New York Times buys internet game phenomenon Wordle

The New York Times Company has agreed to buy Wordle, the daily word game that has become an overnight sensation, in the newspaper’s latest move to boost its products and achieve its goal of 10 million digital subscribers by 2025, Report informs referring to the Financial Times.

Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn software engineer who created Wordle as a gift to his girlfriend, sold the site to the Times for a price in the “low seven figures.”

The Times has in recent years built the world’s largest online subscriber base for news, helped by rising subscriptions to its cooking and games products. Its Games app, which includes a daily crossword, reached 1mn subscribers in December.

The acquisition followed the Times’ $550 million purchase of the Athletic, the lossmaking sports website, which has 1.2 million subscribers, this month. It was the paper’s biggest purchase in almost three decades as chief executive Meredith Kopit Levien races towards the company’s 10 million subscriber goal. At the end of the third quarter, the group reported 8.3 million subscribers.

Since launching in October, Wordle has soared in popularity, with “millions” of people playing daily, according to the Times.

The game is simple: each day there are six chances to guess a five-letter word. A new puzzle is refreshed every morning, and the website offers an easy way for players to share their results online via a colored grid.

Wordle is free and does not serve advertisements. The Times company said Wordle would be free to play “at the time it moves to the New York Times”.