Wordle

Gordon Dawson

Mar 9

Going Viral

Published: 3/9/2022
By: Gordon Dawson

Recently I was introduced to the addictive word game, Wordle. It’s unique in that it’s a web-based game whereby anyone who plays tries to guess the 5-letter word of the day. The premise is that you have six attempts to guess the daily word. With each guess, the game will provide you with crucial details such as correct letter(s), letter placement, and a bank of used and unused letters to guide your next decision. No clues or directives are provided as you ponder what your first 5-letter guess will be. Once entered, you wait to see what clues are revealed. Interestingly, Wordle can only play the game once a day, and everyone is guessing the same word. Whether you guess it correctly or expel all six chances, you must wait until midnight or later to play the game again.

I’ve played this game for the past four days, with my best day, guessing the correct answer on my third try. It’s so fun to see the quick results and just as invigorating to achieve the correct guess on the final attempt.

The game was created by Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn software engineer, for him and his partner to play, as they enjoyed the New York Times Spelling Bee and daily crossword puzzles. In October 2021, Josh made it public after it became an obsession with relatives, naming it Wordle as a pun on his last name. The game gained a large amount of popularity in December 2021 after Wardle added the ability for players to copy their daily results as emoji squares, widely used on Twitter. The game was purchased by The New York Times Co. in January 2022 for an undisclosed seven-figure sum and was moved to their website the following month.

The game became a viral phenomenon on Twitter in late December 2021, with approximately 300,000 people playing on January 2, 2022 - up from 90 players on November 1, 2021. Between January 1 and 13, users shared 1.2 million Wordle results on Twitter. People crave to play it repeatedly, but Wardle suggested that having one puzzle per day creates a sense of scarcity, leaving players wanting more.

Oddly, Steven Cravotta created a game named Wordle!, releasing it to the App Store five years prior to Wardle’s Wordle. During January 2022, he saw his downloads grow to over 200,000 from January 5 to 12. Cravotta was happy to see the popularity of his app but recognized purchasers were likely buying it to play the other game. So, in collaboration with Wardle, Cravotta donated $50,000 to Boost, a charity that provides tutoring for Oakland, Ca schoolchildren.