Daily Archives: 2022-01-31

Article note: Geez. Good for the dude who hacked that thing out for funsies, especially since I can't think of a way to monetize it without ruining it.

Enlarge / The New York Times is buying Wordle. (credit: Wordle)

The New York Times announced today that its Games division would be purchasing Wordle—everyone's favorite five-letter-word guessing game and emoji-square generator—for a number in the "low-seven figures."

The sale caps a meteoric rise for the simple game. It rode word-of-mouth recommendations and glowing media coverage to prominence, was subject to multiple copycat apps that Apple removed from its App Store, and inevitably generated backlash from people who don't like it when other people have fun in public.

"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," the Times notes in its press release. Presumably after Wordle has moved, the Times will tweak its gameplay and impose a registration requirement or paywall as it sees fit. Many of the Times' games, including Sudoku, Spelling Bee, and the mini-version of its crossword, can also be played for free without signing in or registering. But a subscription is required to play the full version of the crossword puzzle and access the NYT's crossword puzzle archive.

Article note: Can... can we not have the entire entertainment industry be (abusive, but that's redundant) vertical monopolies?

Enlarge / Well, we didn't necessarily see this one coming. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Sony | Bungie)

After Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, talk turned to how Sony and its PlayStation division would deal with the fallout of the purchase. If the Xbox becomes the exclusive home of Call of Duty games, would Sony be left out of the megaton first-person shooter space? Would Sony fire back with a major acquisition of its own?

On Monday, Sony announced plans to acquire Bungie and its Destiny series of shooters in a deal reportedly valued at $3.6 billion (in an email to Ars Technica, a Sony rep declined to confirm that figure). Somehow, this pricey purchase includes a firm pledge from Bungie, despite its new corporate overlords: Bungie's "future games" will not be PlayStation exclusives.

Bungie had clearly prepared to announce this news to its active Destiny 2 user base, which plays on a variety of non-PlayStation platforms like Steam, Google Stadia, and (of course) Xbox. Its Destiny 2-specific FAQ confirms that the game's current content map is set until at least 2024, when a project dubbed "The Final Shape" launches. All planned content will continue to work cross-platform without any PlayStation "console exclusive" forks or DLC, the company said.