02/02/2022

How Wordle's Creator Feels About Selling His Viral Game

It's actually relief

A couple of hours after The New York Times announced on Monday that it had acquired the online word game known as Wordle, its inventor was still looking for the right word—this time, for his emotions.

“My biggest sense, actually, right now, isn’t joy," said Josh Wardle. "It’s relief,” Wardle, who was paid “in the low seven figures” for the daily puzzle, told me by phone. It was our second conversation in as many days.

In the front seat of a running car the the day before (we were to talk in a park, but it was 25° F), Wardle had betrayed no hint of any impending windfall. In fact, much of the conversation was about how his invention—a simple game that gives a player six chances to guess a five-letter word—demonstrated that the internet could be about something other than money.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.