New Delhi: Wordle, the guessing word game that has become an internet obsession, seems to be paying the price for not having an app of its own, as is evident by the onslaught of clones on Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Several apps resembling the game, which releases only one word every day on its site, could be seen this past week.
The guessing game was initially created by software engineer Josh Wardle for his puzzle enthusiast partner. Its popularity soon soared massively, from just 90 daily players in November to more than 2 million now, according to a report in The Guardian.
Wordle gives players six tries to correctly guess the five-letter word of the day.
While there is no app for Wordle, and the free game is housed in a web browser, several apps appeared to have sprung to cash in on its popularity. One could find clones such as ‘What Word – Wordle’, ‘Wordus’ and ‘Wordle 3D’.
They looked the same and even copied the mechanics of the original.
‘Wordle – The App’ users were also offered a free trial and a US$30 annual subscription for a premium version, The Guardian reported. Its developer, New York-based entrepreneur Zach Shakked, had initially posted on Twitter about monetising the game. It was later taken down. Shakked admitted he had “crossed a line” but said it was a generic word game, and that the name Wordle was not trademarked.
Shakked invited flak on the microbogging site for his attempt.
Some of the copycat apps have now disappeared from the App Store, The Verge reported. But one can still see some using the Wordle name, or names sounding like it.
In a BBC Radio interview earlier, Wardle had said: “I am a bit suspicious of mobile apps that demand your attention and send you push notifications to get more of your attention.”
He said there are no ads on the site, and he was “not doing anything with your data”, which he said was “quite deliberate”.
While social media was largely sympathetic to Wardle and slammed the copycats, some users also pointed out that Wordle too didn’t seem completely original as it drew inspiration from other similar puzzles. These include American TV show Lingo featuring a five-letter guessing game.