Wordle: An Unintentional Hit

When Josh Wardle, a native of Wales who now lives in Brooklyn, created a little word game for his partner, he never dreamed it would become a sensation. He just thought of it as something that the two of them could do together for a few minutes every day to break up the monotony of the pandemic.

For six months, the game was a treat enjoyed by just Wardle and his partner. Then in June 2021, Wardle introduced the game to family and friends. He dubbed the game Wordle, a play on his name.

In this game, players get up to six tries to guess the daily five-letter word. A color-coded display tracks the accuracy of the guesses: gray for wrong letters, yellow for letters in the word but in the wrong position, and green for correct letters in the right position.

The initial players enjoyed the game so much that they urged Wardle to make it available to more people. He did that in October 2021. Within two months, more than 300,000 players were visiting Wardle’s website for their daily Wordle fix.

Wordle fans quickly rose into the millions. Clones appeared in app stores. Wardle was overwhelmed.

Professionally, Wardle is a software engineer. He had no interest in running a gaming business. He didn’t want to deal with the legal issues that were sure to arise with copycats on the scene.

Although Wardle hadn’t planned to make money from his game, when the New York Times offered to buy Wordle for upwards of $1 million, it was a no-brainer. The Times has been the owner of the official Wordle game since January 2022.