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Comment by ridaj | Hacker News Reader

No, because it got bought by NYT. It was absolutely glorious as an indie phenomenon but to see it fold into a giant media conglomerate so quickly is yawn

The most epic move would have been to pull the plug on wordle right at its peak, which was about two weeks ago. Not sell out. Just rip it out clean and let a thousand sorry clones try to compete for crumbs. That would've been an awesome statement.

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It's amazing to me how HN nonstop celebrates everyone raising money on bullshit rehashed tech ideas but are shitting on this guy for selling to NYT. He built and sold something unlike the vast majority ever will.

Oh I don't mean to shit on the creator. We all got bills to pay. Mad props to him for getting a great payout and moving on. But does the result count as a "nice thing on the Internet"? I can be the judge of that and IMO no at this point it's just one of a million free casual games awaiting some monetization bullshit.

this comment is why we can’t have nice things on the internet

I do think there's a ton of nice things on the Internet. The FOSS community as a whole and Wikipedia are astounding in their civilization-transforming, anti-capitalistic effect on society. 20 years ago people paid Microsoft for the only half-decent productivity software around, Internet Explorer and freaking Encarta, for crying out loud. I don't think wordle is nearly close to the same level especially after getting bought.

Why? What does this comment have to do with it?

Because it was a comment written without having any context into how NYT handles their games. They assume something about massive monetization that would happen in the future, when the daily wordle will likely remain free forever, just like most other daily games that NYT has.

Ah yes, NYT bought it for completely altruistic reasons. /s

The person you're replying to is implying the opposite; they bought it to attract subscribers.

Easy to tell someone else to rip up their winning lottery ticket. Much harder to rip up the winning lottery ticket in your own hand.

> But does the result count as a "nice thing on the Internet"? I can be the judge of that and IMO no at this point it's just one of a million free casual games awaiting some monetization bullshit.

I don't understand the thought process. NYT has a bunch of daily mini games that are free and have been for a while. Only the full crossword and the archives are paid.

Did you write this comment before doing any research into how NYT handles their games?

> Did you write this comment before doing any research into how NYT handles their games?

I'm somewhat aware of how it works.

> NYT has a bunch of daily mini games that are free and have been for a while. Only the full crossword and the archives are paid.

Well it's like I'm a fish complaining about the fisherman's worm having a hook in it, and you're saying but at least there's a good worm.

Free tier games on NYT clearly serve as feeder for subscriptions. Here's an example of NYT juicing someone's "high" following a free game of spelling bee, in order to push them to subscribe.

https://pasteboard.co/pIS5qkZcXkNB.jpg

I hate this kind of manipulation. Again can't blame the NYT for responding to competitive pressure but the free portion of their game is such an obvious attempt to hook gaming subscribers that I personally really don't see it as a "nice thing".

> Mad props to him for getting a great payout

You can't have your "mad props" and eat them too. Either he sells and you have to suffer the horror of a nag screen to get a free game, or he doesn't, and you don't.

Sure but I'm still happy for the guy. I don't expect he or anyone to want to make nice things for the Internet.

Maybe he needed to sell some of it to the NYT in series A, with another round after 6 months to 2 years, but being careful not to go too soon or too late. After correctly judging the runway and managing the burn rate following series B, more marketing and branding before series C would maximise value for the creator.

Where he messed up was not making a blog post announcing the end to an incredible journey.

> HN nonstop celebrates everyone raising money on bullshit rehashed tech ideas but are shitting on this guy for selling to NYT

Selling out to NYT is almost like selling out to Xi or Putin.

Only trusted entities need apply.

What, Google and Facebook are interested? Come right in, sirs! /s

One can be happy for the creator’s individual (and deserved) success, while at the same time begrudge the fundamental change brought about by its acquisition.

Simply saying “everyone shits on this guy” is not really helpful, or accurate.

Right, almost as if this community of thousands of people has multiple personality disorder.

The people who show up in "tech person does a thing" threads to fawn over said tech person are probably not the same people who complain about ad surveillance by the NYT.

Flappy Bird did exactly that many meme cycles ago and it wasn’t “awesome”. The fans were pissed off and everyone else just forgot about it in a week.

That meme cycle was ~20x smaller than wordle in magnitude. Most people only heard about flappy bird after it was announced that it would be retired.

If you call numbers I call for sources. If I'd give in to my subjective observations, I'd state the opposite. I have never played Wordle, nor did I talk with anyone about it, nor have I heard anyone talk about it (in person ofc). I don't use Twitter though...

Maybe you're right, but I'd like to see proof of this. After a quick search I found than:

- Flappy bird was downloaded 50M times [1]

- The dev made 50k a day [1] which implies that those 50M were not all 'dead downloads' but actual users

- About wordle, every article I find just states 'more than a million daily players' [2]

So, to make this short, I think you're just picking random numbers that fit your subjective perception. If you can provide proof that says otherwise I'll gladly back off. In the meantime it'd be nice if you don't make any more comments about how many times wordle is bigger than flappy birds then you already did. Your turn.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/no-flappy-bi... [2] https://www.statista.com/chart/26667/usage-of-wordle-and-oth...

(not gp) Google trends favors wordle, with the peak being 5x as big for US and 3x worldwide [1]. Google trends is imperfect information, but it is evidence.

I think the comparison you did is hard to evaluate. the dev of wordle made 0k a day until sell, so that is an awkward comparison. The 50M downloads is hard to compare to 'more than a million daily players'.

Anyway, the difference between US and worldwide in google trends may point to some differences in experience, too. Wordle is quite big in the US, while flappy bird was bigger elsewhere. I'm not american and my experience matches yours, so just for fun I'm going to predict you are not american, but gp is, with 2:1 odds. Am I right?

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=wordle,f...

I like the idea of comparing this via google trends! I didn't think of that option. I'll keep that in the back of my head for the future. Thanks!

Yes, I was aware that this is hard to compare in several aspects. Besides the money, you already talked about: One is something you have to download and the other is something you just visit a website for (That's the reason I mentioned the money and that those dl are not 'dead'). My aim was only to show 'something' that could make some comparison possible at all.

The commenter I initially replied to itched me the wrong way. He made his argument in more than one comment but even the two I read weren't consistent. Once he stated 20x bigger, in another comment it was 10-20x. I personally don't have a problem with wordle being bigger than flappy bird ^^ but the way he presented it seems random at best.

And, one more thing... I'm not American ;) +Edit: Earlier I shortly skimmed his/her profile and if I remember correctly he/she made a comment on something about the traffic in CA (or some US city)

hah, nice! And I definitely agree, better to have some numbers to constrain your beliefs than none at all.

Weren't most people going straight to the app store to download flappy bird? Not an option for Wordle. That should invalidate the Google Trends comparison.

Also since Wordle isn't on a nice wordle.com domain, my assumption is most people have to re-search for it frequently, boosting its Trends history.

Google trends just looks at search terms and counts them, or what does it do exactly? If so, you've got a point here.

Some contra-argument would be: There is more to it than just download (or play) something. For example all the articles, publicity, score boards and everything around it that rises when something gets popular. And this stuff does correlate with popularity (and search terms). Maybe those who downvoted you can clarify what they mean...

Beware of comparing Google Trends data from different dates - the data is not "normalized". Consider, is it likely that "music" and "internet" are decaying in popularity - at the same rate, even?

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=wordle,f...

Yes i used similar data. Zooming in on Flappy bird, it also had a peak of search interest after the announcement of its removal on Feb 8, 2014 (supporting that more people likely learned about flappy bird after its removal was announced, than before)

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2014-01-25%202...

IIRC there was never a source for the "$50k per day" number.

I was sceptical about this, but a quick look at google trends bears this out: the peak of flappy birds is about a fifth a big as the peak of wordle.

e: see my comment below

What did you lose?

I started playing just before ir was bought and I still enjoy a game a day like I started.

The illusion of innocence? The perspective that it might still be possible, on a shoestring budget within reach of a modest person, to create a massive, worldwide collective experience, that is engaging and fun without having any commercial ulterior motive?

> What did you lose?

User privacy, for one. The wordle page is now full of trackers. Freedom from arbitrary corporate decisions about which words are acceptable or not ('slave' is no longer acceptable, while 'cunts' is, for example) is another loss.

I use Brave Browser. I’m not an ad tech guru. I _feel_ that these various trackers you mention on this page shouldn’t have much (if any) purchase on my visits. But it could be a naive placebo effect. I’m curious from anyone who is more knowledgeable than me about whether what you mention is largely muted by using Brave, or if it’s just a feel good that actually does little?

I just checked; "slave" is an acceptable guess in Wordle, as is "cunts".

And I don't understand complaints about trackers; don't you know how to filter them out? I personally use Privacy Badger but there are many other choices.

> I just checked; "slave" is an acceptable guess in Wordle, as is "cunts".

Like I said in another comment:

> Up until today 'slave' (and 'agora', and 'wench' and etc.) was removed. It seems like starting today NYT has reinstated the previously-removed words. Interesting.

You can find plenty of news stories about it being removed in days before today, if you need a reference.

And knowing how to filter out trackers is not relevant to critiquing the practice of putting trackers in in the first place.

In the game? We lost AGORA, FIBRE, LYNCH, PUPAL, SLAVE and WENCH.

In our culture? We lost the spirit of prioritizing reasoned debate over “the narrative” and “the optics”. We lost the standards we had for challenging each other to grow and traded them in for incentives to solve problems with performative appeals or procedural machinations.

We lost a cultural icon? This is amazing. Or is the joke passing me by?

I think just speaks to the age we live in now; everything has to be relentlessly analyzed. When Wolfenstein came out in the early 90s, nobody cared that the villains were Nazis. When a reboot came out some years ago, suddenly there's a need for 'discourse' about historical accuracy, and whether the Nazis deserve to be killed in a fictional game, and why there side of the story isn't emphasized.

Wait, there was really a "won't somebody think about the Nazis" movement? I'm curious to read more if you have a link, especially if this was more than a fringe group.

I didn't, but I'm admittedly not the typical user. I right-clicked and saved the Wordle page some weeks ago and have enjoyed my ad-free and non-tracked Wordle with original word lists ever since.

It's unusual that it is made this simple, and that's exactly because Wordle was conceived as a whimsical playful thing with viral potential (the creator had viral hits before), not as a money-making machine.

I have nothing but thanks and high praise for Mr. Wardle.

I mean this sincerely as a fellow HN user and human - stop looking at everything through a culture war lens. I'm sure you'll think my post is ironic, because you see the world at war with you. But take three minutes and meditate on the fact that maybe it isn't all evil, that not every little social adjustment you observe is part of a coordinated downward spiral.

Let's say hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of people enjoy playing Wordle each day, and that they enjoy playing the "official" version for the sake of network effects.

Let's say you wrote this game for fun in a few days, and within a month, a newspaper (one of the better ones, IMO) offers you life-changing money for it.

You think it would be better somehow (morally? just to be "epic"?) that someone decline that money and tear the app to shreds so no-one can have a good time.

I don't see how that route is positive for anyone, except in the Joker-esque "watch the world burn" itch to rebel against the Man.

You say this with the sentiment assuming NYT did a hostile takeover. It was willfully sold by the creator after having amassed a following.

Yawn for who? I'm sure Josh's bank account is not yawning - what have you produced?

> yawn /yôn/ verb (of an opening or space) be very large and wide.

Are you sure about that? /s

Like Flappy bird?

Yes except wordle has been 10x / 20x more popular than flappy bird ever was

Perhaps among adults in the English speaking west. Flappy Bird got an enormous amount of attention, especially considering that it was made by a Vietnamese person (I think) and had very little marketing.

> That would've been an awesome statement.

Statement of what, exactly?

Not to mention the fact that NYT will eventually paywall it.

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