Casting Wordle as a NYT competitor squashed by acquisition is pretty stupid.<p>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.<p>Yes, at some point you're going to have to pay for Wordle, through a subscription and/or viewing ads or make do with a crappy knockoff. Like everything else. This isn't anyone's first day on the internet, is it? If so, sorry to break it to you.
I'm not super happy NYT bought Wordle but I wouldn't go so far as saying that Wordle might "threaten the NYT crossword puzzle", I don't think something like Wordle requires the kind of highly visible editing the NYT crossword does.<p>I think they just saw a good opportunity to get a bunch of new subscribers. Which is kind of weird because Wordle is super easy to reproduce, evidently.
They're not paying for wordle, the game - obviously that's been cloned a million times over (and it's a clone itself).<p>They're paying for the viral social network around Wordle.<p>My family has a group chat where we brag about our Wordle results and discuss our strategies every single day. It's a nice way to connect with my adult siblings. I can only imagine how many other groups like ours exist.<p>Wouldn't the NYT like to capture that kind of energy within their Games offering, within <i>all</i> their offerings?<p>It will take finesse for the NYT to land that energy as a profit-making service that drives growth, but that's a challenge they've got to take on, and if anyone in the news industry can do it, it's them.<p>Great investment at a fire-sale price. Viral concepts like this are 1 in a million.
Many lament the downfall of traditional media then crucify them when they creatively explore new opportunities for themselves.<p>Should the "Gray Lady" have just stubbornly continued to print its papers until it was bought up by the same PE vipers who have destroyed countless other newspaper companies?<p>I applaud them for establishing other opportunities for themselves to survive and thrive. IMHO, the NY Times is not the enemy here.
> As a society, we want to properly incent smart people to build useful things.<p>The author of the piece needs to help bridge us from his proposal to "re-examine the way we make rules around tech M&A", and how Mr. Wardle would have been compensated for his work.
People are missing the point - NYT paid to have THE wordle of the day - talking to other people about your specific battle with that day's word was 99 percent of the fun.<p>The act of whipping up a quick clone, while a a balm to the ego and a fun exercise for junior devs, does not recreate the social phenomenon.
The NYT's main competitors aren't other newspapers. Their competitors are Substack, Candy Crush, and Netflix.<p>As Byrne Hobart points out,<p>> <i>"in their latest quarter almost 30% of their new digital subscriptions were for games, cooking, and Wirecutter, rather than news."</i><p>And a bit more cheekily:<p>> <i>"When there's a negative New York Times article about a startup, one of the not-uncommon Tech Twitter jokes is that this constitutes bullying from an established, profitable unicorn with over $1bn in annual recurring revenue."</i><p><a href="https://www.thediff.co/p/the-nyt-dead-trees-and-disruption" rel="nofollow">https://www.thediff.co/p/the-nyt-dead-trees-and-disruption</a> (paywall)
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!
I always remember that article where people said the new companies and ideas wouldn’t come from garages anymore. Looks like a single HTML game is a huge success now
I agree with the spirit of this piece, but I think Wordle is a weird choice to try to highlight the point. I enjoy Wordle, but I'm certainly not going to die without it. Not to downplay Wardle, but, as xeromal pointed out, it's pretty easy to crank out a clone. Lots of people already have. If NYT paywalls it, I'll either stop playing or find or create a clone.