In just a few months, a simple five-letter puzzle has earned its creator a seven-figure sum.
It has reached a level of popularity that made the New York Times value it at over $1 million .
For anyone yet to try it, it involves six chances to work out a mystery five-letter word.
It is designed to be played just once a day, with the same word for all players, anywhere in the world.
The newspaper is interested not in the game’s letters, but its numbers – using the Wordle’s popularity to increase the size of the Times’ online audience.
Achieving a similar reach through traditional paid advertising would cost the New York Times considerably more than the purchase price of Wordle.
There are other commercial opportunities too.
Wordle, with its short game time, fits into the fastest area of growth, known as “hypercasual”, which is usually funded by lucrative advertising deals.
It used a freemium model to generate revenues worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with the largest of those coming from the sale of digital products – paid add-ons to the game itself.
Physical products may be an option, such as a board game, or perhaps merchandise, but there are only so many Wordle mugs that can be sold.
In-game advertising is another less drastic option, but that could prove tricky to implement without the ads getting in the way of the currently clean user experience, again a key element of the game’s simplicity and broad appeal.