By Leshi Adebayo
It is often said that love makes people do the unthinkable. This is the story of a Welsh-born software engineer in Brooklyn, United States, Josh Wardle, who in a bid to strengthen his love for his partner, Palak Shah created an puzzle game for her.
Seeing that his lover was a stark lover of puzzle games, Wardle said he got inspired by the New York Times’ Spelling Bee and the daily crossword. “So I wanted to come up with a game that she would enjoy,” he said in an interview. In the process, he not only made their love stronger but also raked in millions.
It all began in 2021, at a time the United States was grappling the pandemic, when Wardle actualized his game idea, gave it a name, Wordle and introduced it to his girlfriend.
The lovebirds began playing for months. Afterwards, Wardle introduced the game to relatives who seem to enjoy it and later embraced Wordle. Motivated by the instant acceptance by his closed ones, it dawned on the game creator that this could be a big hit for him.
So he released it to rest of the world in October 2021, and by November 1, 2021, 90 people had played the game. According to The Guardian, over 300,000 players used Wordle from November 2021 to January 2022.
As of February 2022, the Wordle players increased to 2 million. Josh Wardle and his girlfriend were overwhelmed at the success of the game.
By the end of January 2022, New York Times announced its acquisition of the game. According to the media giant, the purchase of the game was due to the reflection of the growing importance of games such as crosswords and Spelling Bee which are in the company’s plan to increase digital subscriptions to 10 million by 2025.
On the NY Times website, the purchase price was not specific but it was stated that Wordle was acquired from its creator for a price “in the low seven figures.”
What is Wordle?
New York Times explained the game, Wordle as “once-a-day game, which invites players to guess a five-letter word in a similar manner as the guess-the-color game Mastermind. After guessing a five-letter word, the game tells you whether any of your letters are in the secret word and whether they are in the correct place. You have six tries to get it right.”
Unlike many game apps out there, Wordle has no ads, no flashing banners, no windows pop up asking for money or email sign up messages.
Although, the game is now worldwide, Palak Shah, Wardle’s girlfriend said she is only glad that her boyfriend created Wordle for her originally. In her words, “It’s really sweet. This is definitely how Josh shows his love.”
