’s move was announced, people did congratulate Wardle but were heartbroken to know their simplest joy of playing the game will soon go behind a paywall.
the NYT took one nice and simple thing that a lot of people really liked, a dumb bit of fun in our exhaustingly dark times, and implied that they’ll stick it behind a paywall.
RIP, Wordle.