Wordle’s daily puzzle seemed to come into the spotlight out of nowhere.
Tiny colored squares popped up all over social media. And creator Josh Wardle got a hefty salary after selling the game to the New York Times. People were worried that the game would be littered with ads or paywalls. But for the most part, NYT seems to have left the game as it is. Unfortunately, it now also seems to target third-party sites that are neighbors of Wordle.
The aptly named Wordle Archive keeps track of old Wordle puzzles,
Keep them free if players ever miss a day or want to come back and play old puzzles (thanks, NME). On March 16, Wordle turned 270 days old, and people had a lot of guessable words to go back to. But this week, the NYT took the page down for unknown reasons.
Now trying to visit Web site will display the message: “Thank you for playing Wordle Archive, and for all your nice comments and feedback that helped make the site better. Unfortunately, the New York Times has requested that the Wordle Archive be removed.” It is the first Wordle-related third-party site to be shut down by The New York Times. Whether it will develop after the various Wordle spin-offs such as Heardle and Lewdle remains to be seen. Some players remain unhappy with the NYT owning the game and have gone so far as to already keep their remaining word library in the original Wordle in case the paper ever decides to pay for it.
