Josh Wardle, creator of the extremely popular word game Wordle, has explained why he decided to sell his game to The New York Times back in January.
Wardle gave a talk at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco last week where he discussed the creation of the game for his girlfriend. As The Independent reports, during the talk Wardle explained the decision to sell ultimately came down to the pressure he felt to stop Wordle being exploited by others.
As with any popular game, it soon gets copied in a bid to make some quick cash. Wordle was no exception, with numerous clones appearing on app stores complete with ads or in-game purchases attached. Wardle was faced with responding, “and so selling to the New York Times was a way for me to walk away from that. I didn’t want to be paying a lawyer to issue cease and desists on the game that I’m not making money from,” he explained.
The situation made him feel “miserable,” and while he didn’t really care about others making money from his idea, he didn’t like how it made him feel. Wardle also admitted to The Independent that, “the business side of running a game doesn’t interest me at all.”
Wordle was sold for an undisclosed sum, and learning the reason behind the sale makes you realize it was probably for the best. The alternative was likely Wordle disappearing if Wardle had continued to feel miserable as long as it was available and kept getting copied. It sounds similar to the situation Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen faced in 2014, although rather than being sold, Nguyen removed the game from sale due to the guilt he felt over how addictive his creation had turned out to be.
