The New York Times giveth, and the New York Times taketh away. Kinda. In less than a month, the humble word game Wordle went from a glowing Times profile ("Wordle Is a Love Story," Jan. 3) to the paper's gloating announcement that it had acquired the game it just made a star in a seven-figure deal ("The New York Times Buys Wordle," Jan. 31). And with that, I can stop playing.
If it's true that it takes 28 days to make a habit, the Times has — in addition to millions of dollars to offer our humble puzzle king Josh Wardle for his delightful creation — precision timing, considering its Jan. 3 story catapulted the three-month-old online no-frills puzzle with a cult following into cultural ubiquity, complete with knockoffs and a "Saturday Night Live" Trump/Fox News parody sketch, in the first place. It had 90 users in November, according to the Times, and now it has millions.
