The New York Times buys Wordle

Re:The New York Times buys Wordle by tehwebguy on Monday January 31, 2022 @05:07PM (#30155267)

> That's a lot cheaper than I expected

Yeah, same here. I would like to compare the most valuable numbers to something like HQ Trivia, which was far more expensive to run (even when they weren't giving away $X00k per day in prize money).

Something very special about it, a few items that jump out at me:

- No permissions nags or signup required

- Massively popular seemingly overnight, despite no multiplayer features

- Sharing your score is both cryptic / interesting to noobs and a big network factor

- The one-puzzle-per-day part seems to put bring everyone together

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Re:The New York Times buys Wordle by zerocrates on Monday January 31, 2022 @05:17PM (#30155444)

Spelling Bee already is free and shares many qualities with Wordle: one puzzle per day, simple premise... I wonder if you see them try to add more "sharing" features to it. I see people share redacted screenshots of Spelling Bee every once in a while, but it's more work to do that.

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Re:The New York Times buys Wordle by thematrixturtle on Monday January 31, 2022 @05:26PM (#30155562)

The free version of Spelling Bee is limited: it cuts off once your score reaches "Solid", less than half way to "Genius".

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Re:The New York Times buys Wordle by zerocrates on Monday January 31, 2022 @05:36PM (#30155701)

It does? I haven't tried the free version in a long time but now that you say it, that does ring a bell...

Well that certainly doesn't help for virality.

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Re:The New York Times buys Wordle by whateveracct on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @04:55AM (#30160517)

Genius is literally the entire point. Pretty weak free offering.

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