Tell HN: 6 months after the NYT acquisition, Wordle has started showing ads | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: 6 months after the NYT acquisition, Wordle has started showing ads

13 pointsthrowaway081016 comments

Today I've seen an ad for the first time on the NYT Wordle.

It was moved to NYT on February 10th, so they have waited exactly 6 months. I wonder if that was a clause in the sale deal.

Many have predicted this back in February, but that isn't so impressive as the enshittification was basically guaranteed.

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It would be funner and more dystopian if they made the “word” a 5 letter brand name like SKODA and get sponsored that way

I completely forgot about Wordle until I saw this. Its a free-to-play game, advertising money is the only way to make anything on it, same as many other games like that. If you make it a paid game then usage likely drops off a cliff.

Its unfortunate that small fun games end up like this, I don't blame NYT, its just how consumers and micro-games* industry work. Does NYT do ad-free for their subscribers?

* micro-games: small, casual, free games - is there another word for them? I want to say puzzle games is really the genre these typically fall into.

I had the All Access digital subscription and I recall still seeing ads.

Your ad profile is worth more.

> advertising money is the only way to make anything on it

Only?

With remarketing and a decent conversion rate, using Wordle as the hook to get more NYT Games (or digital all-access) subscribers seems like an option.

In other words, an ad to NYT Games then. Ads need not only promote an external service.

No, not an ad to NYT games. Just an image or something that somebody can click on to go from Wordle to the Crossword sign-in/sign-up page.

That is literally an advertisement.

No, sorry. Not like a commercial on TV. This would just be something eye-catching that entices the person who sees it to take an action.

That's still an ad. A video is just a different format

At least it's just ads. Better than microtransactions (buy a letter for $0.99!) and battle passes (unlock new fonts and backgrounds!) or a VIP subscription (get TWO words a day!)

I've been seeing ads for a while, or at least I thought I had. Are you sure that you just started seeing ads today? (Specifically, I saw a giant "billboard" ad at the top of the screen.)

Here's a post I made 10 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32940320

Also, the NYT acquisition was in early 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/31/1077089945/nyt-wordle

I play daily and noticed this as well. I don't mind it at this point. I don't think I would pay for the subscription if they bundle it in, but I wouldn't blame them if they did. I think that would effectively make it a loss for them unless they use it to justify a price hike. Hopefully the ads model works for them.

I am actually quite intrigued with NYTimes's Games play. I tend to play mostly their games whenever I'm on mobile. And surprisingly, their India games subscription pricing is also not very prohibitive.

I'd say they are executing well.

Paywall in 3… 2…

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