I know, I know, you’re tired of Wordle. Just mute the word “wordle” on Twitter and don’t be like the guy who made a Wordle-spoiling bot and got banned from Twitter today for being a party pooper (actually, it’s because it’s against Twitter guidelines to make a bot that is designed to bother people, but that’s some definitively party-pooping behavior).
Okay, now that we’re alone — all the curmudgeons have closed out of the article — let’s talk about Wordle. Today’s puzzle was particularly challenging, but when you typed “wordle” into the Google search bar to find that strange powerlanguage.co.uk website, you might have noticed a fun easter egg. The Google icon in the upper right corner looks like Wordle! The animation even enacts someone guessing words like “column” and “goalie” before arriving at “Google.” It’s cute, okay! (And in other news, Google is being sued by Washington DC and three states over a user privacy issue.)
As the cultural significance of a Google easter egg proves, Wordle is still very popular, and it’s not just on your Twitter feed. When TechCrunch spoke to the game’s creator Josh Wardle two weeks ago, he said that two million people were playing the game each day. If you’re decidedly not a curmudgeon and still think Wordle is fun (It is! If you don’t like it, just don’t play!), check out our conversation with Wardle (yep, that’s his name) about the game’s sudden virality, venture capital interest and why he doesn’t want to monetize the game.
Wardle told TechCrunch:
It’s not like I think that everyone needs to give away the things they create online for free, it was just that because that’s how I started this, it’s made it easier for me to continue it this way. I made something that felt really authentic to me, and now when people are asking like, “Do you want to monetize it? Why aren’t you doing X, Y and Z?”
It’s really easy for me to say… No, I was really happy with it when it was just my partner and me playing together. It’s really easy to get seduced by all that stuff, but I try and instead be like… I was happy then, and I think I’ll be happy in the future if that’s where it ends. If at the end of the day with Wordle, it’s just her and me playing again, I think I’ll be totally happy for that to be the outcome.
