The web-based game was developed by Josh Wardle, a software engineer from Brooklyn, and is free-to-play with no ads or microtransactions. That might change in the future because The New York Times has announced that they will be acquiring the game from Wardle for an undisclosed “low-seven figures”, meaning that Wardle probably got at least $1 million for it.
The good news is that for now, the NYT says that the game will continue to remain free and there will be no changes made to its gameplay, which makes sense since changing its gameplay would basically make it a whole different game. We’re not sure if there are plans to eventually monetize it, or maybe the publication could consider making it into a mobile app.
For those who might be hearing about Wordle for the first time, it’s a word-guessing game where you have six tries to guess a 5-letter word. Each attempt will either show you grey, green, or yellow squares. The grey squares mean that the letter you chose isn’t in the word, while a yellow square indicates that the letter is correct but in the wrong placement, while a green square means that you got the letter and placement correct.