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Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

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Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#191

Post by leros »

acdha wrote: post #149
leros wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the math on this recently. Supposedly NYT paid $3m for Wordle. The NYT games subscription that includes their crossword and potentially Wordle is $40/year. If they put Wordle behind their games subscription, they would need 75k new users to break even in one year. That seems realistic given how popular Wordle is. I'll also speak anecdotally. As someone who has done the NYT crossword every day for several years.…

I think your last point is pretty solid — and since Wordle has this interesting angle of not supporting binging, there's an interesting possibility of a gentle upsell (“23 hours until the next Wordle, have you done today's Bee?”)

That's a great point. They could keep Wordle free as lead gen for their paid games subscription. That's probably more profitable than making Wordle paid.

Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#192

Post by warrenm »

jffry wrote: post #54
banana_giraffe wrote: post #48

They've also removed the following from the list of words in future games wench, slave, fibre, agora, pupal, lynch And removed the following from the list of words that are accepted as guesses (in addition to the above ones): gooks, darky, pussy, spick, spics, bitch, fagot, dyked, coons, spiks, sluts, dykey, faggy, homos, chink, dykes, lesbo, kikes, whore Most of those I get, but why did fibre, agora, and pupal get p…

> why did fibre, agora, and pupal get pulled No idea for fibre, but agora and pupal have repeated letters. Are there other words in the accepted wordlist with repeated letters?

'elder' is there

Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#193

Post by devilbunny »

bee_rider wrote: post #65
banana_giraffe wrote: post #48

They've also removed the following from the list of words in future games wench, slave, fibre, agora, pupal, lynch And removed the following from the list of words that are accepted as guesses (in addition to the above ones): gooks, darky, pussy, spick, spics, bitch, fagot, dyked, coons, spiks, sluts, dykey, faggy, homos, chink, dykes, lesbo, kikes, whore Most of those I get, but why did fibre, agora, and pupal get p…

I don't really see the motivation for removing slurs, etc, from the available guess list in a game where you are the only one who sees your guesses. Good of them to take the words with unpleasant associations out of the solutions list, though.

Staying clear of the woke crossword folks.

The Wall Street Journal's puzzles are edited by Mike Shenk. For years - going back to when he was in college - he published puzzles under the name "Marie Kelly" (an anagram of "REALLY MIKE"). Then, one day, the people at crosswordfiend.com decided that was unacceptable - that potential female crossword designers would be put off by the fact that a man was publishing crosswords under a woman's name. And, obviously, we need more female crossword designers. As well as more female answers to crossword clues. And don't even think about publishing a crossword that has, say, FASCIST as an answer - they don't want to see such an awful word.

I wish I was joking.

Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#194

Post by lukifer »

inimino wrote: post #53
jtr1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a funny tweet, but in some sense it kind of was. It was a mostly universal, fun, communal experience that existed for a short period of time outside the pressures of the profit motive. It was valued for its use and not its exchange, it was free to everyone, and that made it a kind of small commons. I think everyone knew that couldn’t last. It was either going to fade away or get bought. I don’t personally kno…

It could have put up a donation page, like Wikipedia.

I don't blame the dev at all, I'd've probably taken the same deal, but an Exit To Community would have been a baller move: https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/exit-to-community

Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#195

Post by lukifer »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #182
omnicognate wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And added trackers and a cookie popup to it, and censored the word lists (guess and solution). And their own statement about it implied they intend to put it behind a paywall eventually (wording was something like "it will initially remain free for new and existing users").

If they want to put it behind a paywall, charge $100 a game, show Taboola links, or make people log in to a NYT account, that’s their choice. People can vote with their feet then. I just don’t get why folks are so salty. Does everyone on HN work for free?

I think it strikes an emotional chord with the ongoing trend of private capital enclosing every social Commons it can.

While I don't think it's the right hill to die on (Wordle is a trivially cloneable public good; NYT's actual actions have been relatively mild; there are seventeen trillion bigger fish to fry) one can certainly understand a visceral reaction (violation of sanctity) when "community" bleeds into "corporation", even by the tiniest bit.

Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#196

Post by acdha »

leros wrote: post #191
acdha wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your last point is pretty solid — and since Wordle has this interesting angle of not supporting binging, there's an interesting possibility of a gentle upsell (“23 hours until the next Wordle, have you done today's Bee?”)

That's a great point. They could keep Wordle free as lead gen for their paid games subscription. That's probably more profitable than making Wordle paid.

Yeah, thinking about this more definitely makes me curious about what their targets are for this. They paid a fair amount of money up front but keeping the lights on is basically trivial.

Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#197

Post by TedShiller »

srmarm wrote: post #175
TedShiller wrote: post #174

Remember when the wordle guy said he doesn’t care about money? That was a few weeks before he sold it for millions. Turns out he cared a lot about money after all.

There's not caring about making £50/month from some AdSense code Vs not caring about a £xM payoff. I'll allow them this one.

From widely published articles:

“Josh Wardle, the dev behind the popular free puzzle game, has no plans to monetize it”

I’d say selling for millions is the most extreme form of monetization.

Why make such claims in the first place?

Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#198

Post by rjstreur »

bee_rider wrote: post #65
banana_giraffe wrote: post #48

They've also removed the following from the list of words in future games wench, slave, fibre, agora, pupal, lynch And removed the following from the list of words that are accepted as guesses (in addition to the above ones): gooks, darky, pussy, spick, spics, bitch, fagot, dyked, coons, spiks, sluts, dykey, faggy, homos, chink, dykes, lesbo, kikes, whore Most of those I get, but why did fibre, agora, and pupal get p…

I don't really see the motivation for removing slurs, etc, from the available guess list in a game where you are the only one who sees your guesses. Good of them to take the words with unpleasant associations out of the solutions list, though.

I would be motivated to do it. If you were a happy wordle player and also have a marginalized identity, it might suck to finally get the word right and see a slur against that identity bouncing across the screen in happy green letters. Seems to me like this makes Wordle a more welcoming game.

Re: Wordle Now Redirects to NYT

#200

Post by MerelyMortal »

alex-chew wrote: post #106

I've been working on a clean-room reimplementation that uses the original word list and is visually similar to the original, but also allows for playing unlimited puzzles each day: https://wrd.li (The order of the solutions is different than the original, and is randomized each day.)

I like it! However there is no "hard" mode where clues have to be used.
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