[sequoia]

There's not much network effect for wordle. If you make another one tomorrow I can just as easily play it there. To be honest buying his game was as much a courtesy from the times as anything, if they were unscrupulous and didn't fear brand hit, they could simply copy it.

[zamadatix]

They definitely bought it for the current userbase not the actual content, the NY Times article opens straight into how they are hoping to switch it to a subscription after the "initial" period.

Even if they only convert 2% of current players to 1 years worth of subscription that's 2 million of whatever "low millions" they put into it without having to grow their own userbase from scratch while competing with the original free one everyone is already using today.

[luplex]

It might be a defensive acquisition. They don't want free word games to be out there. They want a monopoly on word games.

[doopy1]

> There's not much network effect for wordle.

The game is viral because of the way people share their results on social media. This is a huge network effect.

[allturtles]

I don't think so. You could make a Wordle clone with exactly the same ability to share results, and there would be no reason to use the original Wordle over Wordle 2. This is not true of say, Facebook - the fact that all your friends are already on Facebook makes it more valuable than Facebook 2.

[doopy1]

It's like a magic trick, you can only do it once, the network effect is cultural.