[eric_b]

> At the time it moves to The New York Times, Wordle will be free to play for new and existing players, and no changes will be made to its gameplay.

"At the time" is the sticky bit.

[jordanpg]

NYT has maintained several free to play games for years now. This game is equally trivial with several of them, for example, Spelling Bee.

https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords

[DrBenCarson]

1. There are a number of open source clones

2. If they want to spend 2M to build in features or integrate with their crossword, why shouldn’t they make something back on it?

NYT making money isn’t scary. Imagine Microsoft getting its hands on this.

[marricks]

Who knows, NYTimes could use it to justify the next Iraq war /s

More seriously, the creator promised to never have ads in it[1] now it's going to be in a site that has ads. Whenever a product/company is sold the creator can no longer make any promises and prior promises are null and void.

NYTimes isn't some benevolent benefactor, WORDLE could have stayed in the realm of relatively untouched private enterprises that makes people's lives a little bit better (think Craigslist) and now I can look forward to a banner ad telling me I need to subscribe to NYTimes to save democracy a couple times a year.

There are free clones, but talking to friends and random distant co-workers about todays word was fun. That won't last.

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/gaming/wordle-will-s...

[ceejayoz]

But it doesn't need new features, or to integrate with their crossword.

It's like adding truffle shavings and gold flakes to a hot dog. It misses the reason people love the hot dog.

[defaultname]

Wordle is basically the 2022 Flappy Bird. It isn't particularly fun or challenging, but there's a weird social experience behind it. That fades fast, and I would say is already fading rapidly. If he got a lucrative exit strategy, good for him (though it makes all of the moralizing around clones pretty nonsensical).

[DrBenCarson]

more than Flappy Bird I'd say 2048 but yes 100% agreed

[outside1234]

I mean they bought it for 7 figures - so yes, it might be a subscription feature eventually?

Its not like they pulled an AWS and just ripped off an open source MIT licensed clone in their newspaper or something.

[paxys]

Note that they didn't mention advertising

[JeremyNT]

Surely a free alternative would quickly eclipse any paywalled NYT version in popularity. Part of what made this game so popular is that it's so accessible... no accounts, no ads, nothing.