I just finished Friday Wordle – which I recall is now owned by That New York Times for reasons you will soon understand – and when I did, I was surprised to see an addition to the results screen. Under the usual statistics, “next Wordle”Countdown, and the share button, which was something new: a small banner advertising another puzzle, the NEWS Spelling competition.
For fans who appreciate Wordles Simply put, the ad can come as a rude surprise. Part of the appeal of Wordle is the simplicity: you take your shot at today’s puzzle, decide if your journey is worth sharing on Twitter or not, then close the tab and move on.
And it was by design, as mentioned in NEWS profile of Wordle creator Josh Wardle:
But when Wordle was originally built for only Mr. Wardle and Ms. Shah, the original design ignored many of the growth-hacking features almost expected of games in the current era. While other games send messages to your phone in hopes of getting you back in the day, Wordle does not want an intense relationship.
“It’s something that encourages you to spend three minutes a day,” he said. “And that’s it. Like, it does not want more of your time than that.”
When NEW bought Wordle just a few weeks later, it promised that “by the time it moves to New York Times, Wordle will be free to play for new and existing players, and no changes will be made to its gameplay. “But that promise does not seem to reach the results screen, which has seen a change. NEW did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If you raise your pitchfork over Wordles Spelling competition ad, but you should know Wordle actually owes a lot to the spelling game with bi-theme. According to NEW profile, Wardle and his partner came in on Spelling competition in style in 2020, and the decision to limit Wordle players to a game a day “forced a sense of scarcity, which [Wardle] said was partly inspired by Spelling competition. “
So if you are a fan of Wordlewhen you are done with your daily game, you might want to give Spelling competition a shot – or just wait until tomorrow for a new one Wordle.