Have we fallen out of love with Wordle?

Wordle creator Josh Wardle was named one of Time magazine's most influential people of 2022

A little over a year ago, Welsh software engineer Josh Wardle sold the word game he'd devised for his girlfriend to the New York Times (NYT), for a seven-figure sum. Wordle was a phenomenon that had emerged seemingly almost overnight.

Breakfast television hosts would boast on air of their first-guess success. Smug colleagues would insist that they'd never be defeated. Social media was abuzz with references to the game - some from the super-rich and super-famous - as Wordle mania swept the globe.

Was this just a craze like any other, doomed to fizzle out with the passing of time? Or do we still love Wordle as much as we always did?

The game is no longer ubiquitous on social media as it was at the peak of its popularity

For those somehow still unfamiliar with the rules of Wordle, the game gives a player six guesses to find one five-letter word once a day.

Green indicates a correct guess while a yellow tile means that letter is contained in a different space within the word. Players are able to share their daily score at the tap of a screen or button, an undoubted factor in the game's meteoric rise.

In October 2021, about 5,000 people visited Brooklyn-based Mr Wardle's site. When the alumnus of Royal Holloway, University of London sold up to the NYT on 31 January 2022, the monthly figure stood at 45m.

Wordle was by now spawning daily updates in chat groups (including one featuring Hollywood stars Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Bradley Cooper), fuelling the competitive instincts of families and friends and prompting stern warnings about the bad etiquette of giving spoilers.

It even helped to end a 17-hour hostage ordeal and became the most Googled word of 2022.

Head of games at the New York Times Jonathan Knight (longest streak: 48) says there's still a huge interest in Wordle although Google Trends data suggests it is now a third as popular as it was at its peak.

"I can't disclose specific numbers but tens of millions of people play every week," he says.

"We are still seeing a pretty high level of audience engagement and I would say we're pleased with it. It's obviously come down off of its viral craze as any viral game will, and games that go viral like that don't come along that often.

"They often sort of pop and drop - and this one definitely hasn't."

The man with a streak of nearly 400

Tom Young: "It's one of those things where I've become deeply uncool"

Tom Young's unbeaten streak of more than a year ended abruptly when he was interrupted by a request from a journalist to speak about said sequence.

The social media director, who failed to guess the answer SOUND on day 391, "always knew this day was coming".

"It was something of a relief; there were mixed emotions," he says. "It was a tough day at the Wordle office.

"It's one of those things where I've become deeply uncool. I don't think it's that cool to be playing it still. It's not quite as showy as it was."

Despite this, and even though his remarkable streak is over, the 40-year-old from Croydon in south London is still a Wordler.

"Like most people, it's a daily routine," he says. "I tend to do it first thing over a cup of coffee. That limitation is quite helpful. The tap gets turned off because you can only play one game a day."

As for what you can share in a WhatsApp group, there's an unwritten rulebook. "If you have a consistent starter word, definitely don't share that with your friends," he adds.

"There is less score-sharing now with fewer people playing but etiquette has always been, simply, share the score with no context or anything that might constitute a hint.

"For those first few months of peak Wordle, I had a group chat where no words were exchanged, just score after score."

One of the many occasions the game hit the headlines last year was when FETUS was the solution, two days after a Supreme Court judgment was leaked about the limiting of the constitutional right to legal abortion in the US.

"It's not meant to be the news, it's meant to be a diversion from the news," Mr Knight says of the "incredible coincidence".

"We [now] have an editor (Tracy Bennett) assigned to Wordle. Her job is to make sure that the solution for the day is up to standard and continues the fun of Wordle."

Games are experiencing a golden age, according to Michael French (longest streak: five or six), who is the director of the ongoing London Games Festival. "Gaming has a massive audience now, they are really having a moment," he says.

"Wordle is accessible because of its simplicity," Mr French adds. "The fact that people are able to share their success is what added an extra dimension.

"There's a gameplay loop within that: sharing it on social media made other people play Wordle, which kept it spinning and spinning."

Wordlers have up to six guesses

Fourteen months on from the NYT's acquisition of Wordle, some players remain keen enough on the game to supplement their daily fix with similar puzzles such as Quordle, Heardle and Worldle.

The newspaper, which says it has at least five years' worth of curated words in its digital store cupboard, is relaxed about copycat creations though.

"Imitation is the best form of flattery," points out Mr Knight.

"We've always been fine with [similar games] and think that they just help keep the game fresh and alive for people.

"There's one official Wordle and everyone always comes back to it, right?"

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