Nothing different than Flappy Bird honestly. Cash out on minimum effort and everyone will forget eventually.
The worst case of this I’ve seen was the iOS game Threes. Cool and original idea (to me) on a puzzle game. Even had an art style that was carefully crafted and audio lines from the game devs friends. It started gaining steam among puzzle fans. I think it cost 3-4€ as a one time purchase in the app store.
What happened next?
Someone released a free version called 2048 that ripped off the idea, made the number 3 based puzzle use the number 2, made the game less challenging and might have even made it use ads at the bottom of the screen.
Because Wordle was already free there wasn’t a chance for this kind of douchebag move. NYT as an established brand would face criticism if they cloned the game based on its current popularity (the idea for worlde apparently is not original).
NYT did this by the book in my opinion. I think the writer ks just connecting the two for easy points.