New York Times’ new WordleBot tool will sharpen your Wordle skills

By Jesse Lennox July 12, 2022

New York Times has introduced WorldeBot, a companion tool that will analyze your performance in Wordle.

Want to know why you played so well — or so badly — in Wordle 388? Meet WordleBot, your daily wordle companion that will tell you how efficient and lucky you were — and it could help improve your results. https://t.co/uI9c3c2RFn pic.twitter.com/sLd64zWfMV

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 12, 2022

Wordle became a phenomenon late last year as a simple yet addictive puzzle game in which players would attempt to guess a five-letter word based on clues dictated by colored squares. Green squares mean the letter guessed is the correct letter and in the correct space, yellow means that letter is in the word but not in that space, and grey means that letter doesn’t exist in the key word. Originally made by a single person, New York Times would go on to purchase the game and host it on their site.

WorldeBot claims to help players become better Wordle players by showing them statistics after completing a daily puzzle. It will give you scores from 0 to 99 based on luck and skill for each guess, and then give advice on how you could improve in future games. You can see WordleBot’s advice by taking your completed puzzle to the WorldeBot site where it will automatically run through your guesses and make suggestions.

Along with WordleBot, New York Times will also now allow players to link their Wordle stats to their accounts so they cannot be lost.

There was some concern that Wordle would lose its appeal after being purchased by the New York Times, especially since it spawned dozens of other imitators looking to capture the same audience, however, the game is still played by thousands every day. WordleBot could be a fun way to help people learn new strategies and words for their daily brain teaser.

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Gaming

The New York Times has already changed Wordle solutions

A person plays 'Wordle' on an iPhone.

The New York Times is interfering with the possible guesses and answers for Wordle. The new version of the popular word-based puzzle has deviated from the original, which means that some players might not get the same solutions to Wordle puzzles as everyone else anymore.
On January 31, Wordle was acquired by the Times to bolster the news publication's casual gaming offerings. While Wordle isn't gated behind a paywall like many feared just yet, the Times is making gameplay changes despite promising it wouldn't.
The Times' version of Wordle doesn't allow certain problematic words -- which BoingBoing details -- to be used as guesses or solutions anymore. That's understandable, but it has also removed some ordinary words like "fibre" and "pupal" just because they are obscure or too similar to other words.
Even worse, The Verge points out that this change means the Times' Wordle skipped over "agora," February 14's original word. This means that players who haven't refreshed their browser since starting to play the game will now see different solutions from everyone else.
The Times did officially comment on the matter, telling ABC News reporter Michael Slezak that "we are updating the word list over time to remove obscure words to keep the puzzle accessible to more people, as well as insensitive or offensive words."
https://twitter.com/MikeySlezak/status/1493344574260924420
While The New York Times does recommend that people just refresh their browsers to access the new list, a puzzle game that's only supposed to have one answer now having multiple is a big problem. It also compounds issues some players were already having with win streaks carrying over.
This whole debacle shows that even Wordle wasn't immune to acquisition woes, even if they weren't the paywall-related problems we originally expected. Avid Wordle players are best off refreshing their browser or redownloading the game for the smoothest experience, but this issue will likely explain any future confusion one might have if someone posts a Wordle with a different answer.

Gaming

Move over, Bungie: New York Times acquires Wordle

A person plays 'Wordle' on an iPhone.

Wordle, a popular word-based puzzle game that's dominated social media feeds in recent months, was acquired by The New York Times Company on January 31. It was the second significant gaming-related acquisition of the day, following Sony's $3.6 billion acquisition of Destiny developer Bungie.
The New York Times did not share the specific price of the acquisition, but did say in its announcement that it paid creator Josh Wardle an amount "in the low seven figures." That's a much smaller figure than Sony's acquisition, but Wordle likely reaches a lot more people than even Destiny 2 currently does.
Wordle is simple, engaging, and easy to share on social media.
While The New York Times is primarily a news publication, it has expanded into casual gaming in recent years. "The Times remains focused on becoming the essential subscription for every English-speaking person seeking to understand and engage with the world," its article on the deal said. "New York Times Games are a key part of that strategy."
Wardle claims New York Times Games played a part in the October 2021 creation of Wordle, adding that "this step feels very natural to me."
It sounds like The New York Times could eventually put Wordle behind a paywall. "The company said the game would initially remain free to new and existing players," The New York Times article notes, with "initially" being the keyword there. Thankfully, Wardle promises that Wordle will still be free and that wins and streaks will be preserved once the game transitions to The New York Times' website.
https://twitter.com/powerlanguish/status/1488263944309731329
The New York Times highlights how it wants to grow its digital subscriptions to 10 million by 2025. Locking Wordle behind that subscription would undoubtedly drive some people to subscribe, but The New York Times also risks Wordle losing relevancy and upsetting a happy player base if it does that.
That's not something we'll have to worry about for now, as Worlde is still available for free online.

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