Wordle, the free online puzzle game which first launched in October 2021, exploded in popularity this past winter leading to the New York Times shelling out seven figures to acquire it from the game’s creator Josh Wardle.
Wordle is a daily puzzle challenge where players have six attempts to guess a five-letter word. It was created by Wardle for his partner Palak Shah, and he said in the acquisition announcement that “New York Times Games played a big part in its origins.” The game also allows users to share their results in the form of color blocks to social media or in messages to friends, and part of its rise in popularity came when software engineer Wardle added this feature.
Now while the Times has migrated Wordle to its Games site and committed to keeping it free to access at least for now, some online fans have theorized that they have added more difficult words to the winning word list. Schitt’s Creek creator and co-star Dan Levy tweeted that he thought wordle is “getting pretentious,” and other fans have claimed to struggle more with recent words like “ulcer” and “cynic.”
Jonathan Knight, games general manager for the New York Times, “categorically” denied making Wordle harder in a statement. He said that they actually removed a few words from the word list of 2,500 supplied to them by Wardle for being too difficult. He cited “agora” as one removed word that “felt a little bit obscure for us.”
If you’ve been playing Wordle since before the Times acquisition, you’ll remember there being some tough words in there already. One infamous example of an unexpectedly difficult word was “Knoll,” which caused a stir when it first was used, and plenty of people have been referencing it online in response to fan backlash.
Others have had less of an issue with the recent word choices, but criticized the New York Times‘ choice to place ad trackers on the new Wordle site to monetize the currently-free puzzle. While this is obviously a sensible business move for any website that paid so much money for this acquisition, some felt it trampled on the wholesome spirit of the game that brought in fans in the first place.
Fans liked Wordle because it was a simple idea that Wardle created for his loved one to have fun, and while it was great to see him get a huge payday from that, some can’t help but feel like the acquisition symbolized the end of an era.
