Meanwhile, Microsoft buys up all of Activision-Blizzard and Sony buys Bungie and no one blinks an eye. No one even noticed that Zynga just got bought by Take-Two within the past month!
On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
51–60 of 64 posts
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
He wrote it for one person. He didn’t ask to be the focus of millions of people’s attention. Even if that attention is mostly positive that is a lot to deal with just in the sheer volume of messages, let alone the possibility of unhinged people thinking he wants to marry them or that he’s sending them coded messages in Wordle or whatever. Even if it's simple to host with that much traffic it's bound to be a headache.…
As I said I don't blame him in the slightest for selling it. Did I give the impression I did? I'm counteracting two claims I see repeated a lot on this: 1. That he wouldn't have written it without the expectation of being paid. He did in fact do so, so that's obviously nonsense. 2. That without the NYT buying it it wouldn't have survived. It would, even if the original dev no longer wanted to be involved. Any number…
I'm just counteracting the implication that running a website with millions of daily users is a simple and easy thing that someone would be happy to do for fun. I don't think that's the case. Creating a game is fun. Dealing with millions of people is not fun.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#53I bet the Wordle author is wiping his tears with hundred dollar bills over the viciousnous of capitalism.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's part of the author's point. These acquisitions happen early enough that it's not clear whether or not Instagram, Wordle, etc. would be competitive businesses. However, I don't want to work in a regulatory environment that says I can't sell my small business to some larger company on the off chance it might some day be significant on its own.
Perhaps there is a company size which is just too big to make acquisitions because the risk of stifling competition is too great. Or make any purchases of companies in markets that don't have enough competition.
It's almost certainly not about the absolute size of the company, but its relative position in whatever niche(s) it operates in.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#55Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#56Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years.
The NYT Crossword isn't dominant in its industry, unless you define their industry to be ridiculously small. I'd say their industry is video games, or maybe just puzzle video games.
For instance, this article, https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/400000-people-now-subscribe..., says that they had 400,000 digital subscribers in 2019. That's at most $33M/year, plus they also get some ad revenue. But Candy Crush Saga made $1.2B in 2021.
The NYT Crossword is also available in the newspaper and books, but this probably doesn't earn that much more than the electronic version.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#57Casting Wordle as a NYT competitor squashed by acquisition is pretty stupid. Wordle hadn't even been turned into an on-going business, and Wardle apparently had no interest in doing so. There wasn't even a squint-and-imagine-the-future potential competitor here, even just considering NYTs game business. Yes, at some point you're going to have to pay for Wordle, through a subscription and/or viewing ads or make do wit…
The creator didn't want to monetise it themselves, and wasn't really intended as a global phenomenon so this seems like a great option for them.
Also I wouldn't be shocked if NYT keep it free. They have some free word games, and encourage you to sign up for the rest of them - having a huge audience that come and play word games every single day seems like a great opportunity for upselling.
edit - a quick search suggests it's millions of people per day. At £25/year for a subscription, you'd probably not need a huge conversion rate for it to pay off quickly.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#58No, NYT bought the NFT of Wordle
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#59Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years.
> Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years. You shouldn't conflate the New York Times Company with the people who write articles for the New York Times (or even its editorial board). They're not the same entity. Apologies if somehow that's not actually what you're doing, but my experience is when someone talks about the "NYT com…
Don't complain about what others do, when thats how you get paid. Get your house in order first.
Re: On Wordle, the NYT, and Antitrust
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Definitely thought it was ironic the NYT bought a “competitor” after constantly complaining about big tech doing it over the years. You shouldn't conflate the New York Times Company with the people who write articles for the New York Times (or even its editorial board). They're not the same entity. Apologies if somehow that's not actually what you're doing, but my experience is when someone talks about the "NYT com…
Don't complain about what others do, when thats how you get paid. Get your house in order first.
> Don't complain about what others do, when thats how you get paid. Get your house in order first.
Are you saying the people who write articles for the New York Times should muzzle themselves in many topic areas, so as to not be seen as being critical of anything the corporation they work may do?